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In this original and challenging study, Andre Gallois proposes and defends a new thesis about the character of our knowledge of our own intentional states. Taking up issues at the centre of attention in contemporary analytic philosophy of mind and epistemology, he examines accounts of self-knowledge by such philosophers as Donald Davidson, Tyler Burge and Crispin Wright, and advances his own view that, without relying on observation, we are able to justifiably self-attribute consciously held propositional attitudes such as belief. His study will be of wide interest to philosophers concerned with questions about self-knowledge.
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CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY
The world without, the mind within
Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2010
CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY General editor E R N E S T SOSA Advisory editors JON AT HAN DANCY
University of Keele
GILBERT H A R M A N
Princeton University
F R A N K J A C K S O N Australian National University W I L L I A M G. LYCAN University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill SYDNEY SHOEMAKER
J U D I T H J.THOMSON
Cornell University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
RECENT TITLES
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The world without, the mind within An essay onfirst-personauthority
Andre Gallois Reader, Department of Philosophy University of Queensland
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 10 Stamford Road, Melbourne 3166, Australia © Cambridge University Press 1996 First published 1996 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data
Gallois, Andre. The world without, the mind within : an essay on first-person authority / Andre Gallois. p. cm. - (Cambridge studies in philosophy) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0 521 56093 4 (hardback) 1. Self-knowledge, Theory of. 2. Analysis (Philosophy) 3. Philosophy of mind. I. Title. II. Series. BD450.G266 1997 128'.2-dc20 96-13884 CIP ISBN 0 521 56093 4 hardback Transferred to digital printing 2004
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For Christie, Julia and Esther
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Contents Preface
page xi
Introduction PART I
FIRST-PERSON AUTHORITY
1 2
The problem Scepticism about first-person authority THE BASIC AND EXTENDED ACCOUNTS
PART II
3 A preliminary account 4 Defending the basic account 5 Extending the basic account 6 Objections 7 The problem of scope PART III
8 9 10 11
SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND CONTENT EXTERNALISM
Arguments from content externalism Deflationary self-knowledge: Davidson and Burge Externalism and first-person authority Psychological properties as secondary
Bibliography Index
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1 13 15 31 43 45 64 84 103 127 153 155 161 178 192 206 209
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Preface When someone consciously believes, wants or intends something it seems she is in a position to acquire knowledge of her belief, want or intention that differs in kind from the knowledge she has of things without her mind, including the beliefs, desires or intentions of others. You need to rely on observation to tell what I consciously believe, desire or intend. I do not. Following Elizabeth Anscombe, we may say that my knowledge of my conscious beliefs, desires or intentions is non-observational. Beliefs, desires and intentions are states with propositional content. Such states are commonly referred to as propositional attitudes. Generalizing, the claim that provides the focus of this book is that we can have non-observational knowledge of our consciously held propositional attitudes. Can we have non-observational knowledge of our propositional attitudes? If we can, how are we in a position to acquire such knowledge? These are the questions I attempt to answer here. Of course, giving an affirmative answer to the first implies that there is something special about the knowledge we can have of, at least, many of our psychological states. A number of philosophers, anxious to avoid what they see as a discredited Cartesian view of the mind, deny that there is any fundamental asymmetry between the self-knowledge that is the topic of this book and other varieties of knowledge. I will not attempt to defend a Cartesian view of the mind. Instead, I will argue for the following. Having the capacity to form a rational picture of a mind-independent world depends, in a sense to be explicated, on having the capacity to non-observationally self attribute consciously held propositional attitudes. It is this link between the capacities in question that explains the asymmetry between our knowledge of the mind within and the world without. Many more individuals than I can hope to acknowledge here have helped me to think about the issues dealt with in this book. Nevertheless, I would like to particularly thank Graham Priest, Ian Hinkfuss, Gary Malinas, John O'Leary-Hawthorne, Crispin Wright, Graham Oppey,
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Karen Neander, Frank Jackson, Phillip Pettit, Daniel Nolan, James Chase, Peter Menzies, Peter Forrest, Fred D'Agostino, Anthony Brueckner, Richard Holton, Calvin Normore, Damien Cox, Drew Klentzos and Kent Bach. I would like to thank Grace Dunn whose efficiency, good humour and patience made the completion of this work much easier. I would also like to thank Geraldene Suter for her excellent work compiling the index. Finally, I would like to make two special acknowledgments. The first is to my first and best teacher of philosophy Timothy Sprigge. When I was an undergraduate, I was extremely fortunate to encounter someone like Timothy who combines great philosophical talents with uncompromising honesty. I was also extremely fortunate in later years to encounter Robert Dunn. I have benefited more than I can say from conversations with Robert whose subtlety and quickness of mind, penetration, and capacity to unravel the most complex philosophical problems have made this a much better book than it would otherwise have been.
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Introduction There is, it seems, a striking asymmetry between our putative knowledge of what passes through our own minds, and our knowledge of what passes through the minds of others. In order to find out what someone else believes, fears, intends, hopes, wants or feels I need to consult that person's behaviour. I need to rely on such evidence to discover what is going through someone else's mind. Apparently, I do not need to rely on the same type of evidence to discover what is going through my own. At any rate, I do not need to rely on the same type of evidence to detect my own conscious psychological states. A number of philosophers have discussed the putative asymmetry between the epistemic access we can have to our own psychological states and the epistemic access that others can have to them. Some of them have said that we enjoy first-person authority over our own psychological states. Here is how I propose to use the expression 'first-person authority'.1 An individual I has first-person authority over psychological states of a certain type if and only if the following is a necessary truth. I can know that she is in a state of that type in an epistemically significant way in which no one else can know that I is in a state of the same type.2 1
2
Why 'first-person authority' rather than the more popular 'privileged access'? As will emerge in chapter one, it is important to distinguish between first-person authority and privileged access. I am offering this as a, I hope, sufficiently clear indication of how I will use the expression 'first-person authority' rather than as a rigorous definition of that expression. Nevertheless, a number of questions about it need to be answered. First, why have I included the qualification 'epistemically significant' in my characterization of first-person authority? I have done so for this reason. Without it, the claim that we have first-person authority over some of our psychological states would not be a substantive one. Consider the following type of state I am occasionally in: a psychological state only I know I am in. Certainly, I can know that I am in that type of psychological state in a way that no one else can. After all, nobody but me can know at all that I am in a state that fits the description: psychological state that only I know that I am in. However, my being able to know that I am in this type of psychological state in a way that no one else can has no epistemic significance.
1
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Introduction
First-person authority, so understood, has played a highly significant role in the philosophy of mind. Some have taken it to be, in Rorty's phrase, a mark of the mental.3 On this view psychological states are just those over which we have first-person authority Such a view is associated with Descartes. More generally, it is taken to be a central tenet of the Cartesian tradition in the philosophy of mind. Cartesianism has had a bad press in recent years. As a result, first-person authority has suffered from guilt by association. In addition, it seems implausible to hold that first-person authority is a mark of the mental in the light of the probable existence of non-conscious psychological states. Considered as a mark of a conscious psychological state, first-person authority has come under attack from, at least, two directions. First, the results of some psychological experiments have been said to bode ill for first-person authority. First-person authority has also been threatened from another quarter. A number of psychological states have representational content. Desires and beliefs represent in a way that tickles, itches and twinges do not. One much discussed thesis about the content of some psychological states goes under the heading of anti-individualism or content externalism. According to content externalism, the content of a significant range of psychological states does not supervene on the intrinsic features of their bearers. Two individuals may be intrinsically indiscernible at a given time, but be in psychological states with different contents.4 Several arguments have been given to substantiate a conflict between first-person authority and content externalism. All, with varying degrees of subtlety, attempt to support the following line of thought. No one has first-person authority over the disposition of the external world. Suppose, the content of a significant number of psychological states depends on how the external world is disposed. The identity of a psychological state depends on its content. Hence, we lack first-person authority over a significant number of psychological states. In this work I propose to defend the claim that each one of us has firstperson authority over their consciously held propositional attitudes. Each one of us has first-person authority over his or her consciously held beliefs,
4
Another question that needs answering in this. What is the import of 'can' in my characterization of first-person authority? I intend 'can' to signify having an ability in the 3 ordinary sense of'ability'. See Rorty 1970. Hilary Putnam's Twin Earth thought experiment is probably the most famous illustration of content externalism. For a description of that thought experiment see Putnam 1975.
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Introduction
desires, intentions, wishes, hopes, fears and the like.5 My defence of this claim goes together with an articulation and defense of an account of firstperson authority. In this context an adequate account of first-person authority explains why we have first-person authority over our conscious psychological states. In particular, it explains why we have first-person authority over consciously held propositional attitudes. I defend an account that focuses on a particular variety of first-person authority. When it comes to self attributing a consciously held propositional attitude, I do not need to rely on the type of evidence I need to rely on in attributing that attitude to another. We may go further. I do not, it seems, need to rely on evidence at all to tell what I consciously want, believe or intend. I am asked whether I believe that Jupiter is a satellite of Earth. Without reviewing anything that could be described as evidence for my holding that belief, I unhesitatingly reply that I do not. I am asked whether I intend to go out to dinner tonight. Again, without reviewing any evidence bearing on my having that intention, I unhesitatingly respond that I do. Moreover, in so responding I am revealing what I know about my conscious belief and intention. Making use of terminology coined by Elizabeth Anscombe, my knowledge of what I consciously believe, want, intend, fear, hope for and so on is non-observational.6 I have non-observational knowledge of my conscious propositional attitudes. Several other varieties of first-person authority have been discussed in the literature. Philosophers attempting to characterize first-person authority have tended to employ the following recipe. A belief may suffer from any one of a number of epistemic inadequacies. Identify such an epistemic defect, and maintain that first-person authority consists in holding a belief free of it. Very many of our beliefs could be mistaken. I have no doubt that I was born in 1945. Nevertheless, it is, at least metaphysically, possible for me to believe that I was born in 1945 when I was not. According to one characterization of first-person authority, I have first-person authority over being in a state of a certain type just in case it is impossible for me to 5
6
Some, for example John Heil in Heil 1992, maintain that we have first-person authority over the content, but not over the type or existence of our propositional attitudes. On this view, if I believe that grass is green, I have first-person authority over my state, if I am in it, having the content that grass is green rather than, say, the content that roses are red. I have no first-person authority over being in any psychological state with the former content, or being in a state which is belief rather than some other type. As will become clear, I am prepared to endorse the more ambitious claim that we have first-person authority over the content, type and existence of our consciously held propositional attitudes. Anscombe uses this terminology in Anscombe 1957.
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Introduction
falsely believe I am in a state of that type. For example, I have first-person authority over my beliefs just in case it is impossible for me to lack a belief which I believe I have. Another epistemic defect beliefs are susceptible to is this. The majority of beliefs are vulnerable to being overturned by counterevidence. I have an exceedingly well-entrenched belief that someone has visited the moon. Nevertheless, I can envisage coming into possession of evidence that would lead me to abandon that belief. I can envisage coming into possession of evidence that would make it rational for me to believe that the news of the 1968 moon landing was a hoax. According to a different characterization of first-person authority, we have first-person authority over psychological states of a certain type just in case there could be no counterevidence to a belief that one is in a state of that type. In chapter one, after some preliminary spadework, I will discuss these and other attempts to characterize first-person authority. I will argue that none succeed. In the end, we only enjoy the kind of first-person authority over our consciously held propositional attitudes mentioned earlier. We enjoy first-person authority over our propositional attitudes only insofar as we can have one type of non-observational knowledge of them. We can, in a sense to be explained later, have a priori knowledge of our conscious propositional attitudes. In chapter two I discuss the support allegedly given to scepticism about first-person authority by some of the psychological literature. In the same chapter I also review Gilbert Ryle s famous, or notorious, attack on firstperson authority.7 I introduce my own account of first-person authority in chapter three.8 My account of first-person authority is developed in four main stages. Initially it focuses on our first-person authority over our consciously held beliefs. A central contention of this work is that belief occupies center stage when it comes to giving a general account of first-person authority over propositional attitudes. One feature of belief often remarked on 7 8
In Ryle 1949. At this point I should say something about what an account of first-person authority is, and is not, designed to accomplish. In this context an account of first-person authority need not yield an account of how we do in fact form beliefs about consciously held psychological states. Instead, an account of first-person authority purports to tell us why we are justified in holding such beliefs. Of course, any satisfactory account of first-person authority should allow that the mechanism by which we do form its target beliefs is justification-conferring.
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is this. From a third-person perspective the answer to the question whether someone believes something can come apart from the answer to the question whether what she believes is so. In contrast, from a firstperson perspective, the answers to these questions cannot come apart. I maintain that this asymmetry between first- and third-person perspectives helps us to understand why we have first-person authority over our conscious beliefs. What does the asymmetry between first- and third-person perspectives amount to? I ask myself the following question: (1) Does Jones believe that Darwin is hotter than Melbourne? My answer to (1) depends on the answer I give to such questions as these. Does Jones live in Australia? If she does not, how well informed is she about Australia? In attempting to answer (1)1 will typically rely on evidence explicitly concerning Jones'state of mind.9 Now, I pose a different question: (2) Is Darwin hotter than Melbourne? My answer to (2) depends on the answer I give to such questions as these. What does my atlas tell me about the relative temperatures of Darwin and Melbourne? What do inhabitants of those cities say about their relative temperatures? In short, when attempting to answer (2) I consult evidence that has no obvious bearing on Jones and her states of mind. Moreover, the answers I give to (1) and (2) may well diverge. (1) asks whether Jones believes that Darwin is hotter than Melbourne. (2) asks whether Darwin is hotter than Melbourne. Before considering (1) and (2) from Jones' first-personal point of view some cautionary remarks are in order. We might think adopting a first- as opposed to a third-person perspective on (1) amounts to this. Adopting a third-person perspective on (1) is a matter of someone other than Jones posing (1). On the other hand, adopting a first-person perspective on (1) is a matter ofJones herself posing (1). However, this is a misguided view of the distinction between the first- and third-person perspective. No one apart from Jones can adopt a first-person perspective on Jones'beliefs. Nevertheless, when attempting to answer (1), Jones need not adopt a first-person perspective on that question. Indeed, Jones adopts a third-person perspective on (1) if she formulates (1) as it is formulated above. 9
I say 'typically' for the following reason. Suppose I believe that Jones has lived in both Melbourne and Darwin. In that case, when attempting to answer (1), I may exclusively concentrate on accumulating evidence about the relative temperatures of Darwin and Melbourne.
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Introduction
In order to adopt a first-person perspective on (1) Jones must formulate it as:10 (3) Do I believe that Darwin is hotter than Melbourne? Suppose Jones is uncertain about the answer to (3). If so, she will not attempt to answer (3) by marshaling evidence that bears on her state of mind.11 She will not attempt to answer (3) by reviewing her behaviour or current neural states. She will also not attempt to answer (3) by engaging in a phenomenological investigation. Instead, when attempting to answer (3), Jones will typically resort to evidence that has no bearing on her state of mind, but is highly relevant to comparing the climatic conditions prevailing in Darwin and Melbourne.12 Moreover, Jones will not allow her answers to (2) and (3) to come apart. Her answer to (3) will automatically fix her answer to (2). Her answer to (2) will, likewise, automatically fix her answer to (3). An affirmative answer to (2) will automatically deliver an affirmative answer to (3), and vice versa. A negative answer to (2) will automatically deliver a negative answer to (3), and vice versa. We may summarize these results by saying that, from a first-person perspective, (2) and (3) are indistinguishable questions.13 From that perspective answering one is tantamount to answering the other. Here is an intriguing and difficult problem that I make no pretence of solving in this work. Why are such questions as (3) and (2) indistinguishable from a firstperson perspective?14 Here are two other problems that I do venture a solution to. Is one justified in treating pairs of questions like (2) and (3) as 10
11
12
13
14
I recognize I am making a controversial assumption in treating (1) and (3) as the same question formulated in different ways. Nothing turns on the correctness of that assumption. If it is false, I would put the point as follows. In posing (1), Jones is not thereby adopting a first-person perspective on the subject matter of (1). In order to adopt a first-person perspective on the subject matter of (1), Jones must pose the distinct question (3). At least, she will not attempt to do so if (3) is a question about what she consciously believes. At any rate, Jones will resort to such evidence, unless she believes she has already made up her mind about the temperatures prevailing in Darwin and Melbourne. I owe this way of putting the matter to Robert Dunn. In calling (3) and (2) indistinguishable questions from Jones' first-person perspective, I do not mean to imply that, from that perspective, Jones is unable to differentiate between them. She is able to differentiate between them by acknowledging that their answers might be different. Roy Edgley on p. 89 of Edgely 1969 says that the two questions are transparent to each other. An answer to this question would yield a solution to the problem posed by Moore's paradoxes. G.E. Moore observed in Moore 1951 that it is improper to assert sentences of the forms 'I believe that p, but not p', 'p, but I believe not p' and 'p, but I do not believe p'. A number of philosophers have attempted to say what sort of impropriety is involved in asserting sentences of any of these forms. In my view, none of these attempts succeed. For good discussions of Moore's paradoxes see Sorensen 1988 and Baldwin 1990.
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Introduction
indistinguishable from a first-person perspective? If one is, what explanation can be given of this fact? Question (2) asks whether Darwin is hotter than Melbourne. In Jones' mouth question (3) asks whether she believes Darwin is hotter than Melbourne. Suppose, Jones is justified in treating (2) and (3), and like pairs of questions, as indistinguishable from a first-person perspective. In particular, suppose we are able to explain why Jones is justified in giving an affirmative answer to (3) if she is justified in giving an affirmative answer to (2). In that case, we will be in a position to explain why Jones is able to answer (3) without having to rely on evidence to do so. Here, in brief, is how that explanation runs. Jones has evidence that bears on the answer to (2). Indeed, she has evidence that justifies her in giving an affirmative answer to (2). The evidence that enables her to answer (2) has no direct bearing on the answer she should give to (3). (2) is not about her states of mind. (3) is. Nevertheless, we are assuming that Jones is justified in affirmatively answering (2) only if she is justified in affirmatively answering (3). She is justified in believing that Darwin is hotter than Melbourne only if she is justified in believing that she has that belief. Hence, Jones having evidence that bears on the answer to (2) indirectly enables her to answer (3). Jones is justified in affirmatively answering (2). According to the assumption we are making, she is justified in affirmatively answering (3). Consequently, Jones does not need to resort to additional evidence to form a justified belief about the answer to (3). A justified answer to (2) automatically yields a justified answer to (3). So, the evidence that enables her to give a justified answer to (2) puts her in a position to give a justified answer to (3). I call this account of the self attribution of consciously held beliefs the basic account. The basic account explains something remarked on earlier. It explains why an individual decides whether she believes p by appealing to evidence bearing on p rather than evidence bearing on her believing p. For me the question whether p is indistinguishable from the question whether I believe p. Hence, in attempting to resolve the question whether I believe p, I will look to evidence that will help me to resolve the question whether p. The basic account turns on our justifiably treating questions like (2) and (3) as indistinguishable from a first-person perspective. Why is one so justified? I attempt to say why in chapters four and five. In order to do so, I consider the consequences of systematically treating the answer one gives to an instance of:
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Introduction (4) Is p true? as throwing no light on the answer one should give to a corresponding instance of: (5) Do I believe p? I argue that one who takes the answer given to an instance of (4) to be irrelevant to the answer she ought to give to the counterpart instance of (5) will be in this predicament. She will be obliged to form an unjustified view of what I call her non-doxastic world. That is, she will be obliged to form an unjustified view of the world as it is apart from her beliefs. Moreover, she will be obliged to form an unjustified view of her nondoxastic world for conceptual reasons. In order to endorse a more acceptable view of her non-doxastic world, she is justified in self attributing certain states of belief. At this stage in its development the basic account has limited value as an account of the self attribution of belief. At most, it shows why some belief states are non-observationally self attributable. It does not show why all consciously held beliefs are non-observationally self attributable. Showing that is a task undertaken in chapter five. Chapter six contains my responses to a number of objections to the basic account. Even if those objections are surmounted, the basic account faces a further challenge. Consciously held belief is not the only state that is non-observationally self attributed. We non-observationally self attribute conscious desires, intentions, hopes, fears and imaginings. Indeed, we are prepared to non-observationally self attribute any non-factive propositional attitude.15 The basic account does not readily extend to propositional attitudes other than belief. Nevertheless, we should be struck by the following. In general, if I am uncertain whether something is true, I will attempt to resolve my uncertainty by seeing whether I have reason to believe it to be true. As we have seen, this is not so in the case of uncertainty about what I believe. I will not attempt to resolve my uncertainty about believing that p by looking for the reasons I have to believe that I believe p. Instead, I will look for the reasons I have to believe p. Likewise, I will not attempt to resolve uncertainty about intending that, wanting that, fearing that, or hoping that p by looking for the reasons I have for believing that I intend, want, fear, or hope that p. Instead, as with belief,
15
A prepositional attitude Ap is factive just in case Ap entails p. Knowledge is a paradigm example of a factive propositional attitude. Few would concede that anyone who consciously knows that p is thereby able to non-observationally self attribute knowing that p.
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I search for the reasons I have for intending, wanting, fearing, or hoping that p. Despite this, the basic account cannot be simply extended to propositional attitudes apart from belief. Each of us is justified, from a first-person perspective, in treating the question whether she believes p indistinguishably from the question whether p is true. No one, from any perspective, is justified in treating the question whether she desires, hopes, or fears that p indistinguishably from the question whether p is true. Nevertheless, the parallel noted above between the first-person epistemology of belief ascriptions and the first-person epistemology of ascriptions of other propositional attitudes turns out to be instructive. In chapter seven I argue that it shows how to augment the basic account to yield an account of the self ascription of all conscious propositional attitudes. Content externalism is the view that the content of some central psychological states, including beliefs, is determined by factors outside the one who is in them. Content externalism has been seen by some to pose one of the most serious threats to first-person authority. Without endorsing content externalism, I take up the question whether it undermines first-person authority in Part in. Some have attempted to deflect the threat content externalism allegedly poses to first-person authority by offering what may be called deflationary accounts of first-person authority. In the same section I explore the merits of three such accounts. Donald Davidson and Tyler Burge are two philosophers who have attempted to reconcile first-person authority with content externalism. Davidson and Burge attempt to do so by offering deflationary accounts of first-person authority. Earlier, I remarked on characterizations of firstperson authority that go like this. First-person authority consists in having a belief not subject to an epistemic liability that beliefs are prone to. Adopting this view of first-person authority often goes together with seeing first-person authority as a cognitive achievement. Having firstperson authority puts an individual in an epistemic position that ought to be difficult to attain. Davidson and Burge adopt an opposing view of firstperson authority. For them first-person authority is not a significant cognitive accomplishment. Since first-person authority is so undemanding, it does not need to satisfy cognitive constraints that might bring it into conflict with content externalism. After looking in chapter eight at the problem for first-person authority posed by content externalism, I assess Davidson and Burge s accounts of first-person authority in chapter nine, and conclude the following.
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Davidson and Burge offer inadequate accounts of first-person authority. Nevertheless, in developing those accounts they deploy considerations that defeat one argument from content externalism against first-person authority. However, those considerations leave two stronger arguments from content externalism against first-person authority unscathed. In chapter ten I evaluate those arguments. One outcome of that discussion is this. If the arguments against first-person authority are faulty for the reasons I give, no argument from content externalism against firstperson authority is likely to succeed. Chapter eleven focuses on an account of first-person authority that is also deflationary According to Crispin Wright we have first-person authority over our consciously held propositional attitudes because any such attitude is, in a certain sense, constituted by self ascribing it. So far as our propositional attitudes are concerned, each of us is in a special position to pronounce about our inner lives because our inner lives are constituted by those pronouncements. My concern is to give an account of an important species of selfknowledge: our knowledge of our consciously held propositional attitudes. Naturally, an investigation of that species of self-knowledge raises a number of fascinating issues that lie outside the confines of this work. Here are some. In Part ill I argue that content externalism poses no threat to our having non-observational knowledge of our consciously held propositional attitudes. If that argument is successful, it defeats attempts to use content externalism to refute scepticism about the external world. I have in mind an attempted refutation of external world scepticism like this. Content externalism assures us that, for our thoughts to have the contents we take them to have, the external world must be pretty much as we take it to be. I know what contents my thoughts have. Assume I can know the truth of content externalism. In that case, I can know, in broad outline, about the configuration of the external world. In chapter ten I say why the conclusion of this argument does not follow from its premises. I say why scepticism is not refuted if we combine knowledge of the contents of our thoughts with knowledge of content externalism. However, a number of philosophers have given a different response to the above argument against external world scepticism.16 According to 16
Philosophers who have given this alternative response to a well-known argument of Hilary Putnam's against external world scepticism in Putnam 1981 include Maclntyre 1984, Stephens and Russow 1985, Brueckner 1986, Nagel 1986, Heil 1987 and Craig 1990. I discuss the adequacy of this response in Gallois 1992.
10
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Introduction
them, a sceptic who concedes knowledge of content externalism should not concede that we have knowledge of the contents of our thoughts. One question prompted by this response is the following. Could we be systematically mistaken about the contents of our thoughts? I take no stand on the answer to that question in the present work. Nevertheless, I suspect that radical error about the contents of our thought is, in some way, incoherent. Another type of scepticism which has recently been the focus of a great deal of attention is scepticism about meaning and content. One source of such scepticism is eliminativism about the mental which denies that we are ever in contentful psychological states.17 Another source is Saul Kripkes much-discussed version of Wittgenstein's private language argument.18 First-person authority has traditionally embraced first-person authority over the content of psychological states, and the meaning of linguistic expressions. Hence, an account of first-person authority may be expected to throw light on scepticism about meaning and content. We view ourselves as conscious. We also differentiate between psychological states that are conscious, and those that are not. In addition, we are apt to distinguish between consciousness and self consciousness. A better understanding of consciousness and self consciousness may be achieved by exploring the relationship between these phenomena and first-person authority. I no more than touch on these and other issues in the following pages. Properly exploring them is reserved to a later work. Nevertheless, mentioning these issues may serve to indicate why providing an account of first-person authority is a worthwhile task. I leave the reader to judge whether the account I offer is a worthwhile one. 17
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The most prominent defenders of such scepticism are Paul and Patricia Churchland. See, for example, Churchland 1984. For replies to scepticism about content see Rudder Baker 1987 and Boghossian 1990. For a reply to Boghossian see Devitt 1990. In Kripke 1980.
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PART I
First-person authority
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1 The problem
WHAT TYPE OF FIRST-PERSON AUTHORITY?
