Speaking My Mind Expression and Self-Knowledge

by Bar-On, Dorit

• ISBN13: 9780199263202
• ISBN10: 0199263205
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-01-27
• Publisher: Clarendon Press

Summary

We are all very good at telling what states of mind we are in at a given moment. When it comes to our own present states of mind, what we say goes; an avowal such as "I'm feeling so anxious" or "I'm thinking about my next trip to Paris," it is typically supposed, tells it like it is. But why is that? Why should what I say about my present mental states carry so much more weight than what others say about them? Why should avowals be more immune to criticism and correction than other claims we make? And if avowals are not based on any evidence or observation, how could they possibly express our knowledge of our own present mental states? Dorit Bar-On develops and defends a novel view of avowals and self-knowledge. Drawing on resources from the philosophy of language, the theory of action, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind, she offers original and systematic answers to many long-standing questions concerning our ability to know our own minds. Bar-On proposes a Neo-Expressivist view according to which avowals are expressive acts that have truth-accessible self-ascriptions as their products. When avowing, a person directly expresses, rather than merely reports, the very mental condition that the avowal ascribes. She argues that this expressivist idea, coupled with an adequate characterization of expression and a proper separation of the semantics of avowals from their pragmatics and epistemology, explains the special status we assign to avowals. As against many expressivists and their critics, she maintains that such an expressivist explanation is consistent with a non-deflationary view of self-knowledge and a robust realism about mental states. The view that emerges preserves many insights of the most prominent contributors to the subject, while offering a new perspective on our special relationship to our own minds.

Author Biography

Dorit Bar-On is Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Special Security of Some ``I'' Talk	1	(26)
The Distinctive Security of Avowals	2	(4)
Avowals: Semantic Continuity and Epistemic Asymmetry	6	(5)
The Distinctive Security of Avowals and Privileged Self-Knowledge	11	(4)
Avowals' Security and Self-Knowledge: Some Conditions of Adequacy	15	(6)
The Plan of this Book	21	(3)
Some Terminological Preliminaries	24	(3)
Using ``I'' `as Subject': Cartesian Reference or No Reference?	27	(28)
The Use of ``I'' `as Object' versus `as Subject'	27	(2)
Cartesian Egos as the Targets of Reference for ``I''	29	(8)
The Wittgensteinian Rejection of Private Sensations	37	(9)
Getting Rid of Cartesian Egos: The `No Reference' Thesis	46	(9)
``I''-Ascriptions: The Semantic and the Epistemic	55	(38)
Immunity to Error through Misidentification	56	(4)
Reference Without Identification: Demonstratives	60	(7)
Reference Without Identification: ``I''	67	(4)
The Guaranteed Referential Success of ``I''	71	(6)
How ``I'' Refers---An Indexical Account	77	(5)
``I''-Ascriptions: The Semantic and the Epistemic	82	(7)
Avowals as Immune to Error through Misidentification	89	(4)
The Epistemic Approach to Avowals' Security: Introspection and Transparency	93	(54)
Security through Introspection?	95	(9)
Avowals' Security as Due to `Transparency-to-the-World'	104	(7)
Evans's Transparency View as an Epistemic View	111	(11)
Against the Epistemic Approach in General	122	(6)
Transparency-to-the-World and the `First-Person Perspective'	128	(3)
The Limits of Transparency	131	(16)
Content Externalism, Skepticism, and the Recognitional Conception of Self-Knowledge	147	(41)
External-Content Skepticism Meets External-World Skepticism	149	(8)
Is Externalism Compatible with Self-Knowledge?	157	(12)
Content Self-Knowledge and the Recognitional Conception	169	(4)
A Non-Epistemic Alternative to the Recognitional Conception: Davidson's Line	173	(6)
The Recognitional Conception of Ordinary Self-Knowledge	179	(9)
The Distinctive Security of Avowals: Ascriptive Immunity to Error	188	(38)
Beyond Security in Content Assignment	189	(3)
Ascriptive Security as a Species of Immunity to Error	192	(8)
Ascriptive Immunity to Error: Epistemic Asymmetry and Semantic Continuity	200	(7)
The Security of Self-Verifying ``I''-Ascriptions: Referring to Content by Articulating It	207	(5)
Articulating Content as a Way of Expressing One's Intentional State	212	(9)
Ascriptive Immunity to Error and the Expressive Character of Avowals	221	(5)
Avowals: `Grammar' and Expression	226	(59)
Avowals as Expressive Acts, Take I: The Simple Expressivist Account	228	(5)
The Simple Expressivist Account versus Ethical Expressivism	233	(7)
Avowals as Expressive Acts, Take II: A Neo-Expressivist Account	240	(11)
Avowals as Acts and as Products	251	(13)
Natural Expressions as `Transparent-to-the-Subject's-Condition'	264	(21)
Avowals: Expression, Content, and Truth	285	(55)
The Beginnings of Mental Talk: From Natural Expressions to Avowals	286	(6)
Beyond Beginnings: Linguistic Expressions	292	(12)
Avowals as Expressive of Judgments	304	(6)
The Asymmetric Presumption of Truth and	310	(10)
Transparency-to-the-Subject's-Condition Expressive Failures	320	(16)
Ascriptive Immunity, the Presumption of Truth, and First-Person Privilege	336	(4)
Speaking My Mind: Expression, Truth, and Self-Knowledge	340	(57)
Secure Avowals and Self-Knowledge	341	(5)
Self-Knowledge: A Deflationary View	346	(4)
No Cognitive Achievement	350	(5)
Knowing What Mental State You Are In	355	(6)
Expression, Self-Knowledge, and the JTB Model	361	(8)
The Low Road to Self-Knowledge	369	(4)
The High Road to Self-Knowledge	373	(8)
A Middle Road to Self-Knowledge	381	(7)
Avowable Self-Knowledge: A Synthesis	388	(9)
Speaking My Mind: Grammar, Epistemology, and (Some) Ontology	397	(32)
Neo-Expressivism Meets the Desiderata	398	(12)
Speaking My Mind: Expression and Reality	410	(16)
Some Concluding Remarks	426	(3)
Bibliography	429	(10)
Index	439