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Abstract: Suppose, as I stare at a glass in front of me, I say or think: There’s water in the glass. The thought has the content that there is water in the glass; and it will be true if there is indeed water in the glass. According to external-world skepticism, even if my thought is true, I do not know that there is water in the glass, because my way of telling that this is the case does not allow me to rule out the possibility that I am only under some illusion. But surely I can know that I am thinking that there is water in the glass! Yet according to external-content skepticism, that is not something that I know, since my way of telling what I am thinking does not allow me to rule out the possibility that I am only under an illusion about the content of my thought
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Abstract: Controversy continues to attach to the question whether an externalism about mental content is compatible with a traditional doctrine of privileged self-knowledge. By an externalism about mental content, I mean the view that what concepts our thoughts involve may depend not only on facts that are internal to us, but on facts about our environment. It is worth emphasizing, if only because it is still occasionally misperceived, that this thesis is supposed to apply at the level of sense and not merely at that of reference: what concepts we think in terms of -- and not just what they happen to pick out -- is said by the externalist to depend upon environmental facts. By a traditional doctrine of privileged self-knowledge, I mean the view that we are able to know, without the benefit of empirical investigation, what our thoughts are in our own case. Suppose I entertain a thought that I would express with the sentence `Water is wet'. According to the traditional doctrine, I can know without empirical investigation (a) that I am entertaining a thought; (b) that it has a particular conceptual content, and (c) that its content is that water is wet
Abstract: I want to discuss the possibility of combining a so-called ‘externalist’ theory of empirical content, on which the contents of a person’s beliefs are determined in part by the nature of his extra-bodily environmental embedding, with a plausible account of self- knowledge, in particular, of a person’s knowledge of the contents of his own beliefs. A difficulty for this combination is thought to be that it leads to the availability of a kind non-empirical, a priori knowledge about the mind-independent physical world which is intuitively intolerable.1 The inference which is held to create this difficulty can be put like this
Abstract: I want to discuss the possibility of combining a so-called ‘externalist’ theory of empirical content, on which the contents of a person’s beliefs are determined in part by the nature of his extra-bodily environment, with a plausible account of self-knowledge, in particular, of a person’s knowledge of the contents of his own beliefs. A difficulty for this combination is thought to be that it provides a wholly non-empirical source of knowledge about the mind-independent physical world which is intuitively intolerable.1 The inference which is held to create this difficulty can be put like this
Abstract: By exploiting a concept called ways of believing, I offer a plausible reformulation of the doctrine of privileged access. This reformulation will provide us with a defense of compatibilism, the view that content externalism and privileged access are compatible
Abstract: This paper addresses a problem about epistemic warrant. The problem is posed by philosophical arguments for externalism about the contents of thoughts, and similarly by philosophical arguments for architecturalism about thinking, when these arguments are put together with a thesis of first person authority. In each case, first personal knowledge about our thoughts plus the kind of knowledge that is provided by a philosophical argument seem, together, to open an unacceptably ‘non-empirical’ route to knowledge of empirical facts. Furthermore, this unwelcome prospect of transferring a ‘non-empirical’ warrant from premises about our own mental states and about philosophical theory to a conclusion about external environment or internal architecture seems to depend upon little more than the possibility of knowledge by inference. (The use of the scare-quoted term ‘non-empirical’ is explained a couple of paragraphs further on.)
Abstract: [I]f you could know a priori that you are in a given mental state, and your being in that state conceptually or logically implies the existence of external objects, then you could know a priori that the external world exists. Since you obviously _can’t_ know a priori that the external world exists, you also can’t know a priori that you are in the mental state in question.1
Abstract: Externalism about some mental property, M, is the thesis that whether a person (or other physical being) has M depends, not only on conditions inside the person’s skin, but also on the person’s environment and the way that the person is embedded in that environment. The dependence here is supposed to be conceptual rather than causal; it is the kind of dependence that can be revealed by philosophical theorising. This is an armchair methodology; so, if philosophical theorising yields knowledge, then it is a kind of _armchair knowledge_. Its status as knowledge does not depend on our conducting any detailed empirical investigation of the world around us. The puzzle for discussion in this paper arises when the possibility of armchair knowledge of an _externalist dependence_ _thesis_ about mental property M is put together with a thesis of first-person authority for that same mental property
Abstract: 1. McKinsey’s reductio argument: Externalism and self-knowledge In ‘Anti-individualism and privileged access’ (1991), Michael McKinsey asks us to consider the following three propositions, where ‘E’ says that some particular externalist condition for thinking that water is wet is met:2
(1) Oscar knows a priori that he is thinking that water is wet. (2) The proposition that Oscar is thinking that water is wet conceptually implies E.