Various characterizations of first-person authority have been offered in the literature. For example, it has been said that one cannot be mistaken about one's own psychological states in a way that one can be mistaken about the psychological states of others. It has been said that one's beliefs about one's own psychological states are not open to doubt, and that, in the absence of counterevidence, having a belief that one is in a given psychological state is sufficient to justify holding it. It has also been said that justified beliefs about one's own psychological states need not be based on evidence. All of the above characterizations of first-person authority have been invoked as characterizations of something it is easy to conflate with firstperson authority. All have been invoked as characterizations of noncontingent privileged access. When I say that we have first-person authority over psychological states of a certain type what I mean is this. Necessarily, an individual who is in a state of that type has available to her a means of knowing, or justifiably believing, that she is, which is not available to anyone else. On the other hand, an individual has privileged access to a psychological state only if she is in a better position than anyone else to know, or justifiably believe, she is in it. Privileged access to a type of psychological state is non-contingent if it is a necessary truth that each one of us has it to our own states of the relevant type. Jayne consciously intends to go to the cinema. Jayne is in a position to justifiably believe that she has that intention in a way that no one other than Jayne is in a position to justifiably believe that she has it. Hence, Jayne has first-person authority over her consciously formed intention. It does not follow that Jayne has privileged access, let alone non-contingent privileged access, to that intention. Mary may, on a different basis, be even more justified in believing that Jayne does not intend to go to the cinema. 15
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Non-contingent privileged access should be distinguished from firstperson authority. The following is a consistent position. Moreover, it is one defended in this work. The knowledge we have of our own propositional attitudes necessarily differs in kind from the knowledge we have of the propositional attitudes of others. However, it is an open question whether it is a necessary truth that each one of us is in a better position than anyone else to tell what propositional attitudes she has. We do have privileged access to our own propositional attitudes. It remains to be seen whether such privileged access is anything more than contingent. According to the position defended here, we have first-person authority over our consciously held beliefs, desires, intentions, and the like. We have first-person authority over our consciously held propositional attitudes. Moreover, we enjoy a particular variety of first-person authority over our propositional attitudes. An individual is in a position, for each consciously held propositional attitude that she has, to know a priori that she has it. For some time after the publication of Quine's 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism' a priori knowledge has been out of favour. One reason for this was a failure to distinguish two senses in which someone knows something a priori. In the first, an individual knows a priori that p only if her belief that p is not subject to revision. That is, it would be rational for her to reject any putative counterevidence to p. Quine is concerned to argue that we have hardly any a priori knowledge in this first sense. In the second, someone knows a priori that p if her knowledge that p is not based on evidence, but is based on possessing the concepts associated with what is known. Something may be known a priori in this second sense without being known a priori in the first. My knowledge that p may not be evidentially based even if my belief that p is vulnerable to future counterevidence. Let us say that p can be known a priori by an individual I just in case p can be deduced from things that can be known a priori by I, or p satisfies this condition, p being true, and I having all of the concepts associated with p, is sufficient for I being able to know that p. Suppose, Jayne can know a priori that she consciously believes vegemite is tasty. In that case, Jayne consciously believing that vegemite is tasty, together with Jayne having the concepts of belief, vegemite, and something being tasty, is sufficient for Jayne to be able to know that she believes vegemite is tasty.1 1
According to this explication of a priori knowability, falsehoods are a priori knowable. We can, I think, live with that consequence.
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I will attempt to answer the following questions. What psychological states do we have first-person authority over? In particular, do we have the following type of first-person authority over propositional attitudes? An individual can know a priori, for each of her consciously held propositional attitudes, that she has it. Finally, if we do, why do we enjoy firstperson authority over propositional attitudes? WHAT DO WE HAVE FIRST-PERSON AUTHORITY OVER?
In order to answer the first of these questions it will be well to have a taxonomy of candidates for first-person authority. It may turn out that firstperson authority is not unitary in the following sense. Different types of psychological phenomena are the objects of different types of first-person authority. A psychological feature is a feature that something cannot have unless it has a capacity for consciousness.2 So understood, psychological features include: (a) moods such as depression, euphoria, anxiety, and despair. (b) character traits such as being lazy, generous, happy, vicious, cruel, callous, kind, tolerant or insightful. (c) emotions such as love, hatred, anger, and fear. (d) propositional attitudes such as believing, fearing, intending, desiring, hoping, knowing, regretting, realizing, understanding. (e) sensations and experiences (visual, auditory, tactile, etc.). (d) and (e) are the most plausible illustrations of first-person authority. In contrast, none of (b) appear to qualify for the first-person authority. As Crispin Wright observes, there are the following differences between the members of (b) and the members of (e).3 Items in (e) have a distinctive phenomenology, are episodic, and are not plausibly construed as dispositional states. In addition, having an item in (e) does not require having a distinctive set of concepts.4 For example, it seems that I can have a 2
4
In saying this I intend to indicate what I take a psychological feature to be rather than specifying a necessary or sufficient condition for having one. Some would deny that having a capacity for consciousness is a necessary condition for having a propositional attitude. Others would argue that it is. For example, John Searle offers such an argument in 3 Searle 1991. In Wright 1989a. Presumably this would be denied by D.M. Armstrong who equates having, for example, a visual sensation with having a inclination to hold a certain type of belief.
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sensation of red whatever my conceptual repertoire. On the other hand, items in (b) lack a distinctive phenomenology, are non-episodic, and are plausibly construed as dispositional states. Moreover, one does have to possess certain distinctive concepts to be generous or tolerant. I will not consider at any length the members of (a) and (c). We have firstperson authority over the members of (a) and (c) only to this extent. Having one of (a) or (c) involves having one or more of (d), and, possibly, (e). We have first-person authority over the members of (a) and (c) to the extent that we enjoy first-person authority over the members of (d) and (e). (b) includes character traits such as being lazy, generous, or happy, (e) includes sensations and experiences. I remarked that one difference between the members of (b) and the members of (e) is that the members of (e) have a distinctive phenomenology. What does it mean to say that a psychological feature has a distinctive phenomenology? I suggest it amounts to this. It may, for example, be possible to be in pain without consciously registering that one is. However, to use a locution of Nagel's, it is not possible for one to consciously be in pain at a certain time without there being something that it is like for one to be in pain at that time.5 More exactly, the following situation is impossible. At a certain time Jones is conscious of suffering from a headache. At the same time Smith is not conscious of suffering from a headache. Nevertheless, at the time in question, there is no difference between what it is like to be Smith and what it is like to be Jones. Let us say that a psychological feature (}) has a distinctive phenomenology if and only if it satisfies the following condition. It is impossible for there to be no difference between what it is like to be x and what it is like to be y at some time t unless x and y both have or lack (() at t. In this sense the members of (d) lack a distinctive phenomenology, (d) includes propositional attitudes; believing, desiring, fearing and the like. Certainly, it seems possible for the following situation to obtain. Right now, unlike you, I consciously entertain the thought that Descartes was French. However, at this time, what it is like to be you is exactly like what it is like to be me. Likewise for the other members of (d).6 5 6
See Nagel 1974. One might be sceptical of this claim in the case of fearing and desiring. However, we need to distinguish between being afraid and being in a state of desire on the one hand, and fearing or desiring that something is so on the other. Being afraid and viscerally desiring have a distinctive phenomenology. Fearing that and desiring that something is so lack one. More on this later.
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What bearing does the possession of a distinctive phenomenology have on our epistemic access to psychological states? Consider an all to familiar scenario designed to introduce scepticism about the external world. You are a brain in a vat having largely delusory experiences which appear to support your beliefs about being a normally embodied individual moving through a world containing chairs, tables, mountains, trees, people, and the like. The brain in a vat scenario powerfully supports external world scepticism. One reason it does so is this. Whether or not you are a brain in a vat you would, it seems, believe that you are leading the life of a normally embodied individual. Why is it at all plausible to maintain that I will believe that I am a normally embodied individual whether or not I am envatted? Here is an obvious answer. Because I will have the same experiences whether or not I am envatted. However, this answer is wrong. There are innumerable differences between the experiences of a normally embodied individual and an envatted brain. If I am envatted, my experiences will be largely delusory. If I am normally embodied, my experiences will be largely veridical. Of course, in one way this misses the point. The relevant likeness between normally embodied and vat experiences is phenomenological. What it is like to be a brain in a vat is just like what it is like to be a normally embodied individual. Suppose, per impossible, that what it is like to be a normally embodied individual is not like what it is like to be a brain in a vat. In addition, suppose we know how what it is like to be a brain in a vat differs from being a normally embodied individual. In that case, the brain in a vat scenario would lend no support to external world scepticism. We would be guaranteed to be in a position to tell whether or not we are brains in vats. Can I tell whether I am consciously suffering the pain of angina, feel a tingle in my toe, or am having a sensation of vermilion? I may misclassify a pain as resulting from angina, or a sensation as a sensation of vermilion. Moreover, it is a good question whether such misclassifications can be set aside as merely verbal errors. However, there is one potential source of error about conscious pains, tingles, and perceptual sensations that can be discounted. I may misclassify a current visual sensation as a sensation of vermilion. Nevertheless, in virtue of consciously having that sensation, what it is currently like to be me is quite different from what it is like to be someone who is not conscious of having that sensation. A state of affairs S satisfies the phenomenological criterion for an 19
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individual I if and only if this is so. Necessarily what it is like to be I if S obtains differs from what it is like to be I if S does not obtain.7 (e) includes sensations and experiences. I have argued that satisfaction by the mental items under (e) of the phenomenological criterion gives us a clue to their epistemology. I can tell that I am consciously enjoying a sensation in a way that I cannot tell whether I am subject to the machinations of a Cartesian demon. My ability to tell whether I am consciously having a sensation is linked to such a sensation satisfying the phenomenological criterion. How it is linked is a difficult question that falls outside the scope of this work. Here I am content to point out that satisfaction of the phenomenological criterion indicates an account of the distinctive epistemology of the members of (e). (d) includes the propositional attitudes. Propositional attitudes are as plausible candidates for first-person authority as the members of (e). Nevertheless, satisfaction of the phenomenological criterion tells us nothing about the distinctive epistemology of the propositional attitudes. There need be nothing that it is like to consciously believe something, intend something, hope for something, or conjecture something. Suppose I am reflecting on what I believe, and what I intend to do in the light of what I believe. I conclude that I believe that it is 4 p.m. and, as a result, intend to give a class. I am conscious of my belief about the time and the intention I have formed on its basis. My colleague next door has no belief about the time, and no intention to teach a class. However, at 4 p.m. what it is like to be me may be indiscernible from what it is like to be my colleague. According to Donald Davidson, justified self ascriptions of propositional attitudes are standardly made on the basis of no evidence at all. He remarks:8 It is seldom the case that I need or appeal to evidence or observation in order to find out what I believe; normally I know what I think before I speak or act. Even when I have evidence, I seldom make use of it. I can be wrong about my own thoughts, and so the appeal to what can be publicly determined is not irrelevant. But the possibility that one may be mistaken about one's own thoughts cannot defeat the overriding presumption that a person knows what he or she believes; in general, the belief that one has a thought is enough to justify that belief. Davidson is surely right to think that justified self ascriptions of propositional attitudes are not standardly made on the basis of behavioural 7 8
Whenever I use 'necessarily', I should be taken to refer to metaphysical necessity. Davidson 1986.
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evidence. I do not standardly arrive at conclusions about what I think, want or intend by observing how I behave. However, there is a further sense in which self ascriptions of propositional attitudes are not based on evidence. Philosophers and psychologists are often reluctant to admit the existence of introspective evidence. One reason is that introspection is thought of as a type of perception, and many find perception of psychological states problematic. Nevertheless, introspection does not have to be treated as a type of perception in order to make room for something that may be fairly described as introspective evidence. Sensations, feelings, after-images and the like are self ascribed on the basis of satisfying the phenomenological criterion. I am able to ascribe a sensation to myself because what it is like to be me if I have that sensation is different from what it is like to be me if I do not. In this sense self ascriptions of propositional attitudes are not based on introspective evidence. How then do we arrive at justified self ascriptions of propositional attitudes? I will discuss Davidson's own answer to this question later. In the remainder of this chapter I propose to examine four well-known accounts of our knowledge of our own psychological states. ACCOUNTS OF FIRST-PERSON AUTHORITY
Infallibility The first of these accounts is, perhaps, the best known. According to it, knowledge of one's own psychological states results from beliefs about psychological states being infallible in the following sense.9 It is not possible for me to believe that I am in a given psychological state without being in that state. For example, my belief that I am suffering from a toothache is infallible if and only if it is not possible for me to believe that I am suffering from a toothache unless I am suffering from one. The claim that beliefs about psychological states are, in general, infallible has been much criticized.10 A good deal of this criticism seems to be misguided.11 For one thing, many objections to the infallibility of beliefs about one's own psychological states are too strong. If successful, they would show that we never have infallible beliefs about our own psycho9
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My use of the term 'infallible' is taken from Alston 1971. In that article Alston provides a detailed taxonomy of different varieties of what he calls privileged access. Alston does not distinguish between privileged access and first-person authority. D. M. Armstrong vigorously argues against this claim in Armstrong 1963 and 1968. For excellent replies to a number of such objections see Jackson 1973.
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logical states. Plainly we do. My belief that I have some belief is infallible. I will not attempt to assess arguments for and against the infallibility of beliefs about psychological states for the following reason. Infallibility is not sufficient for a belief to qualify as knowledge. This is fairly obvious if a so-called internalist view of knowledge is correct. According to the internalist, q is a necessary condition for knowing that p only if being justified in believing that q is a necessary condition for knowing that p. According to the infallibility thesis, I know that I think Descartes was French only if my belief that I have that thought is infallible. Clearly, it is not a necessary condition for my knowing that I think Descartes was French that I am justified in believing in the infallibility of my belief that I think Descartes was French. Many philosophers who, plausibly, know what they think have what they take to be excellent reasons for denying the infallibility of beliefs about psychological states. Those philosophers are not justified in believing that their beliefs about their psychological states are infallible. Nevertheless, it seems, they can have knowledge of their psychological states. Externalists do not insist that having knowledge requires having a justified belief in every necessary condition for its possession. Moreover, one type of externalism appears to underwrite appealing to infallibility in giving an account of self-knowledge.12 I have in mind a reliabilist view of knowledge. On a crude version of this view someone who believes that p knows that p if holding a belief of the type to which the belief that p belongs is a reliable indicator of its truth. Certainly, holding a belief which is infallible is a reliable indicator of its truth. None could be more reliable. So, infallible beliefs automatically yield knowledge on this reliabilist account of knowledge. Some reliabilist account of knowledge may well be right. Nevertheless, a reliabilist account of knowledge which implies that infallibility is a sufficient condition for knowledge is obviously mistaken.13 Suppose that the following is so. Belief states are type identical with neural states, and identities are necessary. Nobody has ever succeeded in establishing any correlations between belief states and the neural states they are type identical This point is noted by William Alston in Alston 1971. See endnote C of that article. It is often pointed out that infallibility is not a sufficient condition for knowledge of necessary truths. Suppose that Goldbach's conjecture is true. In addition, suppose I believe on grossly inadequate grounds that Goldbach's conjecture is true. It does not follow that I know that Goldbach's conjecture is true because, given that Goldbach's conjecture is necessarily true, it is impossible for me to falsely believe that it is.
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with. As it happens, the belief that one is in neural state N is type identical with neural state N. Surely, it does not follow that anyone who believes that she is in neural state N knows that she is. This counterexample may be objected to on the following grounds. We are envisaging that identities are necessary. The consensus is that belief states are not type identical with neural states. If the consensus is right, and identities are necessary, then belief states are necessarily not type identical with neural states. Hence, the above example is not possible. This reply misses the point. Infallibility as a sufficient condition for selfknowledge should not be hostage to propositional attitudes turning out to be type identical with neural states. The first account of self-knowledge in terms of infallibility fails to provide a sufficient condition for self-knowledge. It fails to do so on either an internalist or an externalist view of knowledge. At most infallibility ensures that one will invariably have true beliefs about one's propositional attitudes. An internalist about knowledge would insist that for our beliefs about our propositional attitudes to amount to knowledge they must not only be infallible, but be known to be so. An externalist about knowledge would not insist on that. Nevertheless, no plausible externalist account of knowledge holds that a condition which guarantees the truth of a class of beliefs automatically qualifies those beliefs as knowledge. In any case, it does not seem that our beliefs about our propositional attitudes are, in general, infallible. We should turn elsewhere for a characterization of selfknowledge. Self-intimation Another account of self-knowledge is based on what has been called self-intimation. One definition of self-intimation runs as follows. A propositional p is self intimating for an individual I just in case it is impossible for p to be true and I not to know that p is true. Simply appealing to self-intimation, so understood, in order to give an account of self-knowledge is deficient in at least two ways. Suppose we are told that propositions about psychological states are self intimating. In that case, all we are told is that it is impossible to be in a psychological state without knowing that one is. We are not told why that is impossible. An account of self-knowledge based on self-intimation needs to say more than just that one cannot fail to be omniscient about ones own psychological states. My being omniscient about a range of psychological states leaves it entirely open about how I know I am in those states. Secondly, as a thesis about psychological states self-intimation appears 23
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to be false. Much of human behaviour is explicable by attributing to a subject propositional attitudes she is unaware of having. Indeed, some have gone so far as to suggest that most of our mental life passes unnoticed.14 This second objection to utilizing self-intimation in an account of selfknowledge is less telling than might at first sight appear. We are concerned to give an account of one's knowledge of psychological states one is conscious of being in. In particular, we are concerned to give an account of one's knowledge of consciously held propositional attitudes. It is not absurd to suggest that consciously held propositional attitudes are self intimating. However, for the reason given above, even if it is not absurd to say that consciously held propositional attitudes are self intimating, in the present context it is not explanatory to do so. Indubitability and incorrigibility Some have held that a belief about a
psychological state is indubitable, or, at least, incorrigible for one who is in that state. The belief that p is indubitable for an individual I if and only if it is not possible for I to believe that p and for there to be evidence that would justify I in rejecting p. On the other hand, the belief that p is incorrigible for an individual I if and only if it is impossible for I to believe p and for someone other than I to produce evidence that would justify I in rejecting p. Characterizing first-person authority in terms of indubitability or incorrigibility has severe drawbacks. Consider indubitability. A belief about one of my psychological states is indubitable for me just in case, so long as I have it, there could be no evidence that would justify me in rejecting it. It is easy to see why the belief that p is indubitable for me if this is so. In order to believe that p I have to have evidence for p that is so good it overrides any conceivable counterevidence to p. However, if my belief that I have a certain propositional attitude is based on no evidence at all, it is mysterious how that belief could be indubitable or incorrigible. Hence, an account of our knowledge of our own propositional attitudes which invokes the indubitability or incorrigibility of beliefs about those attitudes is in tension with the claim that such beliefs are not evidentially based. There is a more serious objection to giving an account of first-person authority based on indubitability or incorrigibility. No belief is indubitable or incorrigible. In order to see this consider the most famous example of 14
Of course, this is a thesis most famously championed by Freud and other practitioners of psychoanalysis.
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a type of belief whose tokens are said to be indubitable. I have in mind the Cogito. Is there any conceivable evidence that would justify you in rejecting your belief that you exist? I maintain that if the following scenario were to eventuate you would have such justification. You read an extremely persuasive article which argues for the following. In order to exist you must inhabit a world having the property of actuality. At most one world has the property of actuality. Moreover, there is no way to tell whether one's own world has that property. Since there are an infinite number of possible worlds it is exceedingly unlikely that the one you inhabit has the property of actuality. So, it is exceedingly unlikely that you exist. I am not, of course, maintaining that the theses defended in the imaginary article are defensible. I am only maintaining that it is conceivable for you to encounter such an article. (Remember that the article only has to be persuasive. It does not have to be correct.) Moreover, if you did encounter such an article, you would have reason to abandon your belief that you exist. Hence, even the paradigm example of an allegedly indubitable belief is not indubitable. It is not even incorrigible. In the scenario I envisaged what leads you to abandon your belief in your existence is evidence supplied by another. Self warrant At first sight one of the most promising accounts of firstperson authority holds that beliefs over which we have first-person authority are self warranting.15 Here is one definition of self warrant: The belief that p is self warranting if and only if believing that p is, in the absence of counterevidence to p, a sufficient condition for being justified in believing that p. The idea behind invoking self warrant is this. I believe that I intend to go to the movies. Concede that my belief about my intention is not infallible. I could believe that I intend to go to the movies even if I have no such intention. Concede also that my belief about my intention is neither indubitable nor incorrigible. Others could supply me with decisive evidence in favour of withholding my belief that I intend to go to the movies. Nevertheless, there is something epistemically distinctive about my beliefs about my consciously held intentions. Standardly lacking a reason to reject a belief, by itself, gives me no reason to accept it. Not so for beliefs about my intentions. If I have no reason to reject such a belief, I automatically have reason to accept it. 15
'Self warrant' is a term used by William Alston in Alston 1971 and in Alston 1976.
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Appealing to self warrant to give an account of privileged access is attractive. It avoids the pitfalls associated with the other accounts we have looked at. However, as I will try to show, self warrant does not provide an adequate basis for self-knowledge. What I will try to show is the following. Either: (a) The claim that beliefs of a certain type are self warranting collapses into the claim that they are non evidentially justified, or: (b) Every belief is self warranted. Clearly, if (b) is true, it is pointless to appeal to self warrant to account for what is distinctive about our knowledge of our own psychological states. On the other hand, if (a) is true, appealing to self warrant will be impotent to explain how we manage to have non evidentially justified beliefs about some of our psychological states. Assuming that we do have such beliefs, explaining how we could have them is something we would want an account of self-knowledge to deliver. I will argue that the only way to avoid (b) is by embracing (a). Before proceeding to that argument some preliminaries need to be completed. The definition of self warrant runs: The belief that p is self warranting if and only if believing that p is, in the absence of counterevidence to p, a sufficient condition for being justified in believing p. First, what is the import of'sufficient condition' in this definition? Alston considers a number of alternatives.16 One is that 'sufficient condition' should be read as logically sufficient condition. A belief is self warranted if and only if it is logically impossible to unjustifiably hold it without being justified in rejecting it. Another is to read 'sufficient condition' as causally sufficient condition. A belief is self warranted if and only if it is causally impossible to unjustifiably hold it without being justified in rejecting it. A third simply states that a belief is self warranted if and only if it is in fact never, or almost never, unjustifiably held without being justifiably rejected. Alston denies that beliefs about one's own psychological states are self warranted in any of these senses. Instead, he opts for a fourth characterization of self warrant. According to it, 'sufficient condition' should be 16
In Alston 1971.
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read as normatively sufficient condition. A belief is self warranted if and only if, with respect to some correct epistemic norm, it ought to be that no one unjustifiably holds it without being justified in rejecting it. Call this the normative characterization of self war rant. (b) says that every belief is self warranted. In developing the argument for (b) I will focus on the first definition of self war rant where 'sufficient condition' should be construed as logically sufficient condition. If a belief is self warranted according to the first characterization of self warrant, it will be self warranted according to the others with the exception of the normative. Hence, if the argument for (b) works for the first characterization of self warrant it will, again with the exception of the normative, work for the others as well. Moreover, once the argument is displayed it is easy to show that it works for the normative characterization too. A further point that needs to be stressed is this. The definition of self warrant includes a clause about counterevidence which runs: believing that p is, in the absence of counterevidence to p, a sufficient condition for being justified in believing p. It is essential to include the clause about counterevidence in the definition of self warrant. Omitting it would lead to self warrant collapsing into indubitability. If the clause about counterevidence is left out of the definition, a belief is self warranted only if holding it justifies one in holding it no matter what evidence tells against it. That is, a belief is self warranted only if it is indubitable. The clause about counterevidence requires clarification in two respects. First, what is meant by 'counterevidence'? We could construe that expression more or less broadly. Construed broadly counterevidence amounts to a reason for withholding a belief. Construed narrowly counterevidence is restricted to something like empirical or observational counterevidence. If 'counterevidence' is construed narrowly then no belief will be self warranted. Certainly, no belief about a propositional attitude will be self warranted. On the narrow construal of'counterevidence' my belief that I have a certain intention is self warranted only if this is so. I am justified in holding it if I have no empirical grounds for rejecting it. Suppose I have no empirical grounds for rejecting my belief that I intend to write a paper. Nevertheless, I have come across a completely convincing a priori argument for eliminativism about the propositional attitudes. I have come across a convincing a priori argument that tells me that there are no intentions. In that case, would I be justified in believing that I intend to write a paper? Clearly not. So, my belief that I intend to write a paper would 27
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not be self warranted after all. If the definition of self warrant is to do any work, 'counterevidence' must be taken to mean reason for disbelieving. So, the definition of self warrant becomes: The belief that p is self warranting if and only if believing that p is, in the absence of any reason not to believe p, a sufficient condition for being justified in believing p. Finally, the clause about counterevidence is ambiguous. 'Reason for disbelieving' could mean reason for withholding belief, or it could mean reason for believing the opposite. Taken the second way, I have a reason for disbelieving p only if I have a reason for believing p to be false. Taken the first, I have a reason for disbelieving p if I have a reason to withhold belief in p. That is, I have a reason to disbelieve p if I have a reason to remain agnostic about p. Again, if the definition of self warrant is to do the work required of it 'reason for disbelieving' has to be taken in the first way. It has to be taken to mean reason for being agnostic. Suppose I could have evidence that my belief that I intend to write a paper is false. If so, further evidence in favour of that belief may place me in the following epistemic situation. I have no reason to believe that I intend to write a paper, and no reason to believe that I do not intend to write a paper. So, if I could have reason to believe I do not intend to write a paper, I could have reason to be agnostic about whether I do so intend. Suppose I have no reason to believe that I do not intend to write a paper, but do have reason to be agnostic about having that intention. In that case, believing that I intend to write a paper would not justify me in holding that belief even if I have no reason to believe the opposite. Now for the argument. The preceding points show that if self warrant is to elucidate first-person authority, the definition of self warrant must run: Self warrant
The belief that p is self warranting if and only if believing that p is a sufficient condition for being justified in believing p in the absence of any reason to withhold belief from p. Consider a belief that no one who wishes to elucidate first-person authority by means of Self warrant would consider to be self warranting. Consider my belief that someone has landed on the moon. What reasons could I have for refraining from holding that belief? I could have a variety of 28
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reasons including the following. I have no justification for believing that someone has landed on the moon. Hence, if I have no justification for believing that someone has landed on the moon, I have reason to be agnostic about moon landings. So, if I hold the belief that someone has landed on the moon, and really have no reason to withhold that belief, I must be justified in holding it. Any belief will be self warranted if we utilize Self warrant to define that epistemic characteristic. One reason to give up a belief is that one is not justified in holding it. So, any belief I hold I will be justified in holding if I have no reason not to hold it. It may be felt that this argument overlooks a crucial feature of self warranted beliefs. The argument goes through only because Self warrant fails to capture that feature. The idea is that merely possessing a self warranted belief, with the proviso about counterevidence, justifies one in holding it. In order for a self warranted belief to be justified it does not need to be supported by a further belief, or something other than a belief such as having a sensation. What this comes to is the following. A belief is self warranted provided it satisfies these two conditions. It is not indubitable, and when justifiably held, is justifiably held without being based on anything. In other words, a belief is self warranted just in case it is a dubitable non observationally justified belief. On this view of self warrant, describing a belief as self warranted adds nothing to describing it as non observationally justified. The price of amending Self warrant to avoid (b) is having to accept (a). Alston's normative characterization of self warrant yields the same result. According to that characterization of self warrant a belief is self warranted just in case, with respect to some correct epistemic norm, it ought to be that no one unjustifiably holds it without being justified in rejecting it. That is, a belief is self warranted just in case, with respect to some correct epistemic norm, it ought to be that each individual is either justified in holding it or justified in rejecting it. For the reasons given earlier, Alston's normative characterization of self warrant should be rewritten as follows. A belief is self warranting if and only if, for each person who holds that belief, it ought, with respect to some correct epistemic norm, to be that she either has reason to hold it, or has reason not to hold it. Surely, the set of correct epistemic norms will include one to this effect. For any belief, it ought to be that one has a reason to hold it if one has no reason not to hold it. Suppose that 29
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epistemic norm does not hold for my belief that someone has landed on the moon. In that case, it is epistemically permissible for the following situation to obtain. I have no reason to believe that no one has landed on the moon. In addition, I have no reason to be agnostic about someone having landed on the moon. Nevertheless, I have no reason to believe that someone has landed on the moon. It seems to me that no sane set of epistemic norms would deem this situation to be epistemically permissible. So, Alston's normative characterization of self warrant leaves us with the following alternatives. Either, every belief is self warranted, or, for any self warranted belief, it ought to be that that belief can be non-observationally justified. We have first-person authority over our propositional attitudes if and only if, for any consciously held propositional attitude, one is nonobservationally justified in believing that one has it. I have scrutinized different characterizations of first-person authority in this chapter, and have found them all to be deficient. In chapter three I will begin to develop my own account. Of course, there will only be a point in attempting to characterize first-person authority if there is such a thing. In the next chapter, and the final section of this work, I will address the question whether we do enjoy first-person authority over our propositional attitudes.
