Externalism and SelfKnowledge

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Externalism and Self-Knowledge

• Advanced Topics in Mind and Knowledge Lecture 8

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The Prima Facie Problem

• Very plausibly, we each have privileged access to
  at least some of the contents of our own minds
  a (first-person) authority about our thoughts and
  feelings.
• According to the Twin Earth-style thought
  experiments, two psychologically identical people
  can have different thoughts.
• But if theyre psychologically identical, their
  thoughts must appear to them to be exactly the
  same.
• Therefore, neither of them really knows what he
  is thinking!

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Privileged Access

• That we have privileged access to our thoughts,
  and so privileged self-knowledge, seems too
  attractive to give up easily
• Phenomenologically, it seems to be a
  straightforward fact.
• To deny it smacks of an excessively radical
  behaviourism (Behaviourist pillow talk That was
  good for you how was it for me?)

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Denying Externalism?

• On the other hand, for many philosophers
  externalist thought experiments articulate a very
  powerful intuition (even without supporting
  arguments).
• One option we should deny externalist intuitions
  and arguments (incompatibilism).
• Another option accept externalism and
  self-knowledge, and deny the prima facie problem
  (compatibilism).

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• In this part of the course well be looking at
  arguments in favour of both compatibilism and
  incompatibilism, in the process refining our
  formulation of the prima facie problem.
• In the rest of todays lecture well look at
  compatibilist responses given by Putnam, Davidson
  and Burge, as well as some problems for their
  accounts.

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Putnam on Externalism and Self-Knowledge

• One way to respond, advocated at one time by
  Putnam, is to admit that we cannot have
  privileged access to states with broad content
  but nevertheless we can have privileged access to
  states with narrow content.
• Thus, a two-factor version of externalism is
  compatible with self-knowledge.
• Drawbacks restricts us to a particular
  two-factor account of content. Arguably a retreat
  from full-blooded externalism.

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Davidson on Externalism and Self-Knowledge

• Traditional Cartesian viewpoint incorporates (i)
  semantic internalism, and (ii) self-knowledge as
  having an object before the mind (Davidson
  1987, 1991).
• Putnam rejects (i), but accepts (ii), so loses
  privileged access to states with broad content.
• Davidsons alternative is to deny (ii). He claims
  that we have direct, non-inferential knowledge of
  our own thoughts.
• In fact, in order to interpret other people we
  have to assume they have privileged access to
  their own thoughts (1987, 1991)!

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Problems for Davidson

• Not too serious the positive aspect of his
  solution involves accepting his theory of
  radical interpretation, with its commitments to
  semantic indeterminacy and holism.
• More serious grants direct access to thoughts,
  but not to what makes them the thoughts they are.
  Perhaps on Davidsons theory we shouldnt even be
  able to tell the difference between thinking and
  indigestion (McKinsey 1992).

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Burge on Externalism and Self-Knowledge I

• Burge (1988) In perception, we dont need to
  know about enabling conditions we dont need
  to know about, say, physiology to be able to feel
  pain.
• Likewise with self-knowledge. In fact, its even
  less plausible as there is no epistemic gap
  between a thoughts subject and object (they are
  the same person).

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Burge on Externalism and Self-Knowledge II

• Basic self-knowledge such as the cogito
  involves thinking a thought, and thinking of it
  as ones own. Such thoughts are self-verifying,
  meaning they cannot be mistaken!
• So I cannot be wrong that I am thinking that e.g.
  water is a liquid, and what the content water is
  a liquid is fixed by makes no difference to
  this.

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Problems for Burge

• Not too serious only applies to basic
  self-knowledge
• But it shows the prima facie problem is in
  principle avoidable.
• More serious Burge is effectively saying that
  externalism is a metaphysical thesis, and
  self-knowledge is an epistemological issue, so
  theres no conflict (McKinsey 1992). But this
  cant be right, because then on standard Kripkean
  semantics thoughts entail all necessary existents!

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Next week Incompatibilism

• The early compatibilist responses weve
  considered here have proved far from conclusive.
• Next week well consider incompatibilist reponses
  themed around the McKinsey-Brown argument,
  which refines the prima facie argument by
  formulating it in terms of a priori knowledge.