(3) The proposition E cannot be known a priori, but only by empirical investigation
Abstract: A central question in contemporary epistemology concerns whether content externalism threatens a common doctrine about privileged access. If the contents of a subject’s thoughts are in part determined by environmental factors, it is argued, then the subject could not know the contents of these thoughts independently of empirical investigation. A related doctrine holds that a subject’s access to the phenomenal character of her experience is independent of empirical investigation. It is typically assumed that content externalism does not threaten this latter doctrine
Abstract: Given anti-individualism, a subjectmight have a priori (non-empirical)knowledge that she herself is thinking thatp, have complete and exhaustiveexplicational knowledge of all of the conceptscomposing the content that p, and yetstill need empirical information (e.g.regarding her embedding conditions and history)prior to being in a position to apply herexhaustive conceptual knowledge in aknowledgeable way to the thought that p. This result should be welcomed byanti-individualists: it squares with everythingthat compatibilist-minded anti-individualistshave said regarding e.g. the compatibility ofanti-individualism and basic self-knowledge;and more importantly it contains the crux of aresponse to McKinsey-style arguments againstanti-individualism
Abstract: Most explorations of the epistemic implications of Semantic Anti- Individualism (SAI) focus on issues of self-knowledge (first-person au- thority) and/or external-world skepticism. Less explored has been SAI’s implications forthe epistemology of reasoning. In this paperI argue that SAI has some nontrivial implications on this score. I bring these out by reflecting on a problem first raised by Boghossian (1992). Whereas Boghos- sian’s main interest was in establishing the incompatibility of SAI and “the a priority of logical abilities” (Boghossian 1992: 22), I argue that Boghossian’s argument is better interpreted as pointing to SAI’s implications for the na- ture of discursive justification
Abstract: In her recent book Anti-Individualism and Knowledge, Jessica Brown has presented a novel answer to the self-knowledge ‘achievement problem’ facing the proponent of anti-individualism. She argues that her answer is to be preferred to the traditional answer (based on Burge, 1988a). Here I present three objections to the claim that her proposed answer is to be preferred. The significance of these objections lies in what they tell us about the nature of the sort of knowledge that is in dispute. Perhaps the most important lesson I draw from this discussion is that, given the nature of knowledge of one's own thoughts, discriminability (from relevant alternatives) is not a condition on knowledge as such
Abstract: Burge 1986 presents an argument for anti-individualism about the proposi- tional attitudes. On the assumption that such attitudes are “individuated by ref- erence to intentional notions”, Burge presents a novel thought experiment in an attempt to show that “there are certain relations between an individual and the environment that are necessary to @the thinker’s# having certain inten- tional notions” ~Burge 1986 p. 709!. The novelty of the thought experiment was that, unlike Burge’s previous thought experiments, it did not appeal to..
Abstract: A typical strategy of those who seek to show that externalism is compatible with authoritative knowledge of content is to show that externalism does nothing to undermine the claim that all thinkers can at any time form correct and justified self-ascriptive judgements concerning their occurrent thoughts. In reaction, most incompat- ibilists have assumed the burden of denying that externalism is compatible with this claim about self-ascription. Here I suggest another way to attack the compatibilist strategy. I aim to show that forming a justified true self-ascriptive judgement about one’s occurrent thought does not amount to or imply that one ‘knows the content’ of the self-ascribed thought. While the difference between present-tense self-ascription and knowledge of content has previously been brought out using the familiar trappings of world-switching examples,1 here I attempt to establish the differ- ence by appeal to actual (real-life) memory-involving cases. To this end, I present a ‘recollection problem’ and argue that, so long as one conflates present-tense self-ascription and self-knowledge of content, there can be no satisfactory response to this problem. The result is that, even if the compatibilist strategy is correct in what it asserts about self-ascription, it has not delivered the relevant goods if it aims to establish a thesis asserting externalism’s compatibility with knowledge of content. I conclude by speculating how the recol- lection argument to be presented here can be transformed, from an argument against the compatibilist strategy, into an argument for incompatibilism
Abstract: is tendentious. (Throughout this paper I shall refer to this claim as ‘the central assumption.’) Since I will be hanging much on a somewhat non- standard take on the self-knowledge debate, I will review the debate with an eye towards motivating the central assumption; in the section that follows I reconstruct an argument whose point (I claim) is to challenge that assumption
Abstract: In this paper I argue, first, that the most influential (and perhaps only acceptable) account of the epistemology of self-knowledge, developed and defended at great length in Wright (1989b) and (1989c) (among other places), leaves unanswered a question about the psychology of self-knowledge; second, that without an answer to this question about the psychology of self-knowledge, the epistemic account cannot be considered acceptable; and third, that neither Wright's own answer, nor an interpretation-based answer (based on a proposal from Jacobsen (1997)), will suffice as an acceptable answer to the psychological question. My general ambition is thus to establish that more work is needed if we are to have a full account of self-knowledge in both its epistemological and psychological aspects. I conclude by suggesting how my thesis bears on those who aim to provide an empirical account of the cognition involved in self-knowledge
Abstract: The argument known as the 'McKinsey Recipe' tries to establish the incompatibility of semantic externalism (about natural kind concepts in particular) and _a priori _self- knowledge about thoughts and concepts by deriving from the conjunction of these theses an absurd conclusion, such as that we could know _a priori _that water exists. One reply to this argument is to distinguish two different readings of 'natural kind concept': (i) a concept which _in fact _denotes a natural kind, and (ii) a concept which _aims_ to denote a natural kind. Paul Boghossian has argued, using a _Dry Earth _scenario, that this response fails, claiming that the externalist cannot make sense of a concept aiming, but failing, to denote a natural kind. In this paper I argue that Boghossian's argument is flawed. Borrowing machinery from two-dimensional semantics, using the notion of 'considering a possible world as actual', I claim that we can give a determinate answer to Boghossian's question: which concept would 'water' express on Dry Earth?
Abstract: There has been much discussion recently of what has been labeled the “Brown-Boghossian-McKinsey”, “Brown-McKinsey” or sometimes just “McKinsey” arguments for the incompatibility of externalism and self-knowledge. However, while the three author’s arguments have been treated as interchangeable, they are not identical. In particular, Brown’s and Boghossian’s arguments have a fairly serious flaw that cannot so easily be attributed to McKinsey. In what follows, I’ll (1) present a version of the ‘received’ “Brown-Boghossian-McKinsey” argument, (2) outline what I take to be the most serious objection to it, (3) explain why this sort of objection does not seem, or do not seem immediately, to tell against McKinsey’s argument, and (4) suggest a number of alternative responses that might apply to McKinsey as well
Abstract: Dry earth seems to its inhabitants (our intrinsic duplicates) just as earth seems to us, that is, it seems to them as though there are rivers and lakes and a clear, odorless liquid flowing from their faucets. But, in fact, this is an illusion; there is no such liquid anywhere on the planet. I address two objections to externalism concerning the nature of the concept that is expressed by the word 'water' in the mouths of the inhabitants of dry earth. Gabriel Segal presents a dilemma for the externalist concerning the application conditions of the concept, and Paul Boghossian presents a dilemma for the externalist concerning the complexity of the concept. I show that, in both cases, the externalist may occupy the horn of his choice without departing from either the letter or spirit of externalism
Abstract: Externalism holds that the individuation of mental content depends on factors external to the subject. This doctrine appears to undermine both the claim that there is a priori self-knowledge, and the view that individuals have privileged access to their thoughts. Tyler Burges influential inclusion theory of self-knowledge purports to reconcile externalism with authoritative self-knowledge. I first consider Paul Boghossians claim that the inclusion theory is internally inconsistent. I reject one line of response tothis charge, but I endorse another. I next suggest, however, that the inclusion theory has little explanatory value
A. Pryor’s Version of McKinsey-style Reasoning 1. Given authoritative self-knowledge, I can usually tell the contents of my own thoughts just by introspection. So I can know the following claim on the basis of reflection alone:
McK-1: I am thinking a thought with the content _water puts out fires_
Abstract: Sub-Thesis 1: We should be contingent reliabilists to avoid the threat of an unacceptably strong content skeptical thesis posed by content externalism and the possibility of twin thoughts. The predominant strategy for resisting this threat has been to rely on the claim that introspective self-attributions are immune to brute error; but this claim is problematic from a naturalistic standpoint
Abstract: “I do claim to know that premise 2 is true and I claim to know this on the basis of my “armchair” a priori reflections on the standard a priori externalist thought experiments…for the purposes of my Antiskeptical Argument I need only for my knowledge of premise 2 to be knowledge that is independent of a perceptual investigation of my environment and this is what I claim it is. Because the thought experiments do provide overwhelming support for externalism I know that premise 2 is true. And…my appeal to it does not beg the question against the proponent of the Skpetical Argument.” [Warfield, “A Priori Knowledge of the World” in Skepticism: A Contemporary Reader (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) p. 80]
Abstract: Externalism in the philosophy of mind has been thought by many to pose a serious threat to the claim that subjects are in general authoritative with regard to certain of their own intentional states.1 In a series of papers, Tyler Burge (1985_a_, 1985_b_, 1988, 1996) has argued that the distinctive entitlement or right that subjects have to self- knowledge in certain cases is compatible with externalism, since that entitlement is environmentally neutral, neutral with respect to the issue of the individuation dependence of subjects' intentional states on factors beyond their bodies. His reason is that whereas externalism—the view that certain intentional states of persons are individuation-dependent on objects and/or phenomena external to their bodies—is a metaphysical thesis, authoritative self-knowledge is an epistemological matter. This being so, there is no reason to suppose that the two need conflict with one another
Abstract: In my 1991 paper “Anti-Individualism and Privileged Access” I argued that externalism, or anti-individualism, in the philosophy of mind is incompatible with the traditional Cartesian principle that we each have privileged access to our own thoughts and other mental acts and states.1 The argument has since received a gratifying amount of discussion, both pro and con. My aim here is to defend and clarify my argument in light of this discussion, and to clarify the overall conceptual situation regarding the logical relationships that hold be- tween various forms of externalism and privileged access
Abstract: This is an anthology of fifteen papers concerning various philosophical problems related to the topic of self-knowledge. All but one of the papers were previously unpublished, and all but two are descendants of presentations at a conference on self-knowledge held at the University of St Andrews in 1995. The collection’s papers fall naturally into four groups: (1) six papers on the nature of self-knowledge; (2) two on the relations between self-knowledge, agency and rationality; (3) five on the con- sistency of self-knowledge and externalism about cognitive content; and (4) two on first-person knowledge of meanings. I shall discuss the main themes and points at issue among the papers as they fall into these groups, but I shall not attempt to provide complete summaries or criticisms of all the papers’ contents
Abstract: In my 1991 paper, AAnti-Individualism and Privileged Access,@ I argued that externalism in the philosophy of mind is incompatible with the thesis that we have privileged , nonempirical access to the contents of our own thoughts.1 One of the most interesting responses to my argument has been that of Martin Davies (1998, 2000, and Chapter _ above) and Crispin Wright (2000 and Chapter _ above), who describe several types of cases to show that warrant for a premise does not always transmit to a known deductive consequence of that premise, and who contend that this fact under-mines my argument for incompatibilism. I will try to show here that the Davies/Wright point about transmission of warrant does not adversely affect my argument
Abstract: 1. The primary evidence and motivation for externalism in the philosophy of mind is provided by the semantic facts that support direct reference theories of names, indexi- cal pronouns, and natural kind terms. But many externalists have forgotten their sem- antic roots, or so I shall contend here. I have become convinced of this by a common reaction among externalists to the main argument of my 1991 paper AAnti-Individual- ism and Privileged Access.@ In that argument, I concluded that externalism is incompat- ible with the principle that we can have privileged, non-empirical knowledge of the contents of our own thoughts. The reaction in question amounts to a dismissive denial of one of my argument=s main premises. This premise, which I defended at length in the paper, is that an externalist thesis regarding a cognitive property should hold that possession of the property by a person _logically_, or _conceptually_, implies the existence of objects external to that person
Abstract: Paul Boghossian’s ‘Memory Argument’ allegedly shows, using the familiar slow-switching scenario, that externalism and authoritative self-knowledge are incompatible. The aim of this paper is to undermine the argument by examining two distinct externalist responses. I demonstrate that the Memory Argument equivocates on the notion of forgetting