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Scepticism aboutfirst-personauthority We have examined a number of attempts to characterize first-person authority. All except one have been found wanting. We appear to have first-person authority over our propositional attitudes in this sense. If I consciously hold a propositional attitude then I am in a position to know a priori that I do so. In this sense there is an asymmetry between the kind of knowledge I can have of my propositional attitudes, and the kind of knowledge someone else can have of my propositional attitudes. Moreover, that asymmetry is non-contingent. If it is true, it is not contingently true that I alone know a priori what consciously held propositional attitudes I have. My aim is to give an account of first-person authority. Some deny that what I aim to give an account of exists. Some maintain that any difference between ones own and another's knowledge of one's psychological states is, at best, contingent. Hostility to first-person authority occasionally arises from conflating first-person authority with non-contingent privileged access. Having first-person authority over a range of psychological states implies that there is a non-contingent asymmetry between the epistemic access one has to one's own states belonging to that range, and another's epistemic access to one's own states belonging to the same range. On the other hand, an individual has non-contingent privileged access to psychological states of a certain type if she is necessarily in a better position than anyone else to tell whether she is in a state of that type. All but one of the accounts of first-person authority examined in the previous chapter qualify as accounts of privileged access. Indeed, infallibility, self-intimation, indubitability, incorrigibility and self warrant are standardly invoked to explain non-contingent privileged access.1 Nevertheless, non-contingent privileged access should be distinguished from first-person authority. The following is a consistent position. Moreover, it 1
Alston's 1971 paper referred to earlier is entitled 'Varieties of Privileged Access'.
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First-person authority is one defended in this work. The knowledge we have of some of our propositional attitudes differs in kind from the knowledge we have of the psychological states of others. However, it is an open question whether it is a necessary truth that each of us is in a better position than anyone else to tell what propositional attitudes she has. We have privileged access to our own conscious propositional attitudes. It remains to be seen whether such privileged access is contingent. Conceivably, though I have a priori knowledge of my consciously held propositional attitudes, someone else has evidence that puts her in a better position to know about my having those propositional attitudes. Here are the main positions that have been adopted about the existence of, and relation between, first-person authority, privileged access and knowledge of ones own propositional attitudes: (1) We lack first-person authority and privileged access to our own propositional attitudes because we altogether lack knowledge of our propositional attitudes. (2) We lack first-person authority. In addition, we lack privileged access, contingent and non-contingent, because we are, in general, in no better position than others to tell what propositional attitudes we have. (3) We lack first-person authority and non-contingent privileged access, but possess contingent privileged access. (4) We lack first-person authority, but possess non-contingent privileged access.2 (5) We have first-person authority, but, so far as one can tell, have only contingent privileged access. As far as I know, no philosopher, who takes us to have propositional attitudes, endorses (I). 3 Nevertheless, without accepting (1), some philosophers give arguments for (1) which deserve serious consideration.4 We will 2
3
4
A. J. Ayer appears to defend this position in Ayer 1963. On p. 68 he says 'Thus, even if one's mental states are not private in the sense that there is any single way in which, of necessity, they are detectable by oneself alone, they may still be private in yet another sense. One may be the final authority concerning their existence and their character.' Ayer explains that, in his view, we have non-contingent privileged access to our mental states in this sense. Anyone else's epistemic access to one's own mental states is non-contingently parasitic on one being able to arbitrate about one's own mental states. The reason for the qualification is this. Trivially an eliminativist who denies that anyone ever has a propositional attitude accepts (1). If no one believes, desires etc. anything then no one knows that she believes, desires, etc., anything. For example Paul Boghossian in Boghossian 1989a.
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be examining such arguments in Part in. Here I will confine myself to looking at arguments for (2). Among philosophers Gilbert Ryle is probably best known for advocating (2). In Ryle's view we lack first-person authority over our propositional attitudes. We find out about our own propositional attitudes in just the same way that we find out about the propositional attitudes of others. Moreover, it is a contingent matter whether we have privileged access to any of our propositional attitudes. In the case of some of my beliefs, desires and the like, I am in a better position than others to tell that I have them. In the case of others, I am not. Some psychologists appeal to experimental data in defence of (2). (5) states the position I adopt in this work. We have a distinctive mode of access to our propositional attitudes even if that mode of access is not epistemically privileged. Consequently, it behooves me to assess arguments for (2). I will begin by looking at one of the best-known defences of (2) to be found in the psychological literature. ARGUMENTS FOR (2): NO EPISTEMIC ASYMMETRY
According to (2) we lack both first-person authority over, and noncontingent privileged access to, our propositional attitudes. The results of psychological experimentation are occasionally invoked to support scepticism about first-person authority, and even contingent privileged access. In the light of those results some philosophers and psychologists contend that we are in no better, and no different position, than others to know about our propositional attitudes. Indeed, it is said, we are often in a worse position than others to know about our own propositional attitudes. I will consider a typical example of an article detailing psychological experiments in support of this claim. In their well-known article 'Telling More Than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes' Richard Nisbett and Timothy Wilson defend what they call an anti-introspective view.5 According to the antiintrospective view they defend we are often in a poor position to arrive at justified conclusions about our higher-order cognitive processes including thinking. In order to assess the bearing of Nisbett and Wilson s arguments on first-person authority and privileged access we need to be clear about 5
Nisbett and Wilson 1977. For further discussion of the experiments referred to in Nisbett and Wilson 1977 see Nisbett and Ross 1980.
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what sort of epistemic access they are arguing against, and what they deny we have access to. Wilson and Nisbett are concerned with the explanations that individuals offer for being in certain psychological states. They report on experiments in which subjects are posed questions of the following type. Why do you like him? How did you solve this problem? Why did you select that article of clothing? Nisbett and Wilson are concerned with a subject s assessment of the causes of her judgements, affective responses, and behaviour. Here are some typical experiments they report on. In some of the best known experiments subjects are led to re-evaluate actions they perform for inadequate reasons. For example, subjects are asked to write an essay expressing views opposed to their own. Subjects who, for an insufficient reason, do so, describe their present attitudes as being close to those expressed in the essay. Moreover, they mistakenly take their past attitudes to coincide with what they believe to be their present ones. In another experiment schoolchildren are confronted with someone who vigorously argues against their position on busing. Afterwards the schoolchildren reveal that they have been converted on the issue of busing without registering that they have been. In some experiments subjects misidentify the causes of their attitudes. For example, subjects invited to evaluate articles of clothing rated more highly those to their right. However, they were unaware of the effect of spatial location on their evaluations. Two points need to be made about the experiments surveyed by Wilson and Nisbett. First, they clearly challenge only one type of epistemic access to psychological states. What is called into question is that each person s psychological states, and their causes, are necessarily known to her. In the previous chapter I introduced what I called the self-intimation thesis. According to the self-intimation thesis an individuals psychological states are necessarily known to her. What is called into question by Nisbett and Wilson is a strong self-intimation thesis. In each of the experiments an individual's responses are caused by psychological causes unknown to her. The essay writers fail to recognize that the perceived insufficiency of an incentive leads to a change in their attitudes. The schoolchildren fail to recognize that someone arguing with them has shifted their attitudes to busing. The individuals selecting items of clothing fail to recognize the way in which their preferences are conditioned by their perception of spatial relations. In these examples the self-intimation thesis under attack is a very strong 34
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one. Suppose, one psychological state causes another. Suppose, as in the first experiment, an individual being aware of expressing, for inadequate reasons, views opposed to his own leads him to adopt the views expressed. An advocate of self-intimation may be expected to maintain the following. In the case under consideration an individual will be aware of all of this. She is expressing a view. She believes in the inadequacy of the motivation for expressing that view, but is aware of adopting the view expressed. According to a standard self-intimation thesis the subject will be aware of the psychological state she is caused to be in, and the psychological states causing her to be in it. However, it goes well beyond a standard self-intimation thesis to claim that she must be aware of the causal relation holding between those states. In any case, producing actual counter examples to self-intimation does not tell against either first-person authority or privileged access. Maintaining that we have first-person authority over, and even noncontingent privileged access to, consciously held propositional attitudes is consistent with allowing that much of our mental life passes unnoticed. Nevertheless, the experimental results mentioned by Nisbett and Wilson can be taken to undermine types of epistemic access to one's psychological states other than self-intimation. Consider the three experiments described above. In each one an individual misidentifies the psychological cause of her psychological state. Such misidentification results in two things. The subject fails to recognize the cause of her psychological state. In addition, she mistakenly thinks it has a different psychological cause. At most, this threatens infallibility. According to a generalized infallibility thesis it is impossible to hold a mistaken belief about the existence of one's current psychological states. The first two experiments do not even tell against that thesis. In each one subjects have mistaken beliefs about their past attitudes. In the first, a subject correctly believes that her present attitude is the one she is defending in the essay. Her mistake is to think that she had that attitude prior to writing it. In the second, a subject changes her mind about busing. As in the first, her mistake is about her past attitude to busing. The third experiment may appear to undermine generalized infallibility. In it a subject holds a mistaken belief about the current psychological cause of her selecting an article of clothing. She selects it because it is on her right. In her view she selected it because of its attractive colour. However, even in this case, the subject's mistaken belief is a belief about the effect rather than the existence of a psychological state. The subject is 35
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not mistaken in thinking that she places a high value on red clothing. Where she goes wrong is in thinking that her placing a high value on red clothing is causing her to select the article of clothing in front of her. Once again, few defenders of infallibility would hold that our beliefs about the causal relations between our psychological states are infallible. Two of the most venerable types of first-person authority emerge unscathed from Nisbett and Wilson s discussion. So far as the experimental results they describe are concerned, psychological states may be self intimating and infallibly accessible. What goes for infallibility and selfintimation goes even more obviously for the variety of first-person authority endorsed in this work. Nothing that Wilson and Nisbett report on suggests that we lack a priori knowledge of our propositional attitudes. If they are right, what we lack is a priori knowledge of causal liaisons between some of our propositional attitudes, and between our propositional attitudes and experiences. It may be thought that the experimental results reported by Nisbett and Wilson, combined with a well-received view in the philosophy of mind, tells against first-person authority. Suppose that Nisbett and Wilson have shown we are not authoritative about the causal relations between our psychological states. Functionalists hold that psychological states are constituted by the causal relations that hold between them. If that is right, how can we have a priori knowledge of the existence of psychological states so constituted?6 What this argument overlooks is the opacity of sentences attributing a priori knowledge. Suppose I know a priori that I am thinking about functionalism. Suppose it is constitutive of my thinking about functionalism that I am in a state with certain causes and effects. It does not follow that I know a priori that I am in a state with those causes and effects. Nisbett and Wilson conjecture that experimental subjects misidentify the causes of their attitudes because they employ what Nisbett and Wilson call a priori causal theories. What they appear to mean by 'a priori' differs from what is meant here when it is said that we can have a priori knowledge of our consciously held propositional attitudes. What they appear to mean in describing a causal theory as a priori is this. It is a theory that has not been subjected to experimental test, but strikes most of us as plausible. 6
John Greenwood in Greenwood 1991 agrees that the results reported by Nisbett and Wilson have, in themselves, no obvious bearing on traditional philosophical concerns about self-knowledge. However, he thinks that those results, taken together with functionalism, do have such a bearing.
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In order to avoid confusion, call such theories commonsensical theories. Suppose that Nisbett and Wilson are right. We are led to misidentify the psychological causes of our attitudes through uncritically employing commonsensical theories about those causes. Even so, the mistakes we make are mistakes about the causes, rather than the existence, of our attitudes. However, suppose relying on commonsensical theories leads us to self attribute attitudes we do not have. Granting that much poses no threat to first-person authority. We have first-person authority if we can know a priori about our consciously held propositional attitudes. Allowing that we have this type of first-person authority does not preclude our self attributing, for bad reasons, attitudes we lack. Nisbett and Wilson are not the only psychologists to challenge firstperson authority and privileged access on the basis of experimental results.7 Nevertheless, Nisbett and Wilson's arguments against first-person authority and privileged access are representative of the arguments advanced by other psychologists. I leave it to the reader to decide whether anything in the psychological literature poses a greater threat to the views defended here. RYLE ON SELF-KNOWLEDGE
We are considering (2). (2) is the view that we lack first-person authority over, and non-contingent privileged access to, our propositional attitudes. Among philosophers Gilbert Ryle is notable for his forthright defence of (2). Ryle maintains that we have contingent privileged access to some psychological states, but not to many others. However, Ryle is particularly concerned to deny that we have first-person authority over any of our psychological states. He says: The sorts of things I can find out about myself are the same as the sorts of things I can find out about other people, and the methods of finding them out are much the same.8 and later remarks: But in none of the senses in which we ordinarily consider whether a person does or does not know something about himself, is the postulate of Privileged Access necessary or helpful for the explanation of how he has achieved, or might have achieved, that knowledge. There are respects in which it is easier for me to get 7 8
Other articles by psychologists mounting such a challenge are contained in Nelson 1992. Ryle 1949, p. 155.
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such knowledge about myself than to get it about someone else; there are other respects in which it is harder. But these differences of facility do not derive from, or lead to, a difference in kind between a person's knowledge about himself and his knowledge of other people.9 Ryle adds: Our knowledge of other people and ourselves depends upon our noticing how they and we behave.10
As Paul Boghossian and others have noted, in many cases we simply lack evidence that we ought to have if Ryle s view is correct.11 In many cases, it seems, we would be unable to make justified self ascriptions of psychological states that, Ryle would concede, we can justifiably make. For the first time I entertain the thought that Ryle was not born on Mars. As soon as I entertain that thought, I know what I am thinking. Nevertheless, I need be exhibiting no behaviour distinctively associated with thinking that Ryle was not born on Mars when I come to know that I have that thought. Ryle might challenge this last assumption. He maintains that when we make discoveries about the psychological states of others . . . .there is one tract of human behaviour on which we pre-eminently rely. When the person examined has learned to talk and when he talks in a language well known to us, we use part of his talk as our primary source of information about him, that part, namely, which is spontaneous, frank and unprepared.12 Ryle holds that in ascribing thoughts to ourselves we likewise preeminently rely on spontaneous, frank and unprepared self articulations of those thoughts. Hence, it is open to him to maintain that, when I first think that Ryle was not born on Mars, the evidence I have for ascribing that thought to myself is my current verbalization of it. The sayings of others provide evidence for what they are thinking. Silent soliloquy provides evidence about one s own thoughts. Suppose we concede to Ryle that behavioural evidence for the self ascription of propositional attitudes is always available in the form of silent monologue. Nevertheless, a question remains about the coherence of Ryles view of self-knowledge. Here is one way that it arises. Ryle would admit, indeed stress, that we are often aware of what we are thinking. Suppose you think that Ryle is misguided. What would lead me 9 11
10 Ryle ibid., pp. 180-1. Ryle ibid. p. 181. Paul Boghossian criticizes Ryle in Boghossian 1989a. As will be evident from the fol12 lowing discussion I am greatly indebted to Boghossian's article. Ryle ibid., p. 181.
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to conclude that you have that thought? Presumably, I become appraised of your thought by becoming appraised of behaviour you exhibit that expresses it. For example, you may say to me that you think Ryle is misguided. Nevertheless, I will come to know what you think only if your saying to me that Ryle is misguided leads me to believe that that is what you think. You say to me that Ryle is misguided. On that basis, I form the belief that you think he is. Is that sufficient for me to be aware of what you think about Ryle? It may not be for this reason. If there are non-conscious beliefs, the following situation seems to be possible. I come to believe, as a result of what you say, that you think Ryle is misguided, but am not aware of having that belief. If your saying to me that Ryle is misguided is to lead me to be aware of what you think, I must not only come to believe that you think Ryle is misguided. I must be aware that I believe you have that thought. Moreover, I will be aware of believing that you have that thought only if I know that I believe you have it. So, your saying to me that Ryle is misguided will lead me to be aware of what you think only if this is so. You say to me that Ryle is misguided. As a result, I come to believe, and know that I have come to believe, that you think he is. Now suppose that I become aware of entertaining the thought that Ryle was not a Martian. I consciously know that I have that thought. If Ryle's thesis about self-knowledge is to retain the slightest plausibility, he seems to be forced to say the following. When I first become aware of entertaining the thought that Ryle was not a Martian, I do so on the basis of saying to myself that Ryle was not a Martian. My saying to myself that Ryle was not a Martian leads me to believe that I think that he was not born on Mars. As we have seen, this will result in my becoming aware of entertaining the thought in question only if this is so. When I say to myself that Ryle was not a Martian I come to be aware of believing that I think that Ryle was not a Martian. In order to be aware of believing that I think that Ryle was not a Martian, I must know that I have that belief. How do I know that I believe that I think that Ryle was not a Martian. I am supposed to know that I think that Ryle was not a Martian on the basis of saying to myself that he was not. Presumably I know that I believe that I think that Ryle was not a Martian on the basis of saying to myself that I have that thought. A regress threatens. Silent soliloquy will only deliver me knowledge about what I think if it is backed up by 39
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further silent soliloquy, which must, in turn be backed up by more silent soliloquy. Here is a different argument against Ryle invoking silent soliloquy to defend his account of self-knowledge. If Ryle s account of self-knowledge is to be at all attractive, he needs to apply it to propositional attitudes other than beliefs. In particular, he needs to apply it to intentions. How, on Ryle's account, do I know what I intend? Presumably, by verbalizing something that expresses that intention. As before, you say to me that Ryle taught at Oxford. I will attribute to you the corresponding belief. Why? Only because I attribute to you the intention to express that belief. Now, suppose that the sole evidence I have for attributing to myself the belief that Ryle taught at Oxford is my saying to myself that he did. Will my saying to myself that Ryle taught at Oxford constitute evidence for my believing that I believe he did? It will, only if my utterance to myself of the sentence 'Ryle taught at Oxford' expresses the belief that he did. Moreover, it will express that belief only if I intend it to.13 How do I know that I have the intention to express the belief that Ryle taught at Oxford by uttering the sentence 'Ryle taught at Oxford'? Presumably by uttering a further sentence expressing that intention. How do I know that uttering a further sentence expresses the relevant intention? Presumably, by uttering yet another sentence with the appropriate intention. Once again, a characteristically Rylean regress threatens.14 This is an a priori argument against any account of self-knowledge which holds that such knowledge is invariably based on behavioural evidence.15 What other evidence could a self ascription of a psychological state be based on. Only, it seems, evidence provided by introspection.16 I argued in the previous chapter that we standardly do not acquire knowl13
14
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16
In saying this I am not endorsing Paul Grice's account of speaker's meaning defended in Grice 1957. It might be replied that there is no need for a regress of sentences uttered. I utter to myself the sentence 'Ryle taught at Oxford'. Uttering that sentence does double duty. It expresses the belief that Ryle taught at Oxford. It also expresses the intention to express that belief by uttering the sentence 'Ryle taught at Oxford'. This reply is ineffective. When I utter to myself the sentence 'Ryle taught at Oxford', I know what I believe because I know that that sentence was uttered with a certain intention which it expresses. The question remains, how do I know what intention it expresses? Paul Boghossian in Boghossian 1989a, p. 9 deploys a similar argument to show that Ryle's view of self-knowledge conflicts with an internalist account of justification. I ignore evidence that is parasitic on behavioural or introspective, such as neurophysiological, for two reasons. First, because it is parasitic. Second, because we hardly ever reply on neurophysiological evidence to make justified self ascriptions of psychological states.
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edge of our own propositional attitudes on the basis of introspective evidence. Propositional attitudes do not satisfy what I called there the phenomenological criterion. Suppose that is correct. In addition, suppose, as seems plausible, that we can know a priori that propositional attitudes do not satisfy the phenomenological criterion. In that case, we would have an a priori argument for Davidson's thesis that justified self ascriptions of propositional attitudes are based on no evidence at all. Suppose we do have first-person authority over our propositional attitudes in this sense. We are in a position to justifiably self attribute beliefs, desires and other propositional attitudes without having to rely on evidence to do so. That fact needs explaining. It is my task in the next chapter to provide, and defend, such an explanation.
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PART II
The basic and extended accounts
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A preliminary account In this chapter and the next I will develop an account of our first-person authority over one of the most central of our propositional attitudes: belief. It will transpire that this account cannot be readily extended to other propositional attitudes. Nevertheless, it will provide a basis for one that is more general in scope. THE BASIC ACCOUNT Gareth Evans comments: 1 . . . in making a self ascription of belief, one's eyes are, so to speak, or occasionally literally, directed outward - upon the world. If someone asks me 'Do you think there is going to be a third world war?', I must attend, in answering him, to precisely the same outward phenomena as I would attend to if I were answering the question 'Will there be a third world war?'. I get myself into a position to answer the question whether I believe that p by putting into operation whatever procedure I have for answering the question whether p. I will articulate an account of our ability to non-observationally self ascribe beliefs suggested by Evans' comments. I will entitle this account the basic account. After stating some objections to the basic account, I will compare it with an alternative put forward by Christopher Peacocke. G. E. Moore famously identified a central feature of belief. He did so in calling our attention to what has subsequently come to be known as Moore's Paradox.2 Consider the following statements: (1) I believe that it is raining, but it is not raining. (2) It is raining, but I believe that it is not raining. (3) It is raining, but I do not believe that it is raining. In ordinary circumstances if I make any of (l)-(3), I am saying something which is, as Moore puts it, absurd. What sort of absurdity is involved? It 1
In Evans 1982, p. 225.
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For Moore's statement of his paradox see Moore 1951.
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is notoriously difficult to say. This much is clear. The absurdity involved in making any of (l)-(3) is not that one is asserting something obviously necessarily false. Any of (l)-(3) could be true. Nor does it arise because I am stating something that there could be no reason to believe. Someone else may have excellent reason to believe that it is not raining even though I believe that it is. Finally, the absurdity of making any of (l)-(3) does not arise from violating a conversational rule. The same absurdity appears to be generated by my simply thinking any of (l)-(3). In the following I will concentrate on statements of this form: (A) I do not believe that p, but p. Subject to a qualification we will come to later, there is something amiss with my saying, or thinking, that p, but also saying, or thinking that I do not believe p. Here is an alternative way to put essentially the same point. The question whether there is a word processor in front of me is separate from the question whether I believe there is. I could believe there is a word processor in front of me even if there is not. There could be a word processor in front of me even if I do not believe there is one there. Nevertheless, there is a sense in which, from my perspective, the two questions are not distinguishable. Again subject to a future qualification, the answers I give to those two questions cannot diverge. Is there a word processor in front of me. Yes? Do I believe that there is a word processor in front of me? I must answer this second question in the same way I answered the first.3 What emerges from these reflections is that a peculiar type of inferencelike move is justified. Any instance of the following argument schema illustrates that type: So, I believe p 3
I am indebted to Frank Jackson for calling the following point to my attention. In one way it is misleading to say that, from a first-person perspective, I am constrained to give parallel answers to the question whether I believe p, and to the question whether p. I may be very much more confident that I believe p than that p. Indeed, I may be in a position to rule out the epistemic possibility that I do not believe p, but be in no position to rule out the epistemic possibility that p is false. Jackson's observation is correct. However, it does not seem to me to undermine the claim that, from a first-person perspective, I must give an affirmative answer to the question whether I believe p if and only if I give an affirmative answer to the question whether p. It does not follow from this that I must repose the same degree of confidence in my answer to the two questions.
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Call this argument schema the doxastic schema. Clearly, instances of the doxastic scheme are, normally, not deductively valid. Consider the following instance of the doxastic schema: (1) There were dinosaurs in America. (2) I believe that there were dinosaurs in America. The argument from (1) to (2) is not deductively valid. Nor is it inductively valid. I need not be aware of any inductive correlation between there being dinosaurs in America and my believing there are in order for me to legitimately infer (2) from (1). Finally, the inference of (2) from (1) is not validated as an example of inference to the best explanation. The best explanation for there having been dinosaurs in America is not that I believe there were. The inference of (2) from (1) does not fit any standard pattern of good inference. What type of inference is it, and what makes it a good inference? Later we will see that there is reason to doubt that instances of the doxastic schema are good inferences. For now, grant that one is entitled to infer the conclusion of any instance of the doxastic schema from its premiss. I conclude there were dinosaurs in America. So, I am entitled to infer that I believe there were dinosaurs in America. Moreover, I should recognize the legitimacy of that inference if I have the concept of belief and allow that it has application at all. Here is what I am maintaining. It is Moore-paradoxical for me to allow that p, but deny that I believe p. If I allow that p then I should allow that I believe p. So, if I allow p, I am entitled to infer that I believe p. Call any instance of the doxastic schema a Moore inference. The claim we are considering is that Moore inferences are standardly warranted. My eventual aim is to show in what sense Moore inferences are standardly justified. Showing in what sense they are justified provides, I will argue, an answer to the following question. How can one ever be nonevidentially justified in attributing a belief to oneself? However, one point it is important to emphasize is this. We are only guaranteed to be in a position to non-observationally self attribute consciously held beliefs. Arguably, there are non-conscious beliefs. If so, we have, in general, to rely on evidence to self attribute them. I will next discuss examples of self attributing non-conscious beliefs.
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NON-CONSCIOUS BELIEFS
In a psychoanalytic context someone is led by the evidence of her past behaviour to attribute to herself the belief that her family is persecuting her. There would be nothing amiss with her acknowledging that her family is not persecuting her even though she admits that she believes they are. Here is another example that does not invoke anything remotely pathological. Some psychologists inform us that in certain circumstances we make inferences warranted by Aristotelian, but not Newtonian, mechanics.4 Persuaded by such evidence someone might well concede the following. I must believe in Aristotelian mechanics even though it is not even approximately true. Of course, it might be denied that the psychoanalyst's patient really believes that her family is persecuting her, or that one who acts as if Aristotelian mechanics is true really believes that it is. A familiar, if controversial, claim about belief is this.5 In order to have a belief it must be embedded in an appropriate network of beliefs. In particular, in order to be said to believe that p an individual must be prepared to make an appropriate number of inferences on the basis of p. Suppose I avow the belief that Earth has been visited by intelligent aliens. One may be justifiably wary of attributing that belief to me if I am not willing to infer that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe, that beings other than human beings have traveled through space, and so on.6 Consider the psychoanalyst's patient. She attributes to herself the belief that her family is persecuting her. However, she does not conclude that her brother is persecuting her, that she is persecuted, or that she has reason to avoid her family. The psychoanalyst's patient does not draw any of the conclusions we would expect her to if she really believed that her family is persecuting her. It does not count against the psychoanalyst's patient believing that her family is persecuting her that she does not concede that her brother is persecuting her, or that she is persecuted. What should lead us to take the psychoanalyst's patient's self attribution less than seriously is 4 5 6
Experimental results tending to show this are reported by Stephen Stich in Stich 1992. This claim is controversial. See, for example, Fodor and Le Pore 1991. Elijah Milgram so argues in an unpublished paper entitled 'Beliefs and Moore's Paradox'.
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this. If she attributed to herself the belief that her family is persecuting her, but refused to attribute to herself the belief that her brother is, or the belief that she is persecuted. Allow that if the psychoanalyst's patient correctly attributes to herself the belief about her family, she must embed it in a network of self attributed beliefs. However, it may be that for many members of that network she would be prepared to attribute them to herself but deny that what is believed is so. What do beliefs that can only be observationally self attributed have in common? A striking feature of the above examples is that they are all beliefs that the individual holding them considers to be unjustified. The psychoanalyst's patient may happily admit that she has no justification for believing in her family's persecution. The believer in Aristotelian mechanics may readily concede that she has no reason to endorse it. In the light of this point, I offer the following conjecture. A necessary condition for a belief to be non-observationally self attributed is that the believer takes it to be warranted. According to the basic account a belief is non-observationally self attributable only if it is taken to be justified. Why? We are now in a position to answer that question. I make a Moore inference when I infer from p being the case to my believing that it is. I read a textbook about the past presence of dinosaurs in America. On the basis of what I read I am justified in concluding that there were dinosaurs in America. Having concluded that there were dinosaurs in America, I am in a position to make a Moore inference from that conclusion to the further conclusion that I believe there were dinosaurs in America. Since Moore inferences are warranted, and I am warranted in believing that there were dinosaurs in America, I am warranted in believing that I have that belief. The evidence I have for believing that there were dinosaurs in America does not support my belief that I have that belief. Nothing follows from the fossil records about my believing that there were dinosaurs in America. Nevertheless, the evidence I have for believing that there were dinosaurs in America puts me in a position to justifiably ascribe to myself the belief that there were dinosaurs in America without having to have recourse to further evidence. If that is not so, I could be in the following position. I am amply justified in concluding that there were dinosaurs in America. For me the question whether there were dinosaurs in America is closed. However, since I lack any evidence bearing on the matter, the 49
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question whether I believe there were dinosaurs in America remains open.7 Of course, for me, the question whether I believe there were dinosaurs in America does not remain open once I have settled the question whether there were any there. Having settled the answer to the second question it would betray a misunderstanding of the nature of belief for me to think that I need to conduct a separate investigation in order to arrive at an answer to the first. I justifiably conclude that there were dinosaurs in America. Without consulting further evidence I am able to immediately infer that I believe there were dinosaurs in America. In any case where it would be Moore-paradoxical for me to say, or think, that p, and go on to deny I believe p, I do not need evidence directly bearing on my having the belief that p in order to justifiably attribute that belief to myself. To recapitulate, the basic story about one's first-person authority over one's own beliefs goes like this. I have first-person authority over those of my beliefs that I am able to non-observationally, but warrantedly, attribute. In the case of any belief I am justified in holding, I am able to infer from what I believe being so to my believing that it is so. I am able to for the following reason. The justification I have for believing that p puts me in a position to affirmatively answer the question whether p. However, for me the question whether p is not distinguishable from the question whether I believe that p. So, once I am able to affirmatively answer the 7
Elijah Milgram in Milgram ibid, refers to what he calls the Moore Paradox Constraint which he puts as follows: if one is in a position to assert that p, one is in a position to assert, with equal force, that one believes that p, and vice versa. Provided that 'with equal force' is deleted from its statement, I agree that the Moore Paradox Constraint governs our concept of belief. However, Milgram concludes from this that, as he puts it, the Moore Paradox Constraint conserves inferential basis in the following sense: If the inferential warrant or basis for the assertion 'I believe that p' is W, and the assertion that p is licensed therefrom by the Moore Paradox Constraint, then the warrant or basis for the assertion that p is W; and, conversely, if the warrant or basis for the assertion that p is W, and I derive the assertion that I believe that p therefrom by the Moore Paradox Constraint, then the warrant or basis for my assertion that I believe that p is W. I am at one with Milgram in thinking that the Moore Paradox Constraint entitles me to move from asserting p to asserting that I believe p. Nevertheless, I part company from Milgram when he says that the Moore Paradox Constraint preserves inferential basis. When I consciously believe p, my evidence for believing that I believe p is not the same as my evidence for believing that p. Indeed, I have no evidence for believing that I believe p. We should distinguish the claim that my belief that I believe p is based on the same evidence as my belief that p from one that I am making which is this. Having evidence to believe p puts me in a position to warrantedly, but non-observationally, self attribute the belief that p. How this can be so will become clearer as we progess.
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question whether p, I am able to affirmatively answer the question whether I believe that p. I am able to do so without having to rely on any further evidence bearing on that question. Call this account of ones firstperson authority over consciously held beliefs the basic account. OBJECTIONS TO THE BASIC ACCOUNT
A number of objections can be raised against the basic account. The first is this.8 Some individuals suffer from obsessive compulsive disorders. Such a one may believe that, unless she performs some pointless ritual, disaster will strike. Now, it is characteristic of someone suffering from this type of disorder that they do not take their superstitious beliefs seriously. An individual who believes she has to repeatedly wash her hands in order to stave off disaster may be fully aware of the irrationality of that belief. In order to be moved by it, she need not see her belief as justified. It is integral to the basic account that one can non-observationally self attribute a belief only when that belief is justified. Whenever a belief is not justified one needs evidence in order to legitimately attribute it to oneself. The obsessive compulsive is fully prepared to acknowledge that her belief is irrational. Even she does not see it as justified. Nevertheless, the obsessive compulsive, arguably, does not need to rely on evidence in order to attribute that belief to herself. In particular, she does not need to infer from her behaviour that she possesses it. So, it seems we have a case where someone non-observationally self attributes an unjustified belief. Call this the objection from compulsion. The basic account relies on all statements of form (A), p, but I do not believe that p, being Moore-paradoxical. Suppose some statement of that form is not Moore-paradoxical. If so, some instances of the doxastic schema will fail to be valid. In some cases I will not be able to infer from p that I believe p. In those cases, at least, my justification for believing that p will not help to justify my belief that I believe p. Earlier I introduced the following form of statement: (A) I do not believe p, but p. Are there any counterexamples to the claim that all statements of form (A) are Moore-paradoxical? Here is one. Suppose some individual PC is an eliminativist about propositional attitudes. PC denies that there are any 8
I am indebted to Robert Dunn for calling my attention to this problem.
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beliefs, desires, intentions, and so on. PC then states: neurophysiology is the key to understanding the mind, but I do not believe that it is. Surely, in making this statement PC is simply being consistent. Given her position, there is nothing paradoxical about PC asserting something, and denying that she believes it. For this objection to go through, it matters not at all whether eliminativism is correct. All that matters is that the eliminativist can, without absurdity, combine eliminativism with making statements. There is no obvious reason why the eliminativist cannot. Call this the objection from eliminativism. The next objection also calls into question whether all beliefs that are non-observationally self attributable are justified. Suppose that someone holds a belief for some quite silly reason. Suppose Fred believes that he will meet a short, blond, beautiful stranger because his fortune-teller tells him so. Fred's belief in his impending meeting with the stranger is not at all justified. Nevertheless, Fred is entitled to attribute that belief to himself. Moreover, he is entitled to attribute that belief to himself without having to rely on evidence. Fred is non-observationally justified in believing that he believes that he will meet a short, blond, beautiful stranger. However, the basic account does not explain how Fred comes to be non-observationally justified in attributing the belief about the stranger to himself. According to the basic account, if Fred is justified in attributing to himself the belief in question, he will be so for the following reason. Fred is justified in believing that he will meet a short, blond, beautiful stranger. Fred then utilizes an instance of the doxastic schema to justifiably attribute the belief that he will meet the stranger to himself. The difficulty is that Fred is not justified in holding the belief he is attributing to himself. Nevertheless, Fred may well be non-observationally justified in believing that he has it. Call this the objection from lack of justification. Here, once again, is the doxastic schema: So, I believe p The next objection targets on the doxastic schema. As I have already noted instances of the doxastic schema do not conform to any standard pattern of valid inference. Can we say that the doxastic schema yields inferences that are valid in any sense? Here is a reason for denying that we can. Consider an example of a valid inference. Suppose I infer from John being 52
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six feet tall that he is at least five feet tall. I am justified in believing that John is six feet tall. So, I am justified in believing that John is at least five feet tall. Now, suppose that my sole basis for believing that John is at least five feet tall is that he is six feet tall. In that case, there would be something wrong with me saying this. John is six feet tall. However, even if John is not six feet tall, he is at least five feet tall. According to the basic account, I infer from there having been dinosaurs in America to my believing that there were. Since my belief that there were dinosaurs in America is justified, the doxastic schema justifies me in believing that I have that belief. Now, suppose, on the basis of evidence available to me, I conclude that there were dinosaurs in America. I proceed to infer that I believe there were. If I have any basis at all for believing that I believe there were dinosaurs in America, it is the one supplied by the doxastic schema. Nevertheless, there appears to be nothing wrong with me saying this. There were dinosaurs in America. Moreover, I believe that there were. However, even if there were no dinosaurs in America, I still believe that there were. If I conclude p solely on the bais of q then, from the point of view of my conclusion being supported, it should matter to me that q is true. I allegedly conclude that I believe that p solely on the basis of p. Nevertheless, from the point of view of my conclusion being supported, it does not appear to matter that p is true. Surely, this calls into question whether an instance of the doxastic schema is a genuine inference. Call this the objection to the doxastic schema.9 Next, there is an objection to the basic account that does not directly threaten it as an account of our first-person authority over our beliefs. We appear to have the same type of first-person authority over any of our propositional attitudes. I do not need to rely on evidence to tell what I believe. I also do not need to rely on evidence to tell what I desire, hope, conjecture, intend, fear, entertain, imagine, and so on. Moreover, it seems, I am in a position to know a priori what, for example, I consciously desire. Only two things are required for me to be able to know that I consciously desire to eat ice-cream. First, that I do consciously desire to eat ice-cream. Second, that I have the concepts of desire, eating, and ice-cream. Consider our first-person authority over our desires. Does the basic account tell us ' Robert Brandon in Brandon 1976 points out that one is, in general, not entitled to assert the conditional: if I believe p, then p. Likewise, one is not, in general, entitled to assert the conditional: if p, I believe p.
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how we can have first-person authority over our desires? At first sight, it seems not. Here is how the basic account works for belief. I have a reason for believing that the world is a certain way. I infer, by means of an instance of the doxastic schema, from it being that way that I believe it is. If I form the desire that the world be a certain way, of course, I need not take it to be the way I desire it to be. I desire that writing come easily to me. I am non-observationally justified in believing that I desire that writing come easily to me. Alas, writing does not come easily to me. So, I do not infer from writing coming easily to me that I desire that it does. I may desire that something be so without taking it to be so. Conversely, I may take something to be so without desiring it to be so. Consequently, the counterpart of the doxastic schema for desire: So, I desire that p does not even appear to be valid. The basic account leaves it mysterious how we are able to non-observationally attribute to ourselves propositional attitudes other than beliefs. Call this the objection from scope. The basic account applies to the first-person present tense ascriptions of belief. Suppose, I utter the following sentence: (S) 'I believe that the library is closed/ I have assumed that in uttering (S) I would be expressing a first-person present tense ascription of belief. I would be expressing a second-order belief that I have a certain first-order belief. Some hold that in asserting (S) I would, normally be doing no such thing. For example, according to J. O. Urmson, in uttering (S) I would, normally, not be talking about myself at all. Instead, I would be performing a quite different speech act. I would be asserting that the library is closed, in a cautious manner. Hence, there is no question of my having the non-observational knowledge of the self attribution made in uttering (S). Call this the speech act objection. The speech act objection is related to one that goes like this. I have evidence that the library is closed. I conclude that I believe that it is. In arriving at this conclusion I am not discovering what I antecedently believe about the library. Instead, I am making up my mind about the library, and expressing my conclusion about the library by means of (S). Once again, it is, at best, misleading to think of an utterance of (S) as expressing a first54
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person self attribution of a belief. Call this the Hampshire-Hart objection.10 Finally, there is an objection that introduces an alternative account of first-person authority inspired by Evans' comments. I conjectured that it is a necessary condition for a belief to be non-observationally self attributable that the believer take it to be warranted. Is it sufficient? Certainly, it seems not to be. Self-deception raises a number of difficult philosophical issues. Nevertheless, in a typical case of self-deception it is plausible to suppose that a self-deceiver recognizes something to be true which she refuses to acknowledge. If that is right, the following may well hold in a typical case of self-deception. A self-deceiver forms a belief which is fully justified. Because of the unpleasant consequences of acknowledging that she has formed it, she represses both the belief and the grounds she has for holding it. The self-deceiver will need evidence to self attribute her repressed, albeit warranted, belief. Self-deception apparently provides us with a case of a belief that is warranted without being non-observationally self attributable.x x Suppose we agree that the self deceiver is in no position to non-observationally attribute to herself her repressed belief. It follows that being warranted is not enough for a belief to be non-observationally self attributable. What is missing? Christopher Peacocke's account of our privileged access to our own beliefs provides an answer. PEACOCKE'S ACCOUNT
Peacocke's account of first-person authority over first-personally ascribed beliefs is part of a larger project. The more general project is to state a theory of concepts.12 For Peacocke a theory of concepts amounts to a theory of concept possession. Hence, Peacocke is concerned to articulate a theory of concept possession, and apply it to a number of central concepts. One of those is the concept of belief. Peacocke accepts that a theory of a concept should explain what is distinctive about its epistemology. He also accepts that the epistemology of first-person ascriptions of belief differs from the epistemology of thirdperson ascriptions. Accordingly, Peacocke offers two conditions for having 10
12
I call it the Hampshire—Hart objection because it is suggested by a position defended in n Hampshire and Hart 1958. I am indebted to Graham Priest for making this point. Peacocke states his theory in Peacocke 1992.
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the concept of belief: a first- and third-person condition. His first-person condition runs: runs 13 A relational concept R is that of belief only if the following condition is met: (F) the thinker finds the first-person content that he stands in R to the content p primitively compelling whenever he has the conscious belief that p, and he finds it compelling because he has the conscious belief that p.
It follows from (F) that if I have the concept of belief, and consciously believe that p, then I will find it primitively compelling that I believe that p. So, what is it to find something primitively compelling? Peacocke selects the concept of conjunction to illustrate primitive compulsion. C is the concept of conjunction only if anyone who has C finds, for example, the transition from p and q to pCq primitively compelling. For a thinker to find this transition primitively compelling amounts to three conditions being satisfied, (a) She finds it compelling, (b) She does not find it compelling because she derives it from other premises or principles, (c) She does not take the transition in question to be answerable to something else, e.g. a theory. How does Peacocke's proposal compare with the basic account? The basic account incorporates an explanation of how a thinker moves from the belief that p to the non-observationally justified belief that she believes p. First the thinker justifiably concludes that p. Next she makes an inference-like transition corresponding to the following thought, p, so I believe p. Putting together her justified conclusion that p with the inference-like transition from p to I believe p, she justifiably concludes that she believes p. We have found this explanation of how one arrives at nonobservationally justified conclusions about one's beliefs to be open to criticism. However, Peacocke has no like story to tell. Peacocke does not attempt to explain how one makes the transition from consciously believing that p to justifiably believing that one believes p. Instead he defends the following claim. If, in virtue of having the concept of belief, an individual concludes that she believes that p because she consciously believes that p then her belief that she believes p amounts to knowledge. We will need to examine that claim later. Another point of comparison between the basic account and Peacocke's proposal is this. As we have seen, the basic account is vulnerable to the following criticism. It seems possible to form a warranted belief non13
Peacocke ibid., p. 151.
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consciously. Such a belief could only be justifiably self attributed on the basis of evidence. Of course, Peacocke's account is not subject to this criticism. For Peacocke the crucial transition is from a conscious rather than a warranted belief. According to Peacocke's (F), which specifies the condition for a relational concept R being the concept of belief, the thinker finds the firstperson content that she stands in R to the content p primitively compelling whenever she has the conscious belief that p, and she finds it primitively compelling because she has the conscious belief that p. How well does (F) serve as the basis of an account of the self ascription of belief? Peacocke is sensitive to the charge that, for his purposes, (F) is circular. Peacocke's main concern is not to give an account of first-person authority. His main concern is to state a requirement for having the concept of belief. From his point of view, an account specifying a requirement for having the concept of belief would be circular if satisfying that requirement implies that one has the concept of belief. So, satisfying the relevant requirement for having the concept of belief should not imply that one has a belief about a belief. For that reason, Peacocke is anxious to show that having a conscious belief is not best analyzed as having the belief that one has a belief. Peacocke is surely right that it would be a mistake to analyze having a conscious belief as having a second-order belief. As Peacocke points out, if a first-order belief can be non-conscious there is nothing to preclude a higher-order belief from being non-conscious. More crucially, he alleges that having a second-order belief is not a necessary condition for having a conscious belief. Peacocke makes a persuasive case for denying that having a secondorder belief is a necessary condition for having a conscious belief. In doing so, he deflects the threat of circularity to his account as an account of what it is to possess the concept of belief. However, he does not deflect the threat of circularity to his account as an account of one's first-person authority over one's beliefs. Allow that having a conscious belief does not imply having a belief that one has that conscious belief. It remains to be seen whether having a conscious belief is best understood in terms of first-person authority rather than the other way round. (F) says that the thinkerfindsthe first-person content that she stands in R to the content p primitively compelling whenever she has the conscious 57
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belief that p, and shefindsit compelling because she has the conscious belief that p. Two questions need to be addressed about (F). Is (F) true? If (F) is true, does this follow? Anyone who, in virtue of having the concept of belief, believes that she believes that p because she consciously believes that p, knows that she believes p. In other words, does (F) yield an account of firstperson authority? We will find the answers to these questions connected. Is (F) true? Apparently it is not. Again consider PC, our eliminativist about the mental. Suppose PC is wrong, and has conscious beliefs. PC does not find it at all compelling that she has beliefs. Nevertheless, PC need not lack the concept of belief. Hence, we have someone who has the concept of belief, but does not believe that she believes that p when, and because, she consciously believes p. It may seem a straightforward matter to amend (F) in the light of this objection. We make the relevant clause in (F) subject to a defeating condition. We say that a relational concept R is that of belief just in case if a thinker has no reason not to find the content that she stands in R to p primitively compelling, she will find that content primitively compelling whenever, and because, she consciously believes p. The danger with amending (F) in this way is that it threatens to undermine (F) as an account of our first-person authority over our beliefs. Peacocke appeals to the following principle in defence of (F) as an account of our knowledge of our own beliefs: Link between Possession Conditions and Knowledge Take any mental state of the thinker that a possession condition for a concept says is sufficient for a thinker finding primitively compelling a given content containing the concept. Then when the thinker judges that content and for the reason he is in that state, his judgment constitutes knowledge. (Peacocke 1992, p. 157) If (F) is amended in the way envisaged then the first sentence of Peacocke's
Link between Possession Conditions and Knowledge would need to be amended to: Take any mental state of a thinker that a possession condition for a concept says is sufficient for a thinker finding primitively compelling a given content containing that concept unless she has reason not to find that content compelling}* 14
That is, unless she has reason to remain agnostic about the relevant content. Why not say, unless she has reason to find that content uncompelling? After all, PC the eliminativist has reason to disbelieve that she has any beliefs. However, there could well be someone who finds the arguments for eliminativism sufficiently persuasive to be agnostic about the existence of mental states. Like PC, such a one could consciously hold a belief, and have the concept of belief, without believing that she has any beliefs.
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We are considering amending (F) in the following way: if a thinker has no reason not to find the content that she stands in R to p primitively compelling, she will find that content primitively compelling whenever, and because, she consciously believes p. Put somewhat abstractly, the problem with (F), so amended, is this. Suppose that some possessors of a concept C are conditioned in the following way. Any possessor of C who is ignorant of certain considerations is conditioned to accept a proposition p, involving C, whenever she is in mental state M. The conditioning is so effective that it forges an unbreakable link between having C, being in M, and accepting p. Because of the effectiveness of the conditioning, we would rightly conclude that anyone who does not accept p but is in M, and is ignorant in the way envisaged, could not have C. Surely, it does not follow that any possessor of C who accepts p because she is in M, knows that p. Here is a case illustrating this objection. Suppose some experimental psychologists set out to condition a group of individuals whom I will call the subjects. A subject is conditioned to accept that she is in neural state H whenever she is suffering from a headache. There is not the slightest evidence available to either the experimenters or their subjects indicating that there is a correlation between being in H and suffering from a headache. Call evidence indicating a correlation between being in H and suffering from a headache correlation evidence. No one has access to correlation evidence. Nevertheless, so effective is the experimenters' conditioning that there could only be two explanations for a subject who suffers from a headache failing to believe that she is in H. Either she has reason to believe that no one has access to correlation evidence, or she lacks the concept of being in H. As you will have guessed, there is an invariable correlation between suffering from a headache and being in H. Now consider a subject who is ignorant of the fact that no one has access to correlation evidence. Moreover, our subject has the concept of being in neural state H. Hence, it is sufficient for our subject to believe she is in H that she suffers from a headache. That is, it is sufficient for our subject to believe she is in H that she is in H. Our subject satisfies the conditions laid down in the amended version of (F) for knowing that she is in H. Unless our subject has reason to believe that she ought to be agnostic about being in H, having the concept of being in H and being in H will be sufficient for her to be in H. Nevertheless, it would be outrageous to suggest that she knows she is in H in virtue of being in H and having the concept of being in that state. 59
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Is this so? It all depends on how 'reasons for belief' is to be understood. In one sense a reason for belief is whatever state induces a belief. In this sense, a reason for belief need not constitute an individual's justification for believing. Call a reason for believing in this sense an explanatory, in contrast with a justificatory, reason for believing. If'reason for believing' is taken to mean justificatory reason in the above passage, then we should accept what Peacocke says. However, taking 'reason for believing' in this way would undermine (F) as the basis of an account of our first-person authority over our beliefs. In that case, the account delivered by (F) would run as follows: (F*) A individual who has the concept of belief, finds it primitively compelling that she believes p whenever she has the conscious belief that p, and is justified in believing that she believes p. Clearly (F*) is useless as an account of our privileged access to our beliefs. On the other hand, if'reason for belief means explanatory reason, it is far from obvious that what Peacocke says in the above passage is correct. We can, I think, view Peacocke s account of first-person authority as a refinement of the self-intimation thesis discussed in the first chapter. According to that thesis, whenever one has a propositional attitude one will believe one has it. According to Peacocke's counterpart thesis, whenever one consciously has a certain propositional attitude, belief, then, provided one has the concept of belief, one will believe one has that attitude. I am arguing that, as an account of first-person authority, Peacocke s proposal shares two defects with the self-intimation thesis. The first is this. Allow that there is an invariable correlation between believing something and believing that one believes it.16 It does not follow that a belief that one has a belief is ever justified. In addition, neither Peacocke s thesis nor a selfintimation thesis yields an account of how one makes the transition from having even a conscious belief to warrantedly attributing that belief to oneself. In that respect the basic account is at an advantage. 15 16
In Peacocke 1992, p. 158. I would not wish to give the impression that Peacocke is insensitive to this issue.
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TWO
OBJECTIONS
I will conclude this chapter with a discussion of two of the previously stated objections to the basic account. The first, the objection from compulsion, goes like this. The basic account discerns a link between being justified in holding a belief and being in a position to non-observationally self attribute that belief. According to the basic account I am justified in non-observationally self attributing a belief because I am justified in holding the self attributed belief. However, someone suffering from an obsessive-compulsive disorder may non-observationally attribute to herself a belief which she does not endorse. Hence, it is possible to be nonobservationally justified in believing that one has a belief one acknowledges to be unjustified. In responding to this objection three cases need to be distinguished. In the first the obsessive-compulsive does take herself to have adequate justification for holding the belief leading to her compulsive behaviour. We can see that the justification she offers is inadequate. She cannot. I entitled one objection to the basic account the lack-of-justification problem which is this. It seems we are in a position to non-observationally self attribute unjustified beliefs. Hence, we should reject the basic account which tells us that we are only able to non-observationally self attribute justified beliefs. Clearly the first case is simply a further illustration of the justification problem. For that reason I will set it aside until that problem is dealt with. The second case is where someone notes that she has a disposition to behave in a compulsive way, and infers that the disposition is triggered by a compulsive belief. In this second case the compulsive does have evidence for attributing an avowedly unjustified belief to herself. She has the evidence provided by her disposition to behave. The last case is the most problematic. In the last case the compulsive does not rely on how she is disposed to behave in order to attribute a compulsive belief to herself. She is able to attribute that belief to herself quite spontaneously. Nevertheless, she does not take her compulsive belief to be justified. How, in more detail, should this last case be described? For it to be at all convincing it needs, I suggest, to be described like this. The onset of fear prompts the compulsive to experience an urge to take certain steps to avoid disaster. She infers from her urge to take those steps that she has the corresponding compulsive belief. 61
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The basic and extended accounts
If this description of the last case is correct, the compulsive ascribes a compulsive belief on the basis of evidence. Not, admittedly, evidence provided by her observation of her behaviour. Instead, it is evidence provided by her being in a state, her urge, with a distinctive phenomenology. In none of the three cases I have distinguished do we have an example of someone who non-observationally, but justifiably, attributes a belief to herself which she does not take to be justified. Either the obsessivecompulsive does take herself to be justified in holding the belief she attributes, or she bases her attribution on evidence. What of the objection from eliminativism? The basic account relies on the acceptability of the doxastic schema which is: So, I believe p We are to envisage the eliminativist stating without absurdity: neurophysiology holds the key to the mind, but I do not believe that it does. Hence, the eliminativist will, rightly, refuse to infer from, as she sees it, neurophysiology holding the key to the mind that she believes that it does. In general, for any p, the eliminativist is justified in refusing to infer from p that she believes p. The doxastic schema is invalidated. As was earlier emphasized, instances of the doxastic schema will not be deductively valid. If it is correct to describe instances of the doxastic schema as inferences at all, they will be defeasibly valid inferences. I am entitled to infer from a match being struck that it will light. I am not entitled to infer from a match that was soaked in water being struck that it will light. Notoriously, one may be justified in inferring q from p, but fail to be justified in inferring q from p combined with the justified belief that r. Suppose the eliminativist is justified in believing in eliminativism. When she combines her belief that neurophysiology is the key to the mind with her belief in eliminativism, she should not infer that she believes that p. It does not follow that instances of the doxastic schema are invalid. All that follows is that instances of the doxastic schema are not deductively valid. The basic account is in trouble if the eliminativist who is justified in believing in eliminativism is also non-observationally justified in attributing beliefs to herself. The question would then arise: how can the eliminativist non-observationally attribute beliefs to herself without relying on an instance of the doxastic schema to do so? However, there is 62
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no reason to think that someone who is justified in believing in eliminativism would be justified in attributing beliefs to herself at all, let alone non-observationally.17 The basic account is designed to answer the following question. What entitles someone to self attribute a consciously held belief without having any evidence to do so? Here, in summary, is the answer given by the basic account. I come to consciously believe that p. If my belief that p is consciously held then, subject to certain qualifications, I will take myself to be justified in believing p. So, I will take p to be true. I am warranted in making inferences licensed by the doxastic schema. Hence, I am warranted in concluding from p being so that I believe p is so. I am justified in giving the same answer to the question whether I believe p that I give to the question whether p. We may say that I am justified, from a first-person perspective, in treating the question whether I believe p as indistinguishable from the question whether p. Of course, as it stands the basic account leaves a crucial issue unresolved. Why am I justified, from a first-person perspective, in treating the question whether p as indistinguishable from the question whether I believe p? That is an issue I will attempt to resolve in the next two chapters. Before doing so I will address a major objection to the basic account. I have in mind the objection to the doxastic schema. How can we see an individual moving from p to her believing p as an inference; let alone a good inference? 17
I have taken the objection from eliminativism to be a telling objection against Peacocke's account, but not against the basic account. Why so? Peacocke takes consciously believing p together with having the concept of belief to be sufficient for believing that one believes p. The objection from eliminativism shows this to be mistaken. Consequently, we amend Peacocke's account thus. Anyone who consciously believes p, has the concept of belief, and has no reason to be agnostic about believing p, will make the transition to believing that she believes p. Is there any reason to think that when such an individual makes the transition to a second-order belief she arrives at a justified second-order belief? There is not, since nothing is said about the nature of the transition. According to the basic account, an individual who has no reason to be agnostic about believing p, and warrantedly believes p, will infer from p that she believes p. Is there any reason to think that such an individual who makes that inference will arrive at a justified second-order belief? There is if instances of the doxastic schema qualify as good inferences. Whether that is so is a matter we will take up in due course.
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Defending the basic account If instances of the doxastic schema are valid the move from p to 'I believe p' is warranted. Are instances of the doxastic schema valid? Are they properly called inferences? Having concluded that whales are mammals, it is, ceteris paribus, rational for me to conclude that I believe they are. Why is it rational for me to so conclude? In order to approach an answer to this question I will attempt to answer a different one. What is the function of our ability to attribute beliefs? In what way would we be disadvantaged if we lacked that ability? Philosophers have almost exclusively focused on a particular answer to this last question. Employing the concept of belief has considerable explanatory utility. If one wishes to explain, or anticipate, the behaviour of another, it is well to find out what that person believes. In giving this answer we are adopting a third-person perspective. Attributing beliefs has utility insofar as doing so helps to explain the behaviour of others. I wish to give an account of the function of our concept of belief which shifts emphasis to the first-person perspective. From that perspective how would it be if one lacked the ability to attribute to oneself beliefs, thoughts, suppositions, conjectures and the like except on the basis of evidence? We are considering someone who has the concept of belief, and is still able to rationally form and revise beliefs. It is just that she is unable to form justified second-order beliefs without consulting her behaviour. We are considering someone whom Sydney Shoemaker calls a self-blind individual.1 SHOEMAKER ON FIRST-PERSON AUTHORITY
In 'On Knowing One's Own Mind' Shoemaker opposes the view that we access our own beliefs, and other propositional attitudes, by means of 1
In Shoemaker 1988.
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introspection conceived of as a faculty of inner perception.2 According to Shoemaker the inner perception view has the following consequence. It is a contingent matter that a rational individual who has the concept of belief, and has first-order beliefs, desires and intentions, also has beliefs about her first-order beliefs, desires and intentions. We could have a selfblind individual who satisfies the following conditions. She lacks a faculty of inner perception, and so is unable to attribute beliefs to herself save on the basis of observing her behaviour. Nevertheless, she has the concept of belief. In addition, she rationally forms and revises her beliefs about matters that do not concern what belief states she is in as well as one who is not self-blind. If the answer to a question has no implications about what she believes, a self-blind person is in as good a position as anyone else to rationally resolve it.3 Shoemaker argues that there could not be a self-blind individual. His argument is complex, and hard to do justice to without devoting more space to it than I am able to here. However, its main steps appear to be the following.4 Shoemaker begins by commenting on the utility of the type of selfknowledge he is interested in. Ability to access our beliefs has value in, at least, two respects. First, it enables us to convey information to others about our beliefs which helps them to predict our behaviour. Second, it seems essential to deliberation. As Shoemaker points out, in deliberation one is not simply allowing one's strongest desire to win out. One is adjudicating Shoemaker develops a sustained criticism of this view of introspection in Shoemaker 1994a and Shoemaker 1994b. What type of access does a self-blind individual have to her past beliefs? In particular, what type of access does a self-blind individual have to her past beliefs through memory? Suppose self-blind Sadie recollects that she went to the store yesterday. Even if Sadie believed she was in a store yesterday, she is not in a position to say that she did unless she has independent grounds for self attributing that past belief. One might question the notion of independent grounds. Consider a principle I will call the memory principle: if one remembers that p then one has had a past belief that p. Is someone who employs the memory principle to self attribute a past belief doing so on independent grounds? Whether or not 'independent grounds' is an apt expression to use in this case, a self-blind individual who justifiably employs the memory principle requires evidence for its truth. In that sense the self attribution based on the memory principle is made on independent grounds. I am grateful to Kent Bach for forcing me to clarify this issue. I shall be exclusively concerned with Shoemaker's arguments that no one could be selfblind with respect to her beliefs. In Shoemaker 1994a and 1994b he attempts to argue for the more ambitious thesis that no one could be self-blind with respect to psychological states which have a distinctive phenomenology as well as those that lack one.
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between one's desires. In order to do so, one needs to know what one's desires are, and which of one's beliefs are relevant to satisfying those desires. Hence, one needs to have knowledge of one's beliefs and desires. As Shoemaker would be the first to concede, showing that a self-blind individual would be greatly inconvenienced does not amount to showing that there could not be such an individual. In order to show that a selfblind individual is impossible Shoemaker appeals to a principle which he states as follows:5 I am tempted to say that if everything is asifa creature has knowledge of its beliefs and desires, then it does have knowledge of them. Call this principle the evidence principle. Apparently Shoemaker intends the evidence principle to be taken in the following way. If all of the relevant behaviour that an individual does, or would, exhibit confirms that she has knowledge of her beliefs and desires then she does have such knowledge. That the evidence principle is to be taken in this way is confirmed by his remark 'There is no phenomenology of self-knowledge of such states that is in danger of being ignored if we say this.'6 How does Shoemaker use the evidence principle to attempt to demonstrate the impossibility of a self-blind individual? His first thought is this. Suppose a self-blind individual adjusts her beliefs and desires in order to iron out inconsistencies in those beliefs and desires. Shoemaker contends that it would be as if she had a second-order desire for consistency among her beliefs combined with second-order beliefs about which of her beliefs are inconsistent. According to the evidence principle our putatively selfblind individual would not be self-blind after all. Shoemaker recognizes that, as he puts it, someone may be hard-wired to adjust her beliefs and desires in conformity with rational requirements without having any beliefs about her beliefs or desires. Accordingly he adopts a different approach to attempting to show that a self-blind individual is impossible. Earlier we considered the class of Moore-paradoxical sentences. Included in that class is any sentence of the form 'p, but I do not believe p'. Shoemaker maintains that anyone who has the concept of belief will wish to avoid making assertions using sentences of that form. In particular a hypothetical self-blind individual whom Shoemaker calls George will wish to do so because: 5
Shoemaker 1988, p. 192.
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6
Ibid.
Defending the basic account
Being as conceptually sophisticated as any of us, George ought to be as capable as anyone of recognizing the paradoxical character of Moore-paradoxical sentences. Unfortunately, there appears to be no generally agreed-on account of what exactly the logical impropriety involved in asserting such sentences is. But I suppose it would be generally agreed that the assertive utterance of such a sentence would be self-defeating. Since in asserting the first conjunct one would, if sincere, be expressing the belief which the second conjunct denies one has, one could not hope to get the audience to accept both conjuncts on one's say-so, and could have little hope of getting them to accept either. In any case, whatever the details of the right account, it ought to be possible to get George to recognize that the assertive utterance of Moore-paradoxical sentences involves some sort of logical impropriety, and defeats the normal purposes of assertion.7
A self-blind individual will frequently be in the following position. She will have reason to believe p, but no reason to believe that she believes p. In that case, if she is able to make assertions, she will be prepared to assert p without being prepared to assert that she believes p. In addition, a selfblind individual could be in the following position. She has reason to assert that p, but, in the light of her behaviour, has reason to deny that she believes p. Shoemaker suggests in the above passage that, relying on his grasp of the concepts of belief and assertion, we could bring allegedly self-blind George to be prepared to assert that he believes p whenever he is prepared to assert p. If we did, George's verbal behaviour would indicate that he takes himself to believe whatever he is prepared to assert. It would be as if George is not self-blind. According to the evidence principle, if George behaves like one who is not self-blind then he is not self-blind. Employing the evidence principle, we should conclude that George is not self-blind. Call a self-blind individual who is prepared to assert what she believes even if she has no evidence about what she believes a self-blind asserter. In brief, Shoemaker's argument goes like this. If a self-blind individual is possible, a self-blind asserter is possible. A self-blind asserter would avoid Moore-paradoxical utterances. Anyone who avoids Moore-paradoxical utterances is behaviourally indistinguishable from someone who is not self-blind. It follows from the evidence principle that anyone who is behaviourally indistinguishable from someone who is not self-blind, is not self-blind. So, a self-blind asserter would not be self-blind. A self-blind asserter is impossible. Hence, a self-blind individual is impossible. Shoemaker responds to objections to the first premise of his argument. 7
Shoemaker ibid., p. 194.
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What these objections purport to show is that there could be a self-blind individual even if there could not be a self-blind asserter. Let us grant that Shoemakers first premise is correct. If there could be a self-blind individual, there could be a self-blind asserter. Has Shoemaker succeeded in showing that there could not be a self-blind asserter? Shoemaker correctly points out that a self-blind asserter will have as firm a grasp of the concepts of belief and assertion as any of the rest of us. Why does he think it follows that there could not be a self-blind asserter? Shoemakers argument for this conclusion is contained in the previously quoted passage. He makes the following claims in that passage. A self-blind individual could be brought to recognize the paradoxical character of Moore-paradoxical utterances. This is because an assertive utterance of such a sentence would be self-defeating. In asserting the first conjunct one would, if sincere, be expressing a belief the second conjunct denies one has. Hence, one could not get an audience to accept both conjuncts, and, so, not either conjunct. It is not immediately clear how this argument is supposed to go. I offer the following reconstruction which focuses on the assertion that there are mountains on the other side of the moon. The aim of the argument is to show that a self-blind individual could not make that assertion. The first premiss is: (1) If there could be a self-blind asserter who both believes and is prepared to assert that there are mountains on the other side of the moon, there could be a self-blind asserter who both believes and is prepared to assert that there are mountains on the other side of the moon, and also believes that she does not believe that there are mountains on the other side of the moon. (2) Any self-blind asserter who believes that she does not believe that p is prepared to assert that she does not believe that p. (3) Any self-blind asserter who is prepared to assert p, and prepared to assert q, is prepared to assert the conjunction of p and q. From (1), (2) and (3) it follows that: (4) If there could be a self-blind asserter who believes and asserts that there are mountains on the other side of the moon, there could be a self-blind asserter who is prepared to assert to some audience A both that there are mountains on the other side of the moon and that she does not believe there are. 68
Defending the basic account (5) For any audience A and individual S, S is prepared to sincerely assert p to A only if S does not recognize that A will not believe p. (6) For any audience A and self-blind asserter S, S will recognize that A will not believe S's assertion both that there are mountains on the other side of the moon, and that she does not believe there are. From (5) and (6) we have: (7) No self-blind asserter will be prepared to sincerely assert both that there are mountains on the other side of the moon and that she does not believe there are. From (4) and (7) we have: (8) There could not be a self-blind asserter who believes and asserts that there are mountains on the other side of the moon. Since the proposition that there are mountains on the other side of the moon was arbitrarily selected, it is reasonable to claim: (9) There could be a self-blind asserter only if there could be a self-blind asserter who sincerely asserts that there are mountains on the other side of the moon. From (8) and (9) we can derive: (10) There could not be a self-blind asserter. We have granted to Shoemaker that there could be a self-blind individual only if there could be a self-blind asserter. So, we should conclude that there could not be a self-blind individual. Is the argument from (1)—(9) to (10) valid? The first point to note is this. The argument is valid only if premises (2), (3), (5) and (6) are all necessarily true. Premiss (1) has the form: (i) 0 (3x)Fx -> 0 (3x) (Fx & Gx). (2) has the form: (ii) (x)(Gx -+ Hx). (3) has the form: (iii) (x) (Fx & Hx - * Ix). Finally, (4) has the form: (iv) () (3x) Fx -> Q (3x)Ix. There is no guarantee that an instance of (iv) can be validly inferred from instances of (i), (ii) and (iii). There is no such guarantee unless the relevant instances of (ii) and (iii) are necessarily true. I leave it to the reader to verify that like considerations show that the validity of the argument from (l)-(9) to (10) depends on the necessity of (5) and (6). Is the above version of Shoemaker's argument sound? (1) says that if there could be a self-blind asserter who both believes and asserts that there 69
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are mountains on the other side of the moon, there could be a self-blind asserter who is prepared to sincerely assert to some audience A both that there are mountains on the other side of the moon and that she does not believe there are. (1) is doubtful. Clearly, if there could be a self-blind asserter, there could be someone who sincerely asserts p, but does not believe that she believes p. It is far from obvious that if there could be a self-blind asserter, there could be someone who sincerely asserts p, but believes that she does not believe p.8 (2) says that any self-blind asserter who believes she does not believe that p is prepared to assert she does not believe p. (3) says that any self-blind asserter who is prepared to assert p, and prepared to assert q, is prepared to assert their conjunction. As we have seen, we have no reason to believe Shoemakers argument is valid, unless (2) and (3) are both necessary. I see no reason to think that (2) or (3) are necessary. Moreover, far from being necessary, I see no reason to think that (3) would be true if there were any self-blind asserters. A self-blind asserter may be prepared to assert that there are mountains on the other side of the moon, and prepared to assert that she does not believe that there are, without being prepared to assert these things together. She may be prepared to assert each one without being prepared to assert both precisely for the reason that Shoemaker gives. Our self-blind asserter knows that if she asserts, by itself, that there are mountains on the moon, she has every chance of being believed. Our self-blind asserter knows that if she asserts that she does not believe there are mountains on the other side of the moon, she has some chance of being believed. On the other hand, our self-blind asserter also knows that if she asserts both that there are mountains on the other side of the moon, and that she does not believe there are, she has no chance of being believed. (3) gains credibility because the phrase 'self-blind asserter' is ambiguous. It could mean one who is typically prepared to assert what she believes. Alternatively, it could mean one who is always prepared to assert what she believes. Suppose we stipulate that it means one who is always prepared to assert what she believes. If we do then there is no reason to grant to In responding to an objection to a different argument, which I will consider later, Shoemaker argues on pp. 199—200 of Shoemaker ibid, that there could not be someone who both sincerely asserts p, and believes that she does not believe p. I find Shoemaker's argument unconvincing. However, if it succeeds, it may well provide a reason for thinking that the impossibility of there being someone who sincerely asserts p, while believing that she does not believe p, does not prejudice the possibility of there being a self-blind asserter.
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Shoemaker the premiss that a self-blind individual is possible only if a selfblind asserter is. (4) says this. It follows from the possibility of there being a self-blind asserter who believes and asserts that there are mountains on the other side of the moon that there could be a self-blind asserter who is prepared to assert to some audience A both that there are mountains on the other side of the moon, and that she does not believe there are. (5) says that an individual S is prepared to assert p to an audience A only if this is so. S does not recognize that A will not believe p. The argument for (4) has been undermined. Suppose we nevertheless accept (4). Should we accept (5)? I see no reason to. Surely, one might be prepared to assert something even if one knows that there is no chance of one being believed. Suppose we accept (5). Is (6) necessarily true? Without begging the question we cannot assume that it is. According to (6) an individual S will recognize, for any audience A, that A will not believe S if she asserts the following. There are mountains on the other side of the moon, but I do not believe there are. Suppose there could be a self-blind asserter. In that case, there could be a self-blind asserter who expects to be believed by a target audience when she asserts both p and that she does not believe p. She will expect to be believed by an audience of self-blind asserters. Perhaps a self-blind asserter will not be prepared to assert that there are mountains on the other side of the moon and that she does not believe there are to an audience of normal believers, but nothing follows from that. One may very well not be prepared to assert something to someone whose background beliefs ensure that one will not be taken seriously. The conclusion of Shoemaker's argument is that there could not be a self-blind asserter. Notice that Shoemaker's evidence principle plays no role in the argument from (l)-(9) to (10). In 'On Knowing One's Own Mind' Shoemaker can be seen as offering an alternative argument for (10). The evidence principle says that anyone who behaves as if she is not selfblind is not self-blind. The evidence principle plays a crucial role in the alternative argument. Here is how it goes. Consider again self-blind George. Whether or not George avoids making Moore-paradoxical statements of the form 'p, but I do not believe p', he could be trained to do so. We simply issue the following instruction to George. Whenever you are prepared to assert p always be prepared to assert that you believe p. We may be sure that George will not go astray if he follows this advice. Suppose George sincerely asserts that p. He is bound to be saying something true in adding that he believes p. 71
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We have instructed George to follow the rule: always be prepared to assert that you believe p if you are prepared to assert p. If he does, he will be indistinguishable from a normal believer. According to the evidence principle George is not self-blind after all. There are a number of ways in which this argument goes wrong. It does not show that a self-blind asserter is impossible. At most, it shows the impossibility of a self-blind asserter who is conditioned to follow the rule 'assert p only if you are prepared to assert that you believe p'. Does it even show that? What makes George a self-blind asserter is this. Without behavioural evidence George is never justified in believing that he believes what he is asserting. Suppose George is prepared to assert that there are mountains on the other side of the moon. In addition, suppose, in response to his training, George is prepared to assert that he believes there are mountains on the other side of the moon. He may well be saying the following things to himself. When I assert I believe there are mountains on the other side of the moon, I have no reason to think that what I am asserting is true. I am prepared to assert that I believe there are mountains on the other side of the moon. I have not the slightest reason to think I hold that belief. George is prepared to assert that there are mountains on the other side of the moon. We who are not self-blind have every reason to think that George will be asserting something true if he asserts that he believes there are mountains on the other side of the moon. George need have no reason to share our confidence even if he is prepared to match an assertion that there are mountains on the other side of the moon with an assertion that he believes there are. Shoemaker gives a different, albeit related, argument to demonstrate the impossibility of self-blindness.9 The first premiss of Shoemaker's alternative argument is this. If I recognize that P is true, I will be disposed to employ P in my reasoning both theoretical and practical. In particular, I will acknowledge that it is in my interests to take the truth of P into account when I ask how I should act. Moreover, I will also acknowledge it is in the interests of others to take into account the truth of P. Since it is in my interests to secure the co-operation of others in furthering those of my projects that P has bearing on, it is in my interests to act as if P is true. Others will act as if P is true only if they believe it is. One way to promote others believing that P is true is for me to act as if I believe it is. Acting as if I believe P is true includes being prepared to assert that I 9
He gives this argument in Shoemaker 1988, and in Shoemaker 1994b.
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believe it is. Being prepared to assert that P is true is, among other things, acting as if I believe that I believe that P is true. So, I will be prepared to act as if I believe that I believe P to be true. According to Shoemaker's evidence principle, it follows that I do have that second-order belief. In advancing this argument Shoemaker, it seems to me, does not take sufficiently seriously the consequences of being self-blind. Suppose, I am self-blind. In addition, suppose I have no evidence that indicates that I believe that there is water in the vicinity. I am traveling through a desert. So, it is greatly in my interest to detect the presence of water. It is also greatly in the interest of my fellow desert traveler to find water. If there is water in the vicinity, we should start searching for it. I come to believe there is water nearby. Nevertheless, since I am selfblind, that belief does not register as a belief. How does it register? Presumably, it registers like this. For me, it is just a fact that there is water nearby. Not necessarily a fact that I, or anyone else, believe in. As a selfblind individual I will not be prepared to move straightaway from: (a) There is water nearby, to: (b) I believe there is water nearby. Since I am not prepared, without additional information, to move from (a) to (b), I will view my practical reasoning in a different light from that of a normal believer. A normal believer, in my circumstances, will derive from (a) the practical conclusion that: (c) I should look for water. However, a normal believer will accept that the truth of (a) is not enough to give her a motivation to search for water. In order to have such a motivation (b) has to be true as well. This is so because, when it comes to deciding how she should act, a normal believer will accept that she can take the truth of (a) into account only if (b) is true. A self-blind individual is in a different position. In deciding how to act, a self-blind individual can take the truth of (a) into account, and accept that she is doing so, without admitting (b).10 10
Accepting that one can act on (a) only if one can take the truth of (a) into account is not the same as accepting that one can act on (a) only if one believes (a). A self-blind believer will believe that she can take the truth of something into account even if she does not believe it.
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How do these observations bear on Shoemaker s argument? Given that I believe (a), I acknowledge that it is in my interests to take the truth of (a) into account. I also acknowledge that it is in my interest to get my fellow desert traveler to acknowledge the truth of (a). By co-operating we stand a better chance of finding the water I believe to be nearby. So, I have reason to act as if (a) is true. However, for me, acting as if (a) is true is one thing. Acting as if I believe that (a) is true is another. Since I am self-blind, I will sever the link between being able to act on (a), and being able to act on (a) only if (b) is true. Since I am self-blind, I believe that someone can act on (a) without believing that (a) is true. So, I may well believe the following. If I assert (a), my partner will act on (a) without either of us believing that (a) is true. Hence, I may well be prepared to assert (a) without being prepared to assert (b). I may well be prepared to behave as if I take (a) is true without being prepared to behave as if (b) is. Shoemaker has this to say about a rational believer:11 Rationality does not guarantee honesty, and it does not guarantee openness. But one thing that will be true of a rational agent, whether her intentions are honest or dishonest, is that she will answer affirmatively to the question 'Do you believe that P?' if and only if she will answer affirmatively to the question 'Is it true that P?\ What Shoemaker says in this passage may hold for a normal believer. It does not hold for a self-blind individual. A normal individual will give the same answer to Shoemakers two questions precisely because she is prepared to move from consciously believing P to self attributing that belief, and conversely. A self-blind individual is not prepared to make that move. Nevertheless, a self-blind individual ought to answer the question 'Do you believe P?' in the same way that she answers the question 'Is P true?'. Our task is to see why she ought. Simply assuming that a self-blind individual will be prepared to assert something if and only if she is prepared to assert that she believes it does not help to discharge that task. Shoemaker, it seems to me, has failed to show that there could not be a self-blind individual. Nevertheless, there is a way to vindicate Shoemaker. There is a way to show that there could not be a self-blind individual.12 II 12
Shoemaker, 1994b. When assessing the ensuing arguments keep in mind that a self-blind individual can form beliefs about her non-doxastic world as rationally as anyone who is not self-blind. It is enough to show that there could not be a self-blind individual to show that someone who satisfies all the other conditions for being self-blind would have to have a less rational view of the world than one who is not self-blind.
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The basic account left the following key question unanswered. Why is one justified, from a first-person perspective, in treating the question whether p as indistinguishable from the question whether one believes p? If it can be shown that there could not be a self-blind individual, we will be well on our way to answering that question. Suppose, there could not be a selfblind individual. In that case, anyone who consciously forms the belief that p needs no further evidence to be justified in believing that she believes p. THE POSSIBILITY OF SELF-BLINDNESS
Here is what it takes to be self-blind. You are self-blind if you satisfy the following conditions. You have a full repertoire of semantic and epistemic concepts including the concepts of belief, justification, truth and falsity. You form your beliefs in a fully rational manner. Nevertheless, you are only justified in holding beliefs about what you believe on the basis of evidence. Suppose I am a self-blind individual. As a self-blind individual I have, and sometimes justifiably apply to myself, the concept of belief. When is it rational to think of myself as having a belief? It is only rational for me to think of myself as having a belief when I have evidence that I hold it. In particular, it is only rational for me to think of myself as having a belief when I observe myself behaving as if I have it. Hence, in the majority of cases when I have a belief, I will be unable to justifiably attribute it to myself. All I will be able to say is that it is epistemically possible that I have the belief in question, and epistemically possible that I do not.13 Here is what I will argue. If I am a normal believer, I am able to systemically distinguish between my view of the world, how the world appears to me to be, and how the world is. As a self-blind individual, I am unable to systematically apply that distinction. For the most part, how the world is collapses into how I believe it to be. What emerges is a strange picture of the world. It is a world in which facts inexplicably alter with time, a world pervaded by large areas of indeterminacy, a world in which things have determinable properties without having determinates of those determinables. In many respects my picture of the world is reminiscent of the picture we standardly form of a fictional world. 13
As a self-blind individual, I may not even be able to say this much. If I allow that, for example, it is epistemically possible that I have a certain belief, I may be implying that, for all I know, I have that belief. In which case, I may, without evidence, be attributing a belief to myself in judging something to be epistemically possible.
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Call the set of facts that obtain independently of my beliefs my nondoxastic world. I will argue that, as a self-blind believer, I will form a deeply irrational view of my non-doxastic world.14 Applying to myself the concept of belief, where that application is not warranted by evidence, allows me to form a more rational picture of the world. Hence, I will be justified in thinking of myself as having beliefs in cases where there is no evidence for me doing so. Contrary to what we are assuming, I will not be self-blind. We are supposing that I am self-blind. In many cases I will change my mind without thinking of myself as doing so. In those cases there will be no discrepancy for me between my changing my mind, and the world changing. Suppose, I start out as a creationist, and end up being converted to the theory of evolution. In my creationist phase I believe that life was created 4,004 BC. I come to believe that life has been around for thousands of millions of years. At no stage do I have any evidence that I endorsed creationism, or that I currently endorse the prevailing view about the duration of life on Earth. Nevertheless, a change has taken place in my view of the world. How can I represent that change to myself? I cannot represent it like this. First, I believed that life has only existed for around six thousand years. I then came to believe that it has been around for much longer. I am only able to self attribute my present belief in the real age of life on Earth on the basis of evidence. Since I lacked such evidence, I am unable to attribute to myself the belief that life is about four billion years old. Moreover, what goes for my present belief about the duration of life goes for my past belief as well. Yesterday I believed that life has been around for about six thousand years. Yesterday I had no evidence that allowed me to self attribute that belief. So, yesterday I could not tell that I held the creationist belief about life on Earth. How, then, will I recollect yesterday s belief about the age of life? Not like this. Yesterday I believed that life was six thousand years old. After all, I have never attributed such a belief to myself. Instead, I will recollect my believing yesterday that life was six thousand years old like this. Yesterday life was six thousand years old. In the above situation, as a self-blind individual, I cannot think of myself as changing my beliefs. Instead I have to represent the change as a change 14
If my argument succeeds, a self-blind individual may be in worse trouble than this suggests. It may be that a self-blind individual will not form a deeply irrational view of a world that she thinks of as an objective world. She may have no conception of an objective world.
