I argued in Part II that creatures that have the means of evaluating the qualitative relevance of environmental particulars unfailingly characterise the world in two important respects (to a degree that depends on the level of sophistication of their neural system). Firstly, to some extent, the world is characterised as consisting of objects of varying importance that have a spatial relation to one another and to the individual. In other words, the world is characterised three-dimensionally, with the individual situated centrally within that particular landscape. Second, these objects are characterised as having consistency over time but undergoing change nonetheless: the world is characterised temporally. Consequently, from the perspective of the individual creature itself, the existential experience is of a spatiotemporal world, delineated qualitatively; the creature’s perspective, in essence, is individuated and in some sense subjective. One implication of this spatiotemporal and qualitative prism which defines the constraints through which the world is viewed is that such creatures develop a relation to the world that is rule-bound. What I mean by this is that these creatures relate to the constancy of objects in space, to their motion over time and to the qualitative nature of experiencing them as indubitable facts. Nevertheless, as the quotation from Kant above suggests, these rules are not recognised by the individual as rules about their existing reality. Such creatures have no reason to think “there are rules” about the phenomenon of experience and its spatiotemporal characterisation—living the phenomenon through experiential discourse is the extent of their embedded understanding of the world.

Now, it goes without saying that cognitive sophistication varies significantly across the animal kingdom, from invertebrates to humans. And behavioural observation suggests that greater cognitive sophistication probably bears a correspondence with more complex understandings concerning the rule-bound constraints of the objective world and how this world relates to the individual. I propose that a unique level of cognitive capability began to emerge, possibly in early hominid individuals, that led to the abstraction of principles about the rules concerning spatial, temporal and qualitative relations: if rules of association exist, then so must more general principles about those rules exist. To some extent, the use of the mirror mark test is an attempt to qualify the nature of this kind of intellectual sophistication. It is worth noting, however, that on Mitchell’s (2015) account visual-visual matching (present in most mammals and birds) and understanding of mirror correspondence are transitional capabilities necessary for kinaesthetic-visual matching, which, in turn, is necessary for passing the mirror mark test and thereby demonstrating mirror self-recognition. These transitional capabilities indicate that the processes involved in the abstraction of principles about the rules concerning spatiotemporal and qualitative relations are complex and not yet fully elucidated. Nevertheless, what I am proposing is that, for any given individual human, the acquisition of general principles begins to formalise these rules as consistent with the concept of an existent objective reality. For early hominid individuals, acquiring principles about reality supplemented the mere individuated phenomenon of an experienced and lived reality. The acquisition and development of these principles about the world, which are particular to each individual, constituted interpretations of a proto-conceptual rather than of a mere phenomenal nature. Such conceptualisation are not determined by some apparatus of reasoning, nor does it align with an abstract concept or certainty (cf. Cassirer 1985, Theory of the Concept, pp. 162–190), but is instead a network of inferences that fixate its creator to its world in a manner that bears sufficient coherence with its observations. The importance of this development is that the individual is inclined to engage in an enterprise of thoughtful consideration that moderates and reformulates a conceptual interpretation of the rule-bound objective world. This evinces a novel kind of introspective discourse about the nature of the world’s existence in principle, and with it a unique ontological status (cf. Peacocke 1992; Neander 2012, section 4.3 on concepts and their nature). Again we can look to Kant for insights here.

The original and necessary consciousness of the identity of oneself is at the same time a consciousness of an equally necessary unity of the synthesis of all phenomena according to concepts, that is, according to rules, which render them not only necessarily reproducible, but assign also to their intuition an object, that is, a concept of something in which they are necessarily united. The mind could never conceive the identity of itself in the manifoldness of its representations, and indeed think this identity a priori, if it did not clearly perceive the identity of its action whereby it subordinates all synthesis of apprehension (which is empirical) to a transcendental unity, thereby rendering possible their interconnection according to a priori rules. (Kant 1922, p. 89 & 1929, pp. 136–137: Of the Synthesis of Recognition in Concepts):

How might we understand this transcendental unity as a novel ontology? When an individual begins to acquire the germinal notion of interrelated principles, or proto-concepts, an inescapable circularity emerges: if the formulation of proto-concepts inclines their thinker to conceive that there is a world that exists as a rule-bound factual and objective certainty, then that thinker unavoidably develops concepts concerning their own existential identity, “for how else,” the more introspective individual conceives, “can such conceptions exist without me existing to have those conceptions in the first place?” It is worth nothing, however, that this circularity is not articulated with a inner voice or language of thought but is, initially at least, merely a dawning realization.Footnote 6 This emerging realisation entices a sense of revelation, for it evinces introspections that compel the individual to identify its own particular subjective self embedded in a phenomenon of qualitative experiences and existing as a bodily entity of exception within an objective spatiotemporal world (cf. Merleau-Ponty’s 1968 extensive introspections). The interacting existential concept states that it exists—“it” being the unique experiencing subject, or Dasein (Heidegger 1962)—in a world thus conceived in accordance with the principles that are necessarily grounded in the rules of an objective spatiotemporal reality. In other words, the objective principles of a physically interacting world (characterised phenomenally) come to encapsulate the rules that qualify the individual’s particular subjective self-identity. This unique self-realisation determines a novel ontological status, having never previously existed: its status identifies its self as a conscious experiencing subject embedded in an objective, qualitative spatiotemporal world.

Even the contents of perception and pure intuition themselves cannot be thought as determinate contents without a characteristic form of determination—without a viewpoint, under which they are placed and in regard to which they are looked upon as belonging to one another. But the regard of perception or intuition rests on the elements which are compared or in some way correlated, not on the manner, the mode, of the correlation ... It first effects that reversal by which the I turns from the object apprehended in vision, toward the manner of the seeing, the character of the vision itself. Only where this specific mode of reflection is practiced do we stand in the true realm of thought, and in its center and focus. (Cassirer 1985, p. 288)

As noted in the introduction, Nagel (1998 and 1986, noting chapter 4) presents engaging insights in this area. He explores the conundrum of how a particular person perceives an objective world from within their world-view and thereby how it might be possible to arrive at an explanation of that subjective viewpoint objectively. He argues that this “is a problem that faces every creature with the impulse and the capacity to transcend its particular point of view and to conceive of the world as a whole” (1986, p. 3). He emphasises that explaining the subjective viewpoint objectively requires the development of a conception of a subjective point of view which is not privileged or individual-specific. In other words, he argues that we need to develop subjective universals or “a view from nowhere” (see Harré 1999 who provides analysis and an alternative response to Nagel’s challenge). The thesis outlined in this paper arguably provides the requisite narrative that illustrates why individuated subjective world-views emerge from an objective but qualitatively experienced world. At any given time, it is experience and an appeal to the rationality of consistency that substantiate an individual’s reasons for believing that its concepts are justified—although the aforementioned circularity famously heightens the mystery of our own particular subjective identity and why it happens to exist in the first place. Inevitably, when communicating, an individual human will not merely express the unmoderated feelings that reflect the immediate impact of experience, as other animals do, but will additionally be compelled to communicate in a manner that articulates conceptual revelations about those experiences and all that those interpretations might imply. In this endeavour, human thought and communication are engaged in a unique kind of introspective discourse where the validity of concepts about the world is considered, expressed and refined, and where ideological stances are subsequently founded and defended within community and cultural settings.