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in the world. First, life existed for only a few thousand years. Now it existed for billions of years. For me the past has literally changed with the passage of time, and the accumulation of evidence. What of those things I have no reason to believe and no reason to disbelieve? For example, I have no reason to believe that there is life on other planets, and no reason to believe that there is no life on other planets. As before, let us assume I have no evidence that bears on my having, or lacking, a belief in the existence of life elsewhere. I pose this question. Is it true that there is life on other planets? When I pose this question, I am precluded from giving the following answer. It is either true or false that there is life elsewhere. It is just that I have no opinion about the matter. When I ask myself whether there is life elsewhere I cannot answer: it may be true that there is, but I do not believe there is. Likewise, I cannot answer: it may be false that there is, but I do not believe that there is not. So, what answer can I give to the question: is it true that there is life elsewhere? Since I have no reason to believe that it is true that there is life elsewhere, and no reason to believe that I lack that belief, there is only one answer available to me. It is not true that there is life elsewhere. What answer can I give to the question: is it false that there is life elsewhere? Again, since I have no reason to believe that it is false that there is life elsewhere, and no reason to believe that I lack that belief, there is only one answer available to me. It is not false that there is life elsewhere. It is, in a non-epistemic sense, indeterminate whether there is life elsewhere. As there are very many things I have no reason to believe or disbelieve, my picture of the world will be pervaded by non-epistemic indeterminacy. Here are two further examples of how the world would appear if I were self-blind. As sometimes happens, I have reason to believe a disjunction without having any reason to believe either disjunct. I have reason to believe that either Tom or Mary is at the party. However I have reason to be agnostic about Tom being there, and reason to be agnostic about Mary being there. We are supposing that I am able to justifiably apply the concept of belief to myself on, and only on, the basis of observing my behaviour. In the present case, as is highly likely, nothing about my behaviour indicates that I have, or lack, the belief that Tom is at the party. Likewise, the same holds for the belief that Mary is at the party. Hence, all I can legitimately claim is that it is epistemically possible that I believe Tom is at the party, and epistemicalry possible that I believe he is not. Again, the same holds for the belief that Mary is there. 77
The basic and extended accounts
I am entitled to say it is true that Tom is at the party, or that Mary is. I am entitled to affirm the disjunction. Now, suppose that I either wish to say that it is true that Tom is at the party, or that it is true that Mary is. Consider the question whether Tom is at the party. There is no problem if I can discriminate between the answer to that question, and my answer to it. In which case, I will say this. There is an answer to the question whether Tom is at the party. Nevertheless, I have no answer to that question. However, if I maintain that I have no answer to a question, I am implying that I lack any belief about its answer. Consequently, I am going beyond simply maintaining that it is possible that I believe Tom is at the party, and possible that I do not believe he is there. We are assuming that I am entitled to affirm or deny that I have a belief only if my behaviour indicates that I have or lack it. Nothing about my behaviour indicates that I have or lack a belief about Tom's presence at the party. Hence, I am not entitled to claim the following. It may be true that Tom is at the party, or it may be false. I have no belief about which it is. I ask myself whether it is true that Tom is at the party. What answer will I give? By hypothesis, even though I do not recognize it, I do not believe he is. Moreover, I am precluded from admitting that it may be true that he is at the party, even though I do not believe it. What can I say? It seems, only this. It is not true that Tom is at the party. Parallel considerations will lead me to deny that it is true that Mary is there. From my point of view it is true that Tom or Mary is at the party even though it is not true that Tom is there, and not true that Mary is there. In the next example I have reason to believe that something has a determinable property, but, for any determinate of that determinable, I have no reason to believe that it has that determinate property. I am told that my friend has bought a red dress. I am not told what shade of red. I have reason to believe that my friend s dress is some shade of red. However, for any shade of red, I have no reason to believe that it is that shade of red. In addition, I have no evidence for the conclusion that I believe my friend's dress is some shade of red without, for any specific shade of red, believing that it is that shade of red. Hence, as in the previous cases, I am constrained to represent the situation thus. It is true that my friend's dress is some shade of red. Nevertheless, for any shade of red, it is neither true nor false that it is that shade of red. Here is a final example. An individual may end up holding inconsistent beliefs. Indeed, in some circumstances, an individual may end up holding inconsistent beliefs without being epistemically culpable for doing so. 78
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Consider the lottery paradox. If n is sufficiently large, an individual may rationally believe, of each ticket in a lottery, Tl, T2, . . . , Tn, that Ti will lose, and that Tl, T2, . . . , Tn are all the tickets in the lottery. Nevertheless, she also rationally believes that some ticket will win. Now consider self-blind Sarah. Sarah believes of each ticket, Ti, that it will lose. She also believes that some ticket will win. However, she has no evidence for her holding any of these beliefs. Consequently, Sarah will not say to herself'I believe ticket Tl will lose, I believe,ticket T2 will lose, . . . , I believe ticket Tn will lose'. Instead she will say this to herself. Ticket Tl will lose, ticket T2 will lose, . . . , ticket Tn will lose. She will also add that some ticket Ti will win. Sarah will take an inconsistency in her beliefs to be an inconsistency in the world. Sarah will be obliged to hold that it is inconsistent for a large lottery to take place. Suppose I can only legitimately attribute a belief to myself when my behaviour warrants it. If so, my picture of the world will be highly implausible. In order to construct a significantly more rational view of the world I must be able to attribute beliefs to myself in many cases where no behavioural evidence supports that attribution. A self-blind individual is not precluded from justifiably self attributing a belief. A self-blind person is able to self attribute a belief on, but only on, the basis of evidence. Such evidence may include observation of one's own behaviour, observed correlations between neurophysiological states and states of beliefs, observations of neurophysiological states combined with a theory such as analytic functionalism, and the say-so of others. Hence, self-blindness does not imply any conceptual deficiency. On the contrary, a self-blind person has as many of the relevant concepts, including the concepts of belief, truth, error etc., as a normal believer. In addition, it is not a necessary truth that the self-blind person is unable to self attribute beliefs. The deficiency a self-blind person suffers from is functional in the following sense. A capacity to form certain kinds of beliefs about the world goes together with a capacity to systematically justifiably self attribute beliefs non-observationally That is, a capacity to form certain kinds of beliefs about the world goes together with a capacity to justifiably self attribute beliefs other than on the basis of evidence. However, the link between the two capacities is non-contingent. It is not just a matter of psychological law that the two capacities go together. Here is a recapitulation of the argument so far. If one is only able to apply the concept of belief on the basis of evidence then one will often be unable to discriminate between the world as it is, and one's view of the 79
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world. In consequence, the nature of the world will often be fixed by one's beliefs about it as the nature of a fictional world is fixed by an author's beliefs about it. What results is an irrational view of the world. In order to achieve a more rational view of the world one needs to be able to more systematically contrast one's view of the world with the world as it is independently of one's view of it. One needs to be in a position to attribute beliefs to oneself without the benefit of evidence. Self attributions of beliefs that are not made on the basis of evidence are rational to the extent to which they enable one to represent the world in a more plausible fashion. Here in brief is the basic account of our ability to self attribute beliefs without relying on evidence to do so. On the basis of evidence I form a belief about my non-doxastic world. I take my non-doxastic world to be a certain way I then infer from the world being that way to my believing that it is. As we have seen, a major difficulty confronting the basic account is this. For a number of reasons the transition expressed by a sentence of the form 'p, so I believe p' is not best thought of as an inference. In the light of the preceding discussion we are in a position to maintain the following. The transition expressed by 'p, so I believe p' is, frequently, a rational one to make even if it is not a valid inference. Why, in the absence of evidence, is it often rational for me to move from conclusions about my non-doxastic world to conclusions about my beliefs? As time passes I accumulate evidence that supports a certain view of my non-doxastic world. The view supported by that evidence is of a world in which the facts do not change with the passage of time, and one which is not pervaded by indeterminacies of the kind described above. However, I will not be able to form that view unless I am able to nonevidentially attribute beliefs to myself. So, it is non-evidentially rational for me to attribute beliefs to myself. A SHORTCOMING OF THE BASIC ACCOUNT
My aim is to show this. Whenever one has a justified conscious belief that p it is rational, in the absence of countervailing reasons, to conclude that one believes p. The latest version of the basic account falls short of achieving it. Consider two examples to illustrate how an inability to attribute beliefs to oneself leads one to attribute unwarranted indeterminacy to the world. At one stage I endorse: 80
Defending the basic account (1) Life began six thousand years ago. Later I come to accept: (2) Life has been in existence for billions of years. The second example is where I have no reason to accept or reject: (3) Tom is at the party. In the case of (1) and (2) we envisaged the following. I never have any evidence for attributing to myself a belief in either (1) or (2). Consequently, as someone who is self-blind, I never attribute to myself a belief in either (1) or (2). For me (1) was simply true, but (2) is now true. In order to avoid having to accept that the facts have inexplicably changed, I have reason to attribute to myself, at any rate, a past belief in (1). In order to avoid having to treat (3) as being indeterminate in truth value, I have reason to attribute to myself a lack of belief in either (3) or its negation. Now consider: (4) There are mountains on the other side of the moon. I consciously believe (4). Moreover, if I can do so for any belief, I can justifiably attribute a belief in (4) to myself without having recourse to evidence. The problem for the basic account is this. Believing (4) helps me to attain a more rational view of the world. However, attributing a belief in (4) to myself does not, prima facie, help me to attain a more rational view of my non-doxastic world. I have never changed my mind about (4). In addition, failing to attribute to myself a belief in (4) will not, in any obvious way, lead me to postulate avoidable indeterminacies in the world.15 Here is one way to extend the basic account to embrace beliefs such as (4). Arguably, one can envisage having counterevidence to any belief that one holds. I firmly believe that Elvis died in 1977. I think it grossly unlikely that anything will lead me to revise that belief. Nevertheless, I can easily conceive of circumstances which would justify me abandoning my 15
This may seem not to be so. As with all my beliefs, I acquired a belief in (4). At one time I did not believe (4). Now I do. How will I view a time when I did not believe (4)? If I am self-blind, I will not view it like this. At that time, in contrast to the present, I had no opinion about (4). Instead, I will have to view a time when I had no opinion about (4) like this. At that time (4) was neither true nor false. Now it is true. What this argument depends on is my recalling a time when I did not believe (4) as opposed to simply acknowledging that there was such a time. In the case of (4), and many of my other beliefs, I have held them for as long as I can remember.
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belief about the the date of Elvis' death. Someone acknowledged by all those closest to the famed singer to be Elvis is now living in Acapulco with Elvis' fingerprints, memories of Elvis' past that only he could be expected to have, etc. (4) says that there are mountains on the other side of the moon. It is somewhat more difficult to think of evidence that would lead me to revise my belief in (4). However, with a little ingenuity it can be done. Let E be a proposition that specifies convincing counterevidence to (4). Given E, it is highly unlikely that (4). Here are the assumptions we are making. I am justified in believing (4). I am self-blind, and have no behavioural evidence to attribute to myself a belief in (4). So, I do not believe that I believe (4). E specifies decisive counterevidence to (4). How will I answer the following question? If E turns out to be true, what bearing will that have on (4)? I have to choose between these alternatives. If E turns out to be true then it will have turned out that: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv)
E and (4) are both true. (4) is true, but will then be false, (4) is never true. I now believe that (4) is true.
Consider (i). E is compelling counterevidence to (4). So, I have good reason to think that (i) is highly unlikely. I have good reason to opt for one of the alternatives to (i). (ii) is just another example of a fact inexplicably changing with time. I have good reason to discount (ii). That leaves (iii) and (iv). Suppose I combine (iii) with rejecting (iv). I say this. If E were to eventuate, it would turn out that there were never mountains on the other side of the moon. However, even if E were to eventuate, it would not have turned out that I now believe in their existence. I now have reason to believe in (4). Hence, when I pose the question whether (4) is true, I will acknowledge that it is. So, in virtue of denying (iv), I am constrained to accept the following. If E, (4) is never true. However, (4) is now true even if E. Consequently, if E, (4) is now both true and not true. I should conclude that it is impossible for E to be true. E specifies evidence that could obtain. E is clearly contingent. Rather than maintain that E is necessarily false, it is more reasonable for me to combine (iii) with (iv). I have good reason to think that if E were to obtain, I now believe that (4). 82
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I now, in full consciousness, believe that (4). Unfortunately, the above argument does not give me a reason to think that I believe (4). At most it gives me a reason to think that if E turns out to be true, I now believe that (4). My belief in (4) only gives me a reason to believe this. Either I believe (4), or E will not eventuate. One problem confronting the basic account is the problem of scope. Can the basic account be extended to embrace attitudes other than belief? The doxastic schema is: So, I believe p Here I have been addressing a different problem. If the doxastic schema does not yield valid inferences, what makes the transition expressed by 'p, so I believe p' a rational one? My provisional answer is this. Attributing beliefs to oneself without relying on evidence is rational insofar as it helps one develop a more rational picture of one's non-doxastic world. The problem we are encountering is that this answer unduly restricts the scope of the basic account even considered as an account of our first-person authority over just one propositional attitude: belief. I will next discuss one further objection to the basic account as it has been articulated so far. Considering this objection will help to develop a response to the previous one. It will show how the present version of the basic account applies to the self attribution of any consciously held belief. It will also indicate how the basic account can be generalized to propositional attitudes other than belief.
83
Extending the basic account At the end of the last chapter we were left with the following problem. How can the basic account be extended to cover the self attribution of any consciously held belief? We considered the belief that there are mountains on the other side of the moon. Attributing to myself agnosticism about Tom being at the party enables me to avoid postulating an unwarranted indeterminacy in the facts. In the case where I change my mind about creationism, attributing to myself a change of mind enables me to avoid allowing that the facts have changed. In a case such as the lottery paradox, attributing inconsistent beliefs to myself enables me to avoid taking the world to be inconsistent.1 No like end is attained, it seems, if I attribute to myself a belief in the existence of mountains on the other side of the moon. According to the basic account, what reason do I have for attributing to myself that belief? The answer is this. The type of reason the basic account gives one to self attribute the presence or absence of some beliefs does not permit one to be selective. Consider again my agnosticism about Tom being at the party. Nothing about my behaviour indicates that I am agnostic about Tom being at the party. Nevertheless, I have this reason to take myself to have no opinion about his being there. If I do not, I will have to regard it as indeterminate whether some present fact obtains. I might put it this way. If I do not take myself to be agnostic about Tom being at the party, I will have a different conception of present facts from that of a normal believer. It is not just that my view about what facts obtain will differ from that of a normal believer. I will hold that there is no fact of the matter in a case where a normal believer will hold that there must be a fact of the matter. Suppose that, in order to avoid having to embrace a radically non1
One can scarcely say that it is a requirement of rationality that one take the world to be consistent. One of my colleagues, Graham Priest, is a notable defender of the view that, in certain respects, the world is inconsistent. However, it would be irrational to maintain that the world is inconsistent solely on the grounds that a large lottery has been held.
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the basic account
standard conception of facts, I have reason to self attribute agnosticism about Tom being at the party. Even though I have no evidence to do so, I am prepared to pronounce on my lack of belief about Tom being at the party. Despite that, in the absence of evidence, I am not prepared to pronounce on every state of belief I am consciously in. I attempt to be selective in the following sense. Whenever I am agnostic about some matter, I do not require evidence to conclude that I am. On the other hand, if I am not agnostic, but consciously hold a belief about some matter, I need evidence to conclude that I do. I am agnostic about Tom being at the party. I need no evidence to conclude that I am agnostic about him being there. In contrast, I consciously hold a belief about the year of Elvis' death. So, without any evidence to do so, I am not prepared to say what I believe about the year Elvis died. I will argue that if I attempt to be selective in this way, I am still forced to adopt a conception of facts different from that of a normal believer. Specifically, I am obliged to countenance an even more bizarre variety of indeterminacy.
EXTENDING THE BASIC ACCOUNT TO ENCOMPASS ALL PRESENT BELIEFS
First, suppose that I am prepared to attribute to myself the belief that Elvis died in 1977. I consider the question whether Elvis died in 1977. I ask myself whether there is a fact of the matter about the date of Elvis' death. That is, I ask myself whether some fact constitutes the answer to the question about the date of Elvis' death. Clearly, some fact does constitute the answer to that question. It is the fact that Elvis died in 1977, or so I believe. Next I ask whether some fact constitutes the answer to the question whether Tom is at the party. I am prepared to acknowledge that I am agnostic about the answer to that question. So, I am prepared to acknowledge that some fact constitutes its answer. Which fact is that? I cannot say. Consider the questions: (1) When did Elvis die? (2) Is Tom at the party? I believe that, as I have been putting it, some fact constitutes the answer to (1), and some fact constitutes the answer to (2). Nevertheless, for me, there is a difference between (1) and (2). Another person who is privy to my beliefs would characterize the difference thus. In the case of (2) I 85
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believe that some fact constitutes its answer, but have no belief about which fact that is. In the case of (1) I not only believe that some fact constitutes its answer, but have a belief about which fact that is. If I am prepared to attribute to myself a belief in the answer to (1), I am able to characterize the difference between (1) and (2) from my point of view in exactly the same way. Now suppose I am not prepared to attribute to myself a belief in the answer to (1). According to me, I may or may not believe that Elvis died in 1977. Nevertheless, I do believe that Elvis died then. Here are the relevant questions to consider: (3) (4) (5) (6)
Does some fact constitute the answer to (1)? What fact constitutes the answer to (1)? Does some fact constitute the answer to (2)? What fact constitutes the answer to (2)?
I will give an affirmative answer to both (3) and (5). Moreover, I will concede that I am unable to answer (6). However, I will not concede that I am able to answer (4). I will not say that my answer to (4) is the fact that Elvis died in 1977. So far as I can tell I have no answer to (4). What I will say is this. There is an answer to (4). It is that Elvis died in 1977. That is not my answer to (4), or, so far as I know, anyone's answer to (4). It is just the answer to (4). We might say, from the impersonal standpoint it is the answer to (4). (1) asks: when did Elvis die? (2) asks whether Tom is at the party. From my point of view, in one respect, there is no difference between (1) and (2). (3) asks whether some fact constitutes the answer to (1). (5) asks whether some fact constitutes the answer to (2). From my point of view, there is an answer to (3) and (5), and it is the same answer. Nevertheless, there is a difference between (1) and (2). How am I able to characterize that difference? One characterization is not available to me. I have no belief about the answer to (2), but I do have a belief about the answer to (1). I am happy to acknowledge that I have no opinion about the answer to (2). However, that cannot capture, for me, the difference between (1) and (2). For all I can tell, I have no opinion about the answer to (1) as well. In fact the difference between (1) and (2) is this. (4) asks: what fact constitutes the answer to (1). (6) asks the same question about the fact constituting the answer to (2). I am able to answer (4), but am not able to answer (6). However, I cannot identify the difference between (1) and (2) in this way. Doing so implies conceding that I can answer (4). Conceding that I 86
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can answer (4) amounts to conceding that I have a belief about the answer to (4). Is it open to me to deny that there is a difference between (1) and (2) of the kind we have been considering? It is not. I may or may not be able to answer (4). Nevertheless, I cannot deny that there is an answer to (4). It is that Elvis died in 1977. So, what is the answer to (6)? I cannot say, but that, as we have seen, is irrelevant for identifying the difference between (4) and (6). Here, once again, are questions (4) and (6): (4) What fact constitutes the answer to (1)? (6) What fact constitutes the answer to (2)? Apparently, there is only one way for me to characterize the difference between (4) and (6). There is an answer to (4). In contrast, not only do I have no answer to (6), but there is no answer to (6). Earlier we envisaged that, as a self blind individual, I am forced to concede that there is no fact of the matter about Tom being at the party. Now, I am in a different position. I am able to maintain, and do maintain, that there is a fact of the matter about Tom being at the party. Some fact constitutes the answer to (2). However, I am forced to regard that fact as indeterminate in this regard. Facts and propositions correspond in at least one way. For each fact some proposition serves to specify or individuate that fact in the following sense. We specify a fact by means of a that-clause which also serves to specify the content of a proposition. Which fact do you have in mind? I have in mind the fact that interest rates are low. When I say that a fact is indeterminate what I mean is this. There is no proposition whose content serves to individuate that fact. In the case of many facts we are unable to specify the propositions whose content individuates them. In the case of indeterminate facts it is not only a matter of our inability to specify their individuating propositions. There are no such propositions.2 Indeterminate facts are rather like bare particulars. Bare particulars are conceived as lacking any properties. An indeterminate fact does not require the instantiation of any particular properties to obtain.3 We would 2
3
I find it clearer to put the point in terms of propositions. But referring to propositions is unessential to stating it. We need to distinguish between indeterminate facts and facts about the indeterminate. Suppose it is a fact about Sherlock Holmes that he neither has nor lacks the property of having two hundred and forty hairs on his head. That fact will be about something indeterminate. Nevertheless, the fact that Sherlock Holmes neither has nor lacks the property of having two hundred and forty hairs on his head will be specifiable by means of a that clause. I have just done so.
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be right to be dubious about the intelligibility of there being indeterminate facts. At any rate, someone who countenanced indeterminate facts would have a very different conception of facts from our own. NON-OBSERVATIONALLY SELF ATTRIBUTING PAST BELIEFS
The basic account yields a reason for non-observationally self attributing one state of belief: agnosticism. I have argued that that reason comes as part of a package deal. One cannot reconcile the following three things: (i) Self attributing lack of belief about some topic for the reason specified in the basic account. (ii) Refusing to self attribute some consciously held belief (iii) Conceiving of facts in the same way as a normal believer. Much the same can be said about the non-observational self attribution of an abandoned belief. Consider the example given earlier of a change of mind. First I endorse creationism, and then convert to the view that life is billions of years old. Suppose I was a creationist in 1984 but, as a selfblind individual, refuse to attribute to myself either a past belief in creationism or a present belief in the actual age of life on Earth. I recollect what I believed in 1984 namely, that life was created six thousand years ago. Of course, I do not recollect believing in 1984 that life was created six thousand years ago. How then can I represent what I recollect? Only like this. I recollect that in 1984 life was created six thousand years ago. I now believe that life has been around for much longer. Nevertheless, I do not attribute that belief to myself. I am constrained to represent my change of mind about the age of life on Earth thus. In 1984, as I recollect, life was six thousand years old. Now life is billions of years old. It is not I, but the facts that have changed. In order to avoid having to countenance a change in the facts, I attribute to my past self a belief. In 1984 I believed that life was only six thousand years old. The point of attributing that past belief to myself is to enable me to maintain the following. In 1984 life was billions of years old just as it is now. I have changed my mind about the age of life. I have not changed my mind about there being mountains on the other side of the moon. I now believe that there are mountains on the other side of the moon. In 1984 I had the same belief. What reason do I ever have for attributing to myself the belief that there are mountains on the other side of the moon?
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Extending the basic account In this case the relevant questions are these: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Are there mountains on the other side of the moon? What was my answer to (1) in 1984? What was the answer to (1) in 1984? Is life only six thousand years old? What was my answer to (4) in 1984? What was the answer to (4) in 1984?
We are envisaging that I am in the following situation. I am prepared to answer (5) and (6). Moreover, I will answer (5) and (6) differently. My answer to (5) is that in 1984 I believed that life was only six thousand years old. Giving that answer to (5) permits me to give a different answer to (6). My answer to (6) is that life was then, as it is now, billions of years old. Now consider (l)-(3). What is my answer to (2)? I have no answer to (2). I am unwilling to attribute to myself any past belief in the existence of mountains on the other side of the moon. As far as I am concerned, in 1984 I may have believed that there were mountains on the other side of the moon. On the other hand, I may have believed the opposite, or been completely open-minded about the matter. In particular, I do not recollect believing in 1984 that there were mountains on the other side of the moon. What I do recollect is the answer to (3). I recollect that the answer to (3) is that there were then mountains on the other side of the moon. I recollect having believed something at a certain time only if, in the absence of counterindications, I am prepared, solely on the basis of my recollection, to attribute that belief to myself at that time. Suppose I recollect believing that Kennedy has been assassinated when I was ten years old. Since Kennedy was assassinated when I was somewhat older, I have good reason to discount my recollection. I will refrain from attributing to my ten-year-old self a belief in Kennedy's assassination. Now, suppose I recollect believing in Father Christmas when I was four. Nothing speaks against my having had that belief when I was that age. So, I am prepared to attribute to my four-year-old self a belief in Father Christmas. Moreover, I am prepared to attribute that belief to my past self solely on the basis of my recollecting having had it. Let us now review my answers to questions (5) and (6). Consider question (4) which asks whether life is only six thousand years old. (5) asks what my answer to (4) was in 1984. (6) asks what the answer to (4) was in 1984. I give an answer to (5) in order to avoid countenancing a change in the facts. My answer to (5) is that in 1984 I believed that life was only six 89
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thousand years old. Do I recollect having had that belief in 1984? I do not. If I recollect believing in 1984 that life was only six thousand years old, I should be prepared solely on the basis of what I recollect, in the absence of counterindications, to attribute that belief to my 1984 self. Of course, as a self-blind person, I am not prepared to do so. Nothing tells against my believing in 1984 that the Earth was only six thousand years old. However, what I recollect about 1984 does not lead me to attribute to myself a past belief in the age of life on Earth. I attribute that belief to myself in 1984 in order to avoid an unwelcome change in the facts. I do not recollect believing in 1984 that life was only six thousand years old. Nevertheless, I recollect what I believed in 1984. How should I describe that recollection? I am precluded from describing it in any of the following ways. I recollect that in 1984 I believed that, had the view that, was of the opinion that, thought that, gave as my answer to question (4) that life has only been around for six thousand years. If I am to describe what I recollect, I must do so impersonally I must describe what I recollect as follows. In 1984 life had only been in existence for six thousand years. Compare my recollecting what I believed about the age of life in 1984 with my recollecting what I believed in 1984 about there being mountains on the other side of the moon. In 1984 I believed, as I do today, that there are mountains on the other side of the moon. However, I did not in 1984, and do not today, attribute that belief to myself. Moreover, I do not today attribute to my 1984 self a belief in the existence of mountains on the other side of the moon. If you ask me whether I recollect believing in 1984 that there are mountains on the other side of the moon, I will answer that I do not. If you ask me whether I recollect there being mountains on the other side of the moon in 1984,1 will answer that there were. I recollect that in 1984 there were mountains on the other side of the moon just as I recollect that in 1984 life was only six thousand years old. Here are the cases to consider: (A) My present recollection that in 1984 there were mountains on the other side of the moon. (B) My present recollection that in 1984 life was six thousand years old. Earlier, I envisaged being able to answer: (1) When did Elvis die? 90
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but being agnostic about the answer to: (2) Is Tom at the party? I also envisaged believing that I am agnostic about (2), but being agnostic about having an answer to (1). My problem was this. From my point of view there is a difference between (1) and (2). I cannot characterize that difference without abandoning my agnosticism about having an answer to (1). So, I have reason to abandon that agnosticism. I have reason to attribute to myself a belief in the answer to (1). Comparing (A) and (B) poses a problem which is the mirror image of the one posed by (1) and (2). From my point of view there is an obvious difference between (A) and (B). In case (A) I recollect that in 1984 there were mountains on the other side of the moon, and at that time there were mountains on the other side of the moon. In case (B) I recollect that in 1984 life was only six thousand years old, but life was much older then. However, there is an equally obvious similarity between cases (A) and (B). A similarity that a normal believer would characterize as follows. In both case (A) and (B) I recollect having a certain belief. The belief I recollect having in case (A) was true. The belief I recollect having in case (B) was false. How should I characterize the relevant similarity between (A) and (B)? Here are the options open to me: (i) Refusing to do so. (ii) Resting content with the following characterization. In both (A) and (B) I recollect something being the case in 1984. (iii) In 1984 there were mountains on the other side of the moon. Likewise, in 1984 life was only six thousand years old. (iv) In 1984 I believed that life was only six thousand years old. Likewise, in 1984 I believed that there were mountains on the other side of the moon. (i) leaves it inexplicable what the difference between (A) and (B) is. (iv) renders that difference explicable. Hence, I have reason to prefer (iv) to (i). What of (ii)? It is important to recognize that (ii) can be taken in one of two ways. Here is the first. Case (A) concerns my present recollection that in 1984 there were mountains on the other side of the moon. Case (B) concerns my present recollection that in 1984 life was only six thousand years old. In case (A) I have a present recollection that something was the case in 1984. In case (B) I also have a present recollection that something was the case in 1984. (A) and (B) have this in common. In both cases 91
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there is a present recollection with a common content. The content they have in common is that something was the case in 1984. So taken, (ii) is irrelevant to our present concerns. Consider two ways in which one can misrecollect what obtained at some earlier time. The first is illustrated by the following example. I recollect visiting Nova Scotia in 1951. My recollection is faulty. I am misrecollecting. I have never visited Nova Scotia. In 1951 I was not in any place at all like Nova Scotia. In 1951 I did not believe that I was in Nova Scotia, or have the kinds of experiences a visitor to Nova Scotia could have been expected to have at the time. Nothing that obtained in 1951 is the causal basis of my misrecollection. Nothing that obtained in 1951 explains why my misrecollection has the content that it does. Call this first type of misrecollection radical misrecollection. When I recollect something about a certain time, it is a case of radical misrecollection if nothing that obtained at that time answers to the content of my recollection. A different type of misrecollection is illustrated by the following example. Yesterday I saw a blue flower. Because of the unusual lighting conditions the flower looked purple. Knowing nothing about the lighting conditions, I believed the flower to be purple. Today I recollect having seen a purple flower yesterday. My recollection is faulty as in the previous example. In this last case my recollection is misrecollection. However, there is a difference between this case and the previous one. Something that obtained yesterday caused me to recollect having seen a purple flower. My recollecting having seen a purple flower yesterday was caused by some flower looking purple to me yesterday. Moreover, the content of my recollection is explained by some flower looking purple to me yesterday. Something that obtained yesterday answers to my present recollection. Call this second type of misrecollection a grounded misrecollection. In addition, call whatever obtains at the earlier time which answers to the content of my misrecollection the ground of that misrecollection.4 In case (B) I recollect that in 1984 life was just six thousand years old. As I would be the first to concede, I am misrecollecting. In 1984 life was much older. Is my misrecollection radical or grounded? Plainly, it is grounded. When, as I am initially inclined to say, I recollect that in 1984 life was only six thousand years old, something that obtained in 1984 answers to the content of my recollection. How am I to describe it? 4
Radical and grounded misrecollections belong at either end of a spectrum.
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As we have noted, for two reasons, I cannot describe what answers to the content of my recollection like this. I recollect believing in 1984 that life was only six thousand years old. First, I do not recollect having that belief in case (B). In case (B) I attribute to my 1984 self a belief in the comparatively brief age of life on Earth in order not to concede an unwelcome change in the facts. Second, and more importantly, I am attempting to describe what grounds my recollection in case (B) in a way that reveals what (A) and (B) have in common. Earlier I considered the options (i)-(iv). (iv) is the option that in 1984 I believed both that life was six thousand years old, and there were mountains on the other side of the moon. If I concede that (A) and (B) have in common that each involves recollecting a past belief, I am conceding (iv). We are focusing on two cases. In case (A) I presently recollect that in 1984 there were mountains on the other side of the moon. In case (B) I presently recollect that in 1984 life was only six thousand years old. There is a present similarity between (A) and (B). Each case involves a present recollection of something obtaining in 1984. However, the relevant similarity between (A) and (B) is one that obtains in 1984. Some fact obtaining in 1984 grounds my recollection in case (B) which is akin to the fact that grounds my recollection in case (A). How should I specify the fact that grounds my recollection in case (A)? No problem. It is the fact there are mountains on the other side of the moon. How should I specify the corresponding fact that grounds my recollection in case (B)? Not as the fact that life is six thousand years old. So, how should I specify the relevant fact? According to (ii), I should do so by specifying it as the fact that something obtained in 1984. Perhaps, I can give no further characterization of that fact in the present. Nevertheless, we can ask what further characterization can, in principle, be given of the fact obtaining in 1984 which answers the content of my recollection in case (B)? For example, what characterization would I have been able to give of the relevant fact in 1984? It seems that, if I am not to renounce (ii), there are only two available answers to this last question. The first is this. I recollect that in 1984 life was only six thousand years old. Right now the fact that I veridically recollect obtaining in 1984 can only be characterized as follows. It is the fact that something obtained in 1984. Moreover, in 1984 that fact could only have been described in the same way. The reason why it could not have been described in any more detail in 1984 is not because I would have 93
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been unable to describe it in greater detail then. The reason why it could not have been described further in 1984 is that there was nothing further to describe. Once again we have encountered the need to postulate an indeterminate fact. I raised the following question. In conformity with option (ii), what description can be given, in principle, of the fact that answers to my recollection in case (B) that life was only six thousand years old in 1984? The first answer is that no further description can be given, even in principle, beyond the one specified in (ii). There is no more to the relevant fact beyond it being the fact that something obtained in 1984. Anyone who endorses this answer has a radically different conception of facts from that of a normal believer. Such a one conceives of certain facts as indeterminate. A normal believer could not make sense of such facts being indeterminate. Anyone who wishes to avoid adopting a radically non-standard conception of facts has reason to avoid giving the first answer I mentioned to the question we are considering. So far as I can see, only one other answer is available. In case (B) I presently recollect that in 1984 life was only six thousand years old. In case (B) I am veridically recollecting a certain fact having obtained in 1984. It is the fact that life is only six thousand years old. Giving this answer brings us to option (iii). Option (iii) is this. In 1984 there were mountains on the other side of the moon, and life was only six thousand years old. At first sight option (iii) endows me with straightforwardly inconsistent beliefs. According to option (iii) I should take the view that I am veridically recollecting that life was six thousand years old in 1984. I also believe that life was billions of years old in 1984. So, it seems, I have inconsistent beliefs. In case (B) I believe that life was six thousand years old in 1984. I also believe that life was billions of years old in 1984. If I am careful, I can adopt option (iii) and avoid outright inconsistency. However, the cost is, once again, adopting a radically non-standard conception of the facts. Here is how I can avoid inconsistency. I say the following. It is now true that life is billions of years old. It is now true that, in 1984, life was billions of years old. It is not now true that in 1984 life was only six thousand years old. However, in 1984 it was then true that life was only six thousand years old. Moreover, in 1984 it was not then true that life was billions of years old. On this conception of facts we cannot say that a fact simply obtains at a time. At some time t a fact may obtain at t', but not obtain at t' at some 94
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time distinct from t. Someone who conceives of tensed facts in this way has a very different conception of them from the rest of us. Again, insofar as one has reason to avoid a radically non-standard conception of facts, one has reason to avoid endorsing (iii). Endorsing any of (i)-(iii) has one of the following unpalatable consequences. Either one is left with something ineliminably inexplicable, conceives of facts in a radically non-standard way, or has inconsistent beliefs, (iv) is the straightforward option that in 1984 I believed both of these things. Life is only six thousand years old, and there are mountains on the other side of the moon. If these concequences are to be avoided, adopting (iv) is the only alternative. Hence, one has a reason to prefer (iv) to any of(i)-(iii). Case (B) is one in which I recollect that in 1984 life was only six thousand years old. Suppose that one has reason to attribute a past belief to oneself in a case like (B). Suppose being able to deny that the facts have changed gives one a reason to attribute to oneself a past belief. If so, one will have reason to attribute a past belief to oneself in any case like (A). Ceteris paribus, one will have reason to attribute to one's past self a belief in some fact obtaining at a certain time whenever one recollects that that fact obtained at the time in question. LINKING THE PAST TO THE PRESENT
Here is the conclusion I have argued for. Whenever someone recollects that something was so, she is non-observationally warranted in believing that she believed it was so. I will now argue that if this conclusion is correct, we can establish the following. Whenever someone consciously holds a present belief, she is non-observationally warranted in attributing it to herself. Consider this transmission principle: (TP) (If X at t is justified in believing that, at some time t' later than t, X will have a justification J for believing that p at t then, unless, at t, X is justified in believing J is defective, at t X is justified in believing p.) For example, suppose that at 10 a.m. today I am justified in believing this. Tomorrow I will be justified in believing that my colleague Alice was in her office yesterday at 10 a.m. It does not follow that at 10 a.m. today I am justified in believing Alice is in her office. After all, today I may have 95
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reason to think that the justification I will acquire tomorrow is defective. It may be misleading, inadequate, or overridden by counterevidence that I have today but will not have tomorrow. Now suppose, I have no reason for thinking that the justification I will acquire tomorrow for believing then that Alice was in her office yesterday at 10 a.m. is in any way defective. I suggest it follows that at 10 a.m. today I am justified in believing Alice is in her office. I form the belief that there are mountains on the other side of the moon. According to the argument of the previous section, tomorrow, on the basis of what I recollect then, I will be non-observationally justified in believing that, today, I believe there are mountains on the other side of the moon. Moreover, I am in a position to recognize that tomorrow I will be justified in believing that yesterday I believed that there were mountains on the other side of the moon.51 also recognize that the justification I will acquire tomorrow is non-defective. Hence, appealing to (TP), I now have a justification for believing that today there are mountains on the other side of the moon. In its essentials the basic account has now been spelled out. It is time to provide an overview of it. Rather than simply reviewing the preceding discussion of the basic account, it will, I believe, be useful to compare it with a view of perception defended years ago by A. J. Ayer. The structure of the basic account will be clarified by the comparison. Moreover, counterpoising the basic account with Ayer's view will serve another purpose. It will highlight some important issues raised by the basic account that I have so far not addressed. AYER ON PERCEPTION
In the Foundations of Empirical Knowledge Ayer defends a sense datum
theory of perception.6 However, Ayer refuses to endorse a classical sense datum theory. According to a classical sense datum theory the following are facts about perception. Any perceptual encounter, seeing, hearing, touching etc. something, involves immediate awareness of a minddependent entity called a sense datum. Sense data are distinguished from physical objects in that, for suitable properties, a sense datum must have 5
Suppose, I am not in a position to recognize this. Suppose, I have reason to believe that I will not be alive, or will be suffering from amnesia, tomorrow. Does it follow that I am deprived of the means of non-observationally self attributing present beliefs argued for in 6 the last section? Ayer 1940.
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any property it appears to have. Moreover, though they are different kinds of things, sense data exist in the same sense that tables and chairs exist. At the time of writing The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge Ayer did
not think that philosophers are in the business of making discoveries about what types of things exist. Hence, his resistance to accepting a classical sense datum theory. As Ayer sees it, the classical sense datum theorist purports to inform us about the existence of a special class of entities as an entomologist might inform us of the existence of a new type of insect. Nevertheless, Ayer is not prepared to abandon sense datum theories altogether. Instead, he attempts to deprive them of their status as theories. According to Ayer a sense datum theorist ought not propose a theory about the nature of perception. What she ought to propose is a recommendation about the use of language. Ayer takes it that facts about what we perceive are susceptible to alternative descriptions. I see a coin on more than one occasion. Earlier it looks circular. Later it looks elliptical. Something that looks red to me looks brown to someone else. Water heated to a uniform temperature feels hot to one hand and cool to another. We can use a sense datum terminology to describe these facts. The shape of the coin remains unchanged. When I first look at it I am aware of a circular sense datum. When I look at it later I am aware of an elliptical sense datum. I see something which gives me a red sense datum. Someone else is aware of a brown sense datum when looking at the same thing at the same time. Finally, I receive different tactile sense data when I plunge my hands into water which is throughout at a uniform temperature. In Ayer's view we can eschew the use of sense datum terminology by redescribing the same facts. Instead of saying that the coin looks circular at one time and elliptical at another, I can say that the coin's shape changes from being circular to being elliptical. Of course the price of doing so is that I have to forego the assumption that the coin does not inevitably change shape as it is rotated. I look at a tomato. Someone else looks at a tomato located at the same place at the same time. The tomato I see looks red to me. The tomato seen by the other person looks brown to her. Suppose I forego the assumption that we are seeing the same tomato. In that case, without inconsistency, I can say the following. I see a red tomato. She sees a brown tomato. Finally, if I forego the assumption that the temperature of the water is uniform, I can say that it is hot in one place and cold in another. According to Ayer we have a choice between different ways of describing the same facts. Ayer accepts the principle that something looks a 97
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certain colour or shape, or feels a certain way to someone only if she is aware of a coloured, shaped, or tactile sense datum. Consequently, he restricts us to the following choices. We can, in describing perceptual facts, attribute properties to both physical objects and sense data. Alternatively, we can confine ourselves to attributing properties to physical objects. We need take no stand on the plausibility of the principle that makes these the only available choices. For that reason I will not presuppose it. Instead, I will modify Ayer's view thus. When it comes to giving a comprehensive description of perceptual facts we have the following choice. As well as describing how objects are, we can describe how they appear. Alternatively, we can confine ourselves to describing how objects are, and make no mention of how they appear. Call the view that we have such a choice the alternative description view. The connection between the alternative description view and the basic account is clear enough. We discriminate between how objects appear perceptually and how they are. Doing so enables us to make room for a discrepancy between how an object is and how it appears. A physical object need not always be as it appears. Likewise, we discriminate between what facts obtain and what facts we believe to obtain. Doing so enables us to make room for a discrepancy between the facts and our beliefs about the facts. In order to contrast how an object is with how it appears we are obliged to attribute perceptual states to ourselves. Likewise, in order to contrast what is so with what we believe to be so, we are obliged to attribute beliefs to ourselves. If Ayer is right, we can get by without self attributing perceptual states. We need never report on the appearances of physical objects. Ostensibly the price we have to pay is the adoption of numerous strange beliefs about the behaviour and identity of physical objects. A self-blind person is, for the most part, constrained to get by without self attributing beliefs. I have argued that she has to pay a similar price. She has to adopt a radically non-standard conception of the facts. The alternative description view is this. We can describe perceptual facts making mention of the appearances of objects. Alternatively, we can describe the same facts eschewing any reference to appearances. What can this comparison of Ayer's alternative description view with the basic account teach us about the self attribution of beliefs? In order to answer this question we need to look a little more closely at Ayer's own statement of the alternative description view. Ayer says conflicting things in presenting the alternative description 98
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Extending the basic account view. According to Ayer we have a choice between two descriptions of the perceptual facts. Call the description of the perceptual facts which mentions how objects appear the appearance-saturated description. Call the description of the perceptual facts which omits mention of how objects appear the appearance-free description. Ayer depicts the choice between the appearance-saturated and the appearance-free description as a choice between alternative languages. Call this interpretation of the choice between the appearance-free and the appearance-saturated descriptions the alternative-language interpretation. Suppose I utter: (1) 'The coin looks circular.' and then: (2) 'The coin looks elliptical/ When I utter (1) and (2) I am reporting certain facts. On the alternative language interpretation I could have reported the very same facts by uttering: (3) 'The coin is circular.' and then: (4) 'The coin is elliptical.' If we take the alternative-language interpretation seriously, we have to say that, when I utter (3) and (4), I am expressing the same beliefs that I express in uttering (1) and (2). However, I express those beliefs in a different language. What I mean by 'circular' in (3) is not what I mean by 'circular' in (1). What I mean by 'elliptical' in (4) is not what I mean by 'elliptical' in (2). Presumably, 'circular' in (3) has the same meaning as 'looks circular' in (1), and 'elliptical' in (4) has the same meaning as 'looks elliptical' in (2). An appearance-free description makes no mention of the appearances of objects. Ayer maintains that we can opt for an appearance-free description of what we perceive, provided we are willing to give up certain habitual assumptions about the stability and identity of objects. Nevertheless, on the alternative-language interpretation there is no question of renouncing habitual assumptions. On that interpretation I am not using language in a standard way to express bizarre beliefs. I am using language in a nonstandard way to express beliefs that anyone in my situation could be expected to have. 99
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(3) is the sentence 'The coin is circular'. (4) is the sentence 'The coin is elliptical'. It is true that I will combine uttering (3) and (4) with uttering: (5) 'The shape of the coin has changed.' However, on what I call the alternative-language interpretation what I will mean by (5) is that the apparent shape of the coin has changed. (5) does not express an unusual belief. (5) is an unusual way of expressing a commonplace belief. Ayer vacillates between the alternative language interpretation and the alternative-fact interpretation. (1) is the sentence 'The coin looks circular'. (2) is the sentence 'The coin looks elliptical'. On the alternative fact interpretation (3) and (4) are used in the way that English-speakers would standardly use them to express quite different beliefs from those expressed by (1) and (2). Moveover, on the alternative-fact interpretation (5) expresses just the belief it appears to express rather than a belief about appearances. On the alternative-fact interpretation (3), (4) and (5) do not express true beliefs in an unusual way. (3), (4) and (5) express false beliefs in the usual way. It is understandable that Ayer vacillates between two interpretations of his thesis. He wants to deny that the appearance-saturated and appearancefree descriptions are simply equivalent descriptions of the same facts. On the other hand, he wants to say that the appearance-saturated and appearance-free descriptions are simply alternative ways of reporting the same facts, and that the choice between them is just a matter of convenience. So, he is obliged to deny that someone who adopts the appearance-free description is thereby expressing falsehoods. How Ayer should have resolved this dilemma need not detain us. What is more important is that his central thesis has two different interpretations. We can see the appearance-saturated and appearance-free descriptions as different ways of expressing the same beliefs. Alternatively, we can see them as expressing different beliefs. So far, in elaborating the basic account, I have assumed that the alternative-fact interpretation best interprets the sayings of a self-blind individual. Self-blind Alice is in a similar position to Ayer's normal perceiver with one important difference. Ayer's perceiver has a choice. She might elect to describe her experiences by talking about how things perceptually appear to her. She might opt for an appearance-saturated description of her experiences. Alternatively, she might eschew talk about how things perceptually appear, and confine 100
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herself to talking about how they are. She might opt for an appearancefree description of her experiences. In the case of a self-blind individual, contrasting how the world is with how she believes it to be corresponds to giving an appearance-saturated description of experience. On the other hand, refusing, without evidence, to comment on her states of belief corresponds to giving an appearancefree description of experience. Let us say that an individual who is prepared to systematically contrast the way the world is with how she believes it to be is offering a perspective-saturated description of the world. Let us say that a self-blind individual who is not prepared to systematically apply that contrast is offering a perspective-free description of the world. In contrast to an appearance-saturated description, an appearance-free description makes no mention of perceptual appearances. The difference between Ayer's perceiver and a self-blind individual is that it is open to Ayer's perceiver to choose between an appearance-saturated and an appearance-free description of experience, but it is not open to a self-blind individual to give a perspective-saturated description of the world. A selfblind individual is restricted to giving a perspective-free description of the world. Among other things, that is what makes her self-blind. Nevertheless, we who are not self-blind are in a position to recognize that either a perspective-saturated or a perspective-free description can be given of the self-blind individual's world. So, we are in a position to pose the following questions. When the self-blind individual gives a perspective-free description of the world, is she expressing beliefs that are different from those she would express were she to give a perspective-saturated description instead? Is the alternative-fact interpretation of the self-blind individual correct? Alternatively, when the self-blind individual gives a perspective-free description, is she using language in a non-standard way to express the very beliefs that would be expressed by an appearancesaturated description? Is the alternative-language interpretation preferable to the alternative-fact interpretation? Suppose, the alternative-language interpretation of a self-blind believer is preferable to the alternative-fact interpretation. What would that show? It would show the following. Having a priori knowledge of one's consciously held beliefs is inescapable. Having such a priori knowledge would be constitutive of consciously holding a belief. A self-blind individual has been partially defined as one who is ideally rational when it comes to forming beliefs about her non-doxastic world. According to the basic account, no self-blind individual, so defined, can 101
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exist. Of course, it does not follow from the basic account that no one can consciously hold beliefs unless she is in a position to non-evidentially self attribute them. The basic account does not preclude an individual who has the concept of belief, consciously holds beliefs, self attributes beliefs only on the basis of evidence, but is less than fully rational in forming beliefs about her non-doxastic world. Call such an individual a rationally deficient self-blind individual. If the alternative-language interpretation is correct, even a rationally deficient self-blind individual could not exist. Consider some of the sentences our rationally deficient self-blind individual is apt to utter: (a) 'It is neither true nor false that Tom is at the party' (b) 'Yesterday, life was approximately six thousand years old. Today, it is billions of years old.' (c) 'Some tickets will win, but no ticket will win.' On the alternative-fact interpretation, when the ostensibly rationally deficient self-blind individual utters (a), (b), and (c) she is expressing irrational beliefs. On the alternative-language interpretation the ostensibly rationally defective self-blind individual is expressing, in an unusual way, rational beliefs about what she believes. On the alternative-language interpretation, when she utters (a) she is saying that she has no opinion about Tom being at the party. When she utters (b) she is saying that yesterday she believed life to be a certain age, but today she believes it to be much older. When she utters (c) she is saying that she has inconsistent beliefs about the result of a lottery. Hence our putatively self-blind believer is not really self-blind. In virtue of having conscious beliefs she attributes them to herself, and expresses those attributions in an unusual manner. Is the alternative-language interpretation correct? That is a large question: one that I will not take up here. Instead, in the next chapter, I will respond to objections to the basic account.
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Objections The basic account is intended to show how someone can be non-observationally justified in self attributing a consciously held belief Extending the basic account to show how someone can be non-observationally justified in self attributing propositional attitudes other than belief is a task that lies ahead. Here, I will confine myself to meeting objections to the basic account as an account of the self attribution of belief. In brief, the basic account goes as follows. We rely on evidence to construct a picture of the world as it is independently of our beliefs about it. The world one so depicts will appear less inexplicable if one is frequently able to move from forming a justified belief to attributing that belief to oneself. Hence, insofar as one has reason to reduce the inexplicability of the world, one frequently has reason to ascribe a belief to oneself without relying on evidence to do so. DOES THE BASIC ACCOUNT FULFIL ITS AIMS?
As an account of our ability to non-observationally, but justifiably, self attribute beliefs the one I have given appears to suffer from the following defect. I have supplied reasons for supposing that being prepared to systematically nonobservationally self attribute beliefs will enable one to adopt a more intelligible view of the world. It would be absurd to suggest that anyone who non-observationally self attributes a belief will do so on the basis of such reasons. For example, it would be absurd to suggest that anyone who non-observationally, but justifiably, self attributes a belief typically reasons that, unless she does so, she will often have to impute inexplicable indeterminacy to the world. Clearly, when we self attribute beliefs we engage in no such reasoning. I would be the first to agree that the reasoning we do engage in is far more direct.1 1
In Shoemaker 1994b Sydney Shoemaker makes a similar point in response to the same objection to his account of self attributing beliefs.
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We need to keep the following issues separate: (i) What justifies an individual in non-observationally self attributing the belief that p. (ii) What leads an individual to form the belief that p. Failing to keep these issues separate may make the basic account appear vulnerable to objections that do not tell against it. Here is an example. One might think that the basic account envisages someone self attributing the belief that p as a result of engaging in the following reasoning. First, she concludes that p. On that basis, she then goes on to conclude that she believes p. Compatibly with the basic account my forming the belief that p need not precede my forming the belief that I believe p. Irrespective of when I form the relevant beliefs, I am justified in believing that I believe p at any time that I consciously believe p. Suppose someone is disposed to move from consciously holding a belief to self attributing it. She need have no inkling of the reasons supporting the basic account in order for the activation of that disposition to result in a justified belief. She need have no inkling that a preparedness to self attribute a consciously held belief enables her to form a more rational view of the world as it is apart from her beliefs about it. All that is required is that being prepared, without relying on evidence, to self attribute consciously held beliefs does render the world more explicable. Is that all that is required? Maintaining that it is exposes the basic account to a different objection. Arguably, the basic account conflates two senses in which one can have a reason to believe something. We need to distinguish between having what I will call a strategic reason for believing something from what I will call a cognitive reason for believing something. Here is an example of a type familiar from discussions of self-deception illustrating that distinction. Joe places an inestimable value on his marriage. He has reason to think his wife is having an affair. He recognizes that if he continues to believe that his wife is having an affair his marriage will collapse. Hence, Joe has reason to believe, that is, bring himself to believe, that his wife is faithful. However, the reason that Joe has to believe that his wife is faithful has no bearing on the truth of that belief. It is just a strategic reason for believing in the sense that acting on it will help him achieve an end other than holding a true belief. On the other hand, ifJoe turns up evidence that his wife is faithful, he will have a cognitive reason to believe she is. He will 104
Objections
have a reason to believe she is faithful which bears on the truth of that belief. A second example illustrating the distinction between strategic and cognitive reasons will serve to introduce the objection to the basic account. Sophie is a physicist. In her view, no argument for the existence of God has the slightest plausibility. In her view, she has no cognitive reason to believe in the existence of God. Nevertheless, Sophie notes the following fact about the psychology of physicists. Physicists who believe that the Universe has a designer produce much better theories than those who believe it is not designed. It is not that physicists who believe the Universe is designed are more successful because they incorporate that belief in their theories. Indeed, their theories make no mention of a designer of the Universe. It is just that physicists who believe in the existence of a designer have a greater propensity to detect order where it exists. Sophie cares only about being a good physicist. She does not mind holding false theological beliefs. Consequently, Sophie has a reason to believe in the existence of a designer. However, her reason to believe in the existence of a designer has no bearing on the truth of that belief. Sophie's reason to believe in the existence of a designer does not in the least increase the likelihood of that belief being true. Sophie only has a strategic reason to believe in a designer. She need have no cognitive reason to do so. The basic account is designed to answer the following question. Without relying on observation, how can one have a reason to self ascribe a belief? Clearly, this question concerns having a cognitive reason to self ascribe a belief. The question is: how can one non-observationally have a reason to self ascribe a belief which reason bears on the truth of that self ascription? Having distinguished between strategic and cognitive reasons for believing, the objection to the basic account can now be stated. According to the basic account non-observationally self ascribing beliefs serves to reduce the inexplicability of one's non-doxastic world. Hence, one has a reason to non-observationally ascribe beliefs. Concede that we do have such a reason to non-observationally self ascribe beliefs. We can still ask: what kind of reason? Surely, it is, at best, a strategic reason. Non-observationally attributing beliefs to myself enables me to form a more rational view of my non-doxastic world. In the case of some proposition p, non-observationally attributing to myself the belief that p enables me to achieve an end whose achievement is apparently unrelated to the truth of my belief that I believe p. 105
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Suppose the basic account shows only that we have strategic reasons for non-observationally self attributing beliefs. In that case, it will be irrelevant to the project of explaining first-person authority. We will be better placed to assess the present objection if we examine more closely the kind of reason the basic account supplies for non-observationally self attributing beliefs. Compare Sophie with self-blind Alice. In order to ensure that the two cases are as comparable as possible, I will make the following assumptions about Sophie s situation. Sophie has to decide which of two physical theories, P t and P2, to accept. ¥x is a better physical theory than P2. Believing the Universe has a designer will enable Sophie to discern the superiority of P t over P2. However, the proposition that the Universe has a designer is probabilistically independent of both P t and P2. Her situation only gives Sophie a strategic reason to believe that the Universe has a designer. Alice is self-blind. She is agnostic about Tom being at the party. Alice, like Sophie, is confronted with a choice between two theories or views. In Alice's case I will label them T 1 and T2. T t says that it is either true or false that Tom is at the party. T 2 says that it is neither true nor false that Tom is at the party. Tx says that there is a fact of the matter about Tom being there. T 2 says that there is no fact of the matter about Tom being there. Consider: (1) 'I am agnostic about Tom being at the party' Attributing to herself the belief expressed by (1) enables Alice to adopt T t rather than T 2 just as believing that the Universe has a designer enables Sophie to adopt P t rather than P2. Moreover, (1) is probabilistically independent of both T 1 and T 2 just as the Universe having a designer is probabilistically independent of both P t and P2. For example, the fact that the proposition that Tom is at the party has a determinate truth value does not affect the likelihood of Alice being agnostic about Tom being there. Nevertheless, there is a key difference between the case of Sophie and the case of Alice. Believing that the Universe has a designer enables Sophie to adopt Pj in this sense. It enables Sophie to detect the merits of V{ as a theory. Moreover, we can allow that believing that the Universe has a designer enables Sophie to adopt P t in a different sense. It may be psychologically impossible for Sophie to believe P t unless she believes that the Universe 106
Objections
has a designer. However, there is no conceptual barrier to Sophie both believing P t and failing to believe that the Universe has a designer. Someone other than Sophie can perfectly well believe P t without having any opinion about the Universe being designed. In contrast, the obstacle to Alice combining lack of belief in her agnosticism about Tom being at the party with a belief in Tl is conceptual. Sophie can believe both V1 and that the Universe lacks a designer without rendering her beliefs incoherent. So, the question is this. T 1 is the proposition that it is either true or false that Tom is at the party. Can self-blind Alice, likewise, combine a belief in T t with a failure to acknowledge her agnosticism about believing in Tv and preserve the coherence of her beliefs? Suppose Alice believes it is either true or false that Tom is at the party. Alice believes that there is some fact which constitutes the answer to the question: is Tom at the party? If she were not self-blind, she could go on to say that there is no fact she believes constitutes the answer to that question. She could go on to observe that she is agnostic about its answer. Since she is self-blind, she cannot say that. When it comes to answering the question about Tom being at the party, if I am right, she is obliged to project her agnosticism onto the world. Is it true that Tom is at the party? No. Is it true that Tom is not at the party? No. It is neither true nor false that Tom is at the party. Her inability to acknowledge her agnosticism about Tom being at the party obliges Alice to deny that some fact constitutes the answer to the question as to whether Tom is there. At the same time, we were envisaging, Alice accepts T r She accepts that some fact constitutes the answer to the question whether Tom is at the party. Nevertheless, in virtue of her self-blindness, she is constrained to deny that any fact constitutes the answer to the same question. Alice has incoherent beliefs. Sophie does not combine a belief in the existence of a Universe designer with a belief in physical theory Pj in order to avoid an incoherence in her beliefs. Alice does combine a belief in her agnosticism about Tom being at the party with a belief in Tx in order to render her beliefs coherent. That is one crucial difference between Sophie and Alice. Reviewing the idea that is at the heart of the basic account will help to bring out the significance of this difference. Despite its complications, the basic account rests on a simple thought. The question whether someone else believes something can be answered separately from the question whether what that person believes is so. Alice considers the questions: 107
The basic and extended accounts (1) (2) (3) (4)
Is Tom at the party? Are there mountains on the other side of the moon? Do I, Alice, believe that Tom is at the party? Do I, Alice, believe that there are mountains on the other side of the moon?
From the point of view of someone other than Alice, answering (1) and (2) leaves it open what answers should be given to (3) and (4). From Alice s point of view the answers she gives to (1) and (2) must match the answers she gives to (3) and (4). Call the constraint that, from a first-person point of view, the answer to the question whether p must match the answer given to the question whether one believes p the first-person constraint. The basic account begins with the following observation. If one is only ever justified in self attributing beliefs on the basis of evidence, the first person constraint would not be met. From there, I have developed the basic account by exploring the consequences of the first-person constraint not being met. The main consequence is this. Suppose Alice fails to observe the first-person constraint. Suppose Alice forms beliefs about her non-doxastic world, that is the world as it is apart from her beliefs, without being prepared to attribute those beliefs to herself, unless she has evidence for doing so. In that case, I have argued, she would have to believe that the world is pervasively, and incomprehensibly, unstable, indeterminate and self-contradictory. Call the view that Alice would form of her nondoxastic world as a result of violating the first-person constraint the nonstandard view. Call the view that Alice will hold if she respects the first-person constraint the standard view. On the standard view the following is true. There is an answer to (1), though Alice may not know it. Moreover, facts stated without the use of indexicals do not change with time. Finally, any correct description of the world will be consistent. In the cognitive sense Alice is justified in believing the standard view, and not justified in believing the non-standard view. The standard view is a view about her non-doxastic world. It is not a view about what beliefs she has. Nevertheless, if Alice believes the standard view, and violates the first-person constraint, she will have incoherent beliefs. Suppose Alice embraces the standard view. She believes that it is either true or false that Tom is at the party. She believes that there is some fact of the matter whether Tom is at the party. Now the question arises: what is the answer to (1)? Is it true that Tom is at the party? One thing is clear to Alice. Question (2) is: are there mountains on the other side of the 108
Objections moon? Whatever beliefs she attributes to herself, the answer to (1) is indeterminate in a way that the answer to (2) is not. What remains to be resolved is what sort of indeterminacy resides in the answer to (2). Is it an indeterminacy in the facts, or an indeterminacy in her beliefs? Suppose she concludes that it is an indeterminacy in the facts. To that extent Alice will be departing from the standard view. However, we have allowed that Alice is justified in adopting the standard view. In order to hold only justified beliefs Alice will not only endorse the standard view, but attribute to herself the beliefs that go to make up the standard view.' Moreover, she is cognitively justified in doing so. Here, once again, are questions (1) and (2): (1) Is Tom at the party? (2) Are there mountains on the other side of the moon? When she compares the answer to (1) with the answer to (2) Alice is cognitively justified in believing that the answer to (1) is, in some sense, indeterminate. However, she is also cognitively justified in believing that the indeterminacy lies either in her beliefs or in the world. Since she is cognitively justified in accepting the standard view, she is cognitively justified in believing that the indeterminacy does not lie in the world. So, she is cognitively justified in believing that it lies in her beliefs. She is cognitively justified in believing that there is a gap in her beliefs. Even if she is self-blind, Alice is able to detect a contrast between (1) and (2). I have argued that she is cognitively justified in explaining that contrast thus. In contrast to (2) she has no beliefs about the answer to (1). For that explanation to make sense Alice must not only attribute to herself a lack of belief in the answer to (1), but a belief in the answer to (2). So, in order to make sense of an explanation she is cognitively justified in accepting, Alice must attribute to herself a belief in the answer to (2). (2) was arbitrarily selected. Any question she has an answer to would have served as well. Hence, if Alice is cognitively justified in endorsing the standard view, she is cognitively justified in attributing to herself any belief she consciously holds. One question remains to be answered. I have not been content to claim only that the knowledge we can have of our consciously held beliefs is non-observational. I have also claimed that it is a priori. Does the basic account vindicate this further claim? Let us say that the world is factually unstable if the obtaining of such facts as the fact that in 1993 the Earth is billions of years old is subject to 109
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change. I have argued that we have reason to self attribute consciously held beliefs in order to avoid countenancing pervasive indeterminacy, factual instability, and inconsistency. What type of justification do we have for refusing to countenance pervasive indeterminacy, factual instability and inconsistency? It seems to me to be a priori. Reflecting on the content of the proposition that the Earth is six thousand years old in 1993 by itself enables me to know that the truth value of that proposition cannot change from being true to being false. Reflecting on the content of the proposition that Tom is at the party by itself enables me to know that it has a determinate truth value. Finally, reflecting on the content of the proposition that a large lottery has taken place enables me to know that it is consistent. If I am right, I am in a position to know about any of my consciously held beliefs that I have it because I am in a position to know the following a priori. My non-doxastic world is, in certain ways, determinate, stable, and consistent. Hence, I am in a position to know a priori, of any belief I consciously hold, that I have it. THE OBJECTION TO THE DOXASTIC SCHEMA, AND THE OBJECTION FROM LACK OF JUSTIFICATION
Two objections raised earlier to the basic account can now be answered. One I called the objection to the doxastic schema. The other I called the objection from lack ofjustification. The objection to the doxastic schema goes like this. According to the preliminary version of the basic account, when an individual non-observationally self attributes a belief she does so by making an inference which conforms to the doxastic schema. She infers from p being so to her believing that p is so. However, in the case of the majority of self attributed beliefs such an inference is manifestly invalid. Hence, in the majority of cases, relying on such an inference will not justify self attributing a belief. The point underlying this objection is well taken. I reach a conclusion about my non-doxastic world. Say, tp^take an example given earlier, I reach the conclusion that there were dinosaurs in America. I then make a transition from concluding that there were dinosaurs in America to concluding that I believe there were dinosaurs in America. That transition is a rational one to make. However, it is not rational because I validly infer from the fact that there were dinosaurs in America that I have the corresponding belief about dinosaurs. The fact that there were dinosaurs in America does not in the least support the conclusion that I believe there were. 110
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What makes the transition from a conclusion about dinosaurs to a conclusion about my beliefs rational is something else. For conceptual reasons, unless I am prepared to move from a conclusion about my nondoxastic world to a conclusion about what I have concluded about my non-doxastic world I will be obliged to adopt an unjustified view of my non-doxastic world. This reply to the objection to the doxastic scheme forms the basis of a reply to the objection from lack ofjustification. Here is the example used to illustrate the objection from lack ofjustification. Fred believes the pronouncements of his fortune-teller who informs him that he will meet a short, blond, beautiful stranger. According to the basic account Fred is able to non-observationally, but justifiably, self attribute a belief only if the self attributed belief is itselfjustified. Fred believes he will meet a short, blond, beautiful stranger only because his fortune-teller tells him that he will. Consequently, Fred is not justified in believing in the advent of the stranger. Nevertheless, Fred is surely non-observationally justified in attributing to himself the belief that the stranger will come. We have an example of an unjustified belief that is non-observationally self attributable. There is an ambiguity in saying that someone is justified in believing something. Consider reasons for acting. Suppose that someone has planted a bomb nearby which is due to detonate in five minutes. Except for the one who planted it, no one, including myself, is aware of the presence of the bomb. Do I have a reason to leave the building? In one sense I do have a reason to leave. Given my desires, interests and obligations, it is best for me to leave. We may say that I have an objective reason to leave. However, in another sense, I have no reason to leave. We may say I have no subjective reason to leave.2 Roughly, I have a subjective reason to leave just in case I believe I have an objective reason to do so.3 The distinction between objective and subjective reasons parallels the distinction drawn by ethicists between a subjective and objective obligation. For a consequential an agent has an objective obligation to do A just in case it would be best for her to do A. She has a subjective obligation to do A just in case in her view she has an objective obligation to do A. Michael Smith 1987 draws the distinction between objective and subjective reasons for acting as the distinction between normative and motivating reasons for acting. A normative reason dictates what action one ought to perform. A motivating reason dictates what action one will be motivated to perform. It would be better to say that I have a subjective reason to leave just in case I believe I have an objective reason to leave, and that belief is supported by my background beliefs.
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The basic and extended accounts
Corresponding to the distinction between objective and subjective reasons for acting there is a distinction between an objective and a subjective justification for believing. An internalist about justification will say that I am justified in believing something only if I have an epistemic obligation to believe it. An externalist about justification will say that I am justified in believing something only if I have formed my belief by means of a truth-conducive process. In making these claims the internalist and externalist are proposing necessary conditions for having a justified belief in a sense of 'justified belief that corresponds to objective reason for acting. The internalist and externalist are proposing necessary conditions for being objectively justified in believing something. However, we also say that someone is justified in believing something when, by her lights, she is objectively justified in believing something whether or not, in fact, she is objectively justified. Such an individual is subjectively justified in holding a belief. I have insisted that only justified beliefs are non-observationally self attributable. Why so? The basic account focuses on the move from taking something to be true about the world to taking something to be true about one's view of the world. A necessary condition for taking p to be true is being subjectively justified in believing that p. On the other hand, being objectively justified in believing that p is not a necessary condition for taking p to be true. After consulting the fortune-teller Fred is not objectively justified in believing that he will meet the stranger. Nevertheless, he is subjectively justified in holding that belief. By his lights Fred is objectively justified in believing that he will meet the stranger. Moreover, on the basic account he only needs to be subjectively justified in holding a belief in order to non-observationally self attribute it. The example of Fred and the fortuneteller is no counterexample to the basic account. THE SPEECH ACT AND THE HAMPSHIRE-HART OBJECTION
The speech act objection went like this. The basic account is an account of how we are justified in making self attributions expressed by such first person present tense sentences as: (1) 'I believe that it is raining.' So, the basic account commits one to holding that, typically, (1) does express the self attribution of a belief. According to the speech act objec112
Objections tion, (1) is typically used to perform a quite different speech act. In Urmson's view, (1) is typically used to, for example, state, in a cautious manner that it is raining.4 A defender of the basic account can happily concede the following. A sentence such as (1) is, typically, not only used to self attribute a belief. It is, typically, also used to give cautious expression to the self attributed belief. For the speech act objection to work sentences such as (1) must, typically, only be used to perform a speech act other than self attributing a belief. Call the thesis that (1) is, typically, not used to self attribute a belief, but, instead, is typically used to cautiously state that it is raining, the speech act thesis. What can be said about the speech act thesis? When you say about me that AG believes it is raining, you certainly appear to be attributing a belief to me. Moreover, in saying that about me, you are saying something that is true if and only if what I say in uttering (1) is true. It is hard to see how that can be so if (1) is only used to make a statement about the weather. After all, it is not true that it is raining if and only if AG believes that it is. In addition, if the truth conditions of (1) and: (2) 'AG believes it is raining', are so different, it is hard to see why, in denying that (2) is true, you would be contradicting me when I utter (1). Suppose that yesterday I uttered (1). According to the speech act thesis, in doing so, I was only cautiously stating that it was then raining. Now, suppose it turns out not to have been raining yesterday. Surely, it does not follow that what I said yesterday in uttering (1) is false. Here is a final objection to the speech act thesis. Consider a sentence which is explicitly only used to cautiously assert that it is raining: (3) 'It is, I cautiously assert, raining.' (1) is the sentence 'I believe that it is raining.' On the speech act thesis (1) and (3) are typically used to say the same thing. However, there seems to be something wrong in asserting the following. It is, I cautiously assert, raining, but even if it is not raining, I cautiously assert that it is. On the other hand, as we have noted in another context, there is nothing wrong with asserting the following. I believe it is raining, but, even if it is not raining, I still believe that it is. 4
Urmson 1952.
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Here is how the Hampshire—Hart objection goes. Stuart Hampshire and H. L. A. Hart have defended the following claim.5 If, after deliberating, I conclude that I intend to go out I am not detecting an intention that I have antecedently formed. Instead, I am forming that intention. Likewise, when, after accumulating evidence that it is raining, I conclude that I believe that it is, I am not detecting a belief I hold about the rain. Instead, I am forming that belief. Certainly, this is true. When, on the basis of reviewing the evidence for rain, I conclude that I believe it is raining, I am not detecting a belief I have antecedently formed. My evidence for believing that it is raining leads me to consciously form the belief that it is, and, in virtue of forming the belief, puts me in a position to tell that I have it.6 Before leaving the speech act and Hampshire-Hart objections, two further points deserve to be noted. The first is this. Arthur Collins argues that belief is not a mental state.7 I find his argument for that conclusion unconvincing. Nevertheless, there is no conflict between Collins' view about belief and the basic account. The basic account implies that (1) is, typically, used to self attribute a belief. It implies nothing about the status of the self attributed belief. In particular, it does not imply that a self attributed belief is best thought of as a state of a believer. The second point to be noted is this. In responding to the HampshireHart objection I conceded that when someone non-observationally attributes a belief on the basis of evidence for what she believes, she does not detect an antecedently held belief. However, there appear to be cases where someone is in a position to non-observationally tell what she has believed for some time.8 For example, someone responding to a survey may be asked what she believes. She may be in a position to nonobservationally tell that she has a certain belief, and that she has had it for some time past. Such a one is in a position to non-observationally tell what belief she antecedently holds. Hence, such a one is able to nonobservationally self attribute a belief without consulting her reasons for having it. In my view, we acquire knowledge of past beliefs through memory. Since I am relying on memory when I recollect holding a belief, I do not need to resort to evidence for what I believe in order to tell that I have 5 6
8
In Hampshire and Hart 1958. David Velleman in Velleman 1989 makes a similar claim about our knowledge of our 7 intentions. In Collins 1987. Fred D'Agostino has called such cases to my attention.
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believed it. Any case like the one above will be a case of recollecting what I believed. We should think of it like this. When I first come to consciously hold a belief, I am justified in self attributing it on the basis of evidence for what I believe. Thereafter, I rely on memory to justifiably attribute it to my past and present selves. Evidence for what I believe ceases to play an essential justificatory role once I have acquired a belief. At that point memory takes over. FURTHER OBJECTIONS
Stated very informally, the basic account goes like this. An individual needs to be able to non-observationally self attribute beliefs in order to contrast how the world is with how it appears. Moreover, she needs to be able to contrast how the world is with how it appears for, at least, two reasons. First, during her life she will change her mind on a number of topics, and recall that she has done so. Second, her view of the world will contain many gaps. She will have no opinion about many topics. Finally, she will take the world to be consistent.9 Call someone hyper-opinionated who forms a belief about the answer to any question she considers. Call someone who never changes her mind about anything hyper-dogmatic. Call someone who is invariably consistent hyper-consistent. Suppose that there could be someone who is hyperopinionated, hyper-dogmatic, and hyper-consistent. Such an individual's world view would contain no gaps. Such an individual would never change her mind. Such an individual would never hold inconsistent beliefs. Hence, a hyper-opinionated, hyper-dogmatic, and hyperconsistent individual would lack the reasons specified in the basic account for self attributing beliefs. Nevertheless, a hyper-opinionated, hyperdogmatic, and hyper-consistent individual would surely be able to nonobservationally self attribute beliefs as well as any of the rest of us. The first point to be noted about this objection is that it has limited force against the basic account. At most it shows that a hyper-opinionated, hyper-dogmatic, and hyper-consistent individual must be justified in nonobservationally self attributing beliefs for reasons other than the ones that justify a normally self-opinionated, dogmatic, and consistent individual in non-observationally self attributing beliefs. 9
All this needs to be qualified. We will come to the needed qualifications shortly.
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However, even if the objection showed this much, it would be damaging. It would suggest that the basic account has not exposed the fundamental reason for our being able to non-observatiorially self attribute beliefs. In order to say why the present objection does not tell against the basic account, I will focus on someone being hyper-opinionated and -dogmatic. At this point we need to distinguish two types of hyper-opinionated and -dogmatic individuals. For the first every question has, as a matter of fact, an unchanging and determinate answer. Nevertheless, this first type of hyper-opinionated and -dogmatic individual is able to envisage some questions lacking determinate answers, and the answers to some questions being different at different times. In contrast, the second type of hyperopinionated and -dogmatic individual is incapable of envisaging the answer to any question changing, or failing to be determinate. The first variety of hyper-opinionated and -dogmatic individual could well have the reasons for non-observationally self attributing beliefs laid down in the basic account. She asks herself this. There are a large number of questions that have determinate answers that might have lacked determinate answers. If they had lacked determinate answers, would the indeterminacy have resided in the world, or in my beliefs about the world? She may well have reason to think that the indeterminacy would lie in her beliefs.10 What of the second variety of hyper-opinionated and -dogmatic individual? It seems to me an open question whether the second variety of 10
More needs to be said. It may seem that the first type of hyper-opinionated and -dogmatic individual does not have the reason specified in the basic account for nonobservationally self attributing a belief. When she considers a hypothetical situation, one in which certain questions lack determinate answers, she acknowledges that she would, in that situation, have the reasons given in the basic account for non-observationally self attributing beliefs. It does not follow that she actually has such reasons. The hyper-opinionated and -dogmatic individual considers a hypothetical situation in which she would be justified non-observationally self attributing agnosticism. She firmly believes that Tom is at the party while considering a hypothetical situation in which she has no opinion about Tom being at the party. She is able to detect a contrast between that hypothetical situation and her actual situation in which she believes that Tom is at the party. How should we who are not self-blind characterize that contrast? It is obvious how we should do so. In the hypothetical situation the hyper-opinionated dogmatist has no belief about Tom being at the party. In contrast, she actually believes that Tom is at the party. How should our hyper-opinionated dogmatist characterize the same contrast? If one of the main arguments of chapter eight is successful, she should do so in exactly the same way. Hence, our hyper-opinionated dogmatist has reason to self attribute the belief that Tom is at the party.
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hyper-opinionated and -dogmatic individual would be able to non-observationally self attribute beliefs. Indeed, it seems to me an open question whether the second variety of hyper-opinionated and -dogmatic individual would have the concept of belief. Here is a further objection to the basic account. The basic account rests on the observation that when someone considers a question about her non-doxastic world, she is confronted with a certain choice. From the point of view of a normal believer, she will either supply an answer to that question, or acknowledge that it has no answer. If she acknowledges that it has no answer, she will have to make a further decision. Does the original question have no answer because she has no answer to it, or because there is no answer to it? Unless these choices are exhaustive, the basic account is in trouble. If they are not exhaustive, an individual who lacks an answer to a question will not be forced to choose between attributing a state of belief to herself or indeterminacy to the world. However, the alternatives of attributing indeterminacy to the world or to one's view of the world do not seem to be exhaustive. Consider self-blind Sadie. Sadie has no answer to the question whether there are an even number of stars in the Galaxy. Is she obliged to acknowledge that she has no answer to that question, or that it has no answer? Perhaps not. If Sadie is self-blind, she may, in a radical sense, be unable to answer the question whether the Galaxy contains an even number of stars. Having posed that question, she may be unable to respond to it. When Sadie raises the question whether the Galaxy contains an even number of stars either her cognitive processes grind to a halt, or her attention automatically switches to another topic.11 We are supposing that Sadie is able to formulate the question whether there are an even number of stars in the Galaxy.12 Why then would she be unable to respond to it? Since Sadie's inability is not psychological, there could only be one explanation. Sadie lacks the conceptual resources to respond to a question she is, in the ordinary sense, unable to answer. However, that explanation cannot be right. Sadie is self-blind. Consequently, she has the concepts of belief, truth, and falsity. So, Sadie has the conceptual resources to respond to the question she has posed. 11 12
I am indebted to Daniel Nolan and Ian Hinkfuss for raising this objection. Suppose that one consequence of Sadie's self-blindness is that she is unable to formulate any question to which she has no answer.
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Hence, either she has to acknowledge that she has no idea what the answer to that question is, or that any answer to it lacks a determinate truth value. Sadie poses the question whether there are an even number of stars in the Galaxy. Here is a way that she might respond to it that we have not, so far considered.13 Sadie addresses the following question: (3) Are there an even number of stars in the Galaxy? Here is a key argument I offered earlier. Sadie is self-blind. Suppose, Sadie is agnostic about the answer to (3). Since she is self-blind, and, we may suppose, has no behavioural or other evidence indicating her agnosticism, Sadie is precluded from giving this answer to (3): (4) I have no opinion about the answer to (3), but (3) has an answer. Instead, I argue, Sadie has to respond to (3) with: (5) (3) has no answer. Is (5) the only response available to Sadie? Apparently not. Here is another she can give: (6) It is possible that the number of stars is even. It is also possible that the number of stars is odd. If (6), and variations on (6) replacing 'possible'with 'maybe', 'perhaps', etc., are available to Sadie, a crucial argument for the basic account collapses. (6) is an alternative answer to (5) Sadie can give if she is agnostic. So, (6) should be interpreted in such a way that she can respond with (6) whether or not she is agnostic about (3). For example, in the present context, this would not constitute an alternative to (5): (7) It is metaphysically possible for the number of stars to be even. It is also metaphysically possible for the number of stars to be odd. Clearly, one can endorse (7) without having any answer to (3). I maintain that if (6) constitutes an answer to (3) then 'possible that' in (6) should be taken to mean epistemically possible that. Suppose it is. What follows? Suppose I say: 13
Peter Forrest vigorously pressed this point in discussion.
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Objections (8) It is epistemicaUy possible that it will rain this afternoon, and epistemically possible that it will not rain. In asserting (8), if I understand what I am saying, I will take myself to imply: (9) It raining this afternoon is compatible with everything I believe, and it not raining this afternoon is compatible with everything I believe. Suppose that, in asserting (8) I must take myself to be implying (9). In addition, suppose I am completely ignorant about the beliefs I hold concerning the future state of the weather. If so, I will not be justified in asserting (9).14 Consequently, I will not be justified in asserting (8). Self-blind Sadie is ignorant about her agnosticism concerning the answer to (3). However, she has no justification for believing the following: (10) The Galaxy containing an even number of stars is compatible with everything I believe. The Galaxy containing an odd number of stars is also compatible with everything I believe. If what I have said so far is correct, in asserting (6) as an alternative answer to (3), Sadie must take herself to imply (10). Since she has no justification for believing (10), she has no justification for asserting (6). (6) is not an alternative answer to (5) that Sadie is justified in giving. A self-blind individual is fully rational. I have implied that, as a fully rational individual, one who is self-blind will avoid postulating pervasive indeterminacy, factual instability and inconsistency. Allow that an individual is less than fully rational if she countenances factual instability. Allow that an individual is less than fully rational if she allows a fact about the age of the Earth in 1993 to change with time. Nevertheless, it does not reflect adversely on anyone's rationality if they allow the world to be indeterminate or inconsistent. Many philosophers and logicians hold the world to be indeterminate. Some pre-eminently rational philosophers and logicians hold the world to be inconsistent. Why should it reflect adversely on the rationality of a self-blind individual if she tolerates indeterminacies and inconsistencies? 14
Kent Bach has pointed out to me that (9) might be asserted by Sadie on general principles. For example, Sadie might assert (9) on the grounds that she lives in an area where people do not, in general, form beliefs about rainfall because of its unpredictability. On this basis Sadie concludes that very likely she has formed no such belief. However, if Sadie does assert (9) on this basis that would be a case of her, albeit indirectly, observationally self attributing a belief.
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Some hold that some propositions are indeterminate because they wish to evade fatalism, or solve the problem of vagueness. Some hold that some true propositions are inconsistent because they wish to solve the liar and associated paradoxes, or the paradoxes of motion.15 In each of these cases someone holds that there are indeterminacies or true inconsistencies for a reason. Nevertheless, there is a presumption in favour of a proposition having a determinate truth value, and a true proposition being consistent. What the above examples show is that there could be a good reason to override that presumption. A self-blind individual does not tolerate indeterminacies and inconsistencies because she supposes she has good reason to do so. Consider selfblind Alice who denies that there is a fact of the matter about Tom being at the party. Alice does not deny that there is a fact of the matter about Tom being at the party because she thinks she has good reason to do so. Alice denies that there is a fact of the matter about Tom being at the party because she is blind to her agnosticism about his being there. However, Alice's blindness to her agnosticism concerning Tom's whereabouts does not, of course, serve as a reason for her denying that there is a fact of the matter about Tom being at the party. Alice, in contrast to the philosopher who is attempting to solve certain conundrums, violates the presumption in favour of a proposition having a determinate truth value, and a true proposition being consistent, for no reason. That is why Alice, in contrast to such a philosopher, is irrational. FIRST-PERSON AUTHORITY, CONSCIOUSNESS AND PRIVILEGED ACCESS
The next objection raises some of the most intractable issues in the philosophy of mind. For that reason, I confess, my response to it will be less than satisfactory. Nevertheless, it requires a response. The basic account is intended to apply to consciously held beliefs. What is it for a belief to be consciously held? In order to answer this question I could attempt to provide one or more of the following: (a) An analysis of what it is to hold a belief consciously. (b) A characterization of the functional role of consciously held beliefs. (Of course, (b) will amount to (a) if functionalism is true) For an extended defence of the view that there are true inconsistencies see Priest 1987.
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(c) A criterion for distinguishing between consciously held and nonconsciously held beliefs. I find the task of giving (a) enormously difficult. Moreover, it is one that would require writing another book. This is especially so since I think it is hopeless to analyze what it is to hold a propositional attitude consciously in terms of higher-order attitudes. Nevertheless, it is quite fair to insist that I provide (c). Unless I do, there is a danger of circularity. The basic account is an account of our first-person authority over our consciously held beliefs. Conscious beliefs are beliefs that the basic account applies to. Later, I will give a non-trivial sufficient condition for a belief to be consciously held. For now, I will confine myself to providing (c). Here is how I intend to do so. If there are any non-conscious beliefs, I can state that I have one. Consider the example in which I unconsciously believe my family is persecuting me. I can state that I believe that p without consciously believing that p. What I cannot do is sincerely state what I believe without consciously believing it. I cannot sincerely state that p without consciously believing p. Suppose I say that I believe my family is persecuting me, and go on to add that, indeed, they are persecuting me. In that case, my belief will have become consciously held. So, one way of providing (c), a criterion for discriminating between conscious and non-conscious beliefs, is this. A conscious belief is one apt for linguistic expression by sincerely stating what one believes.16 I have identified beliefs that are non-observationally self attributable in two ways. First, a belief is non-observationally self attributable just in case it is subjectively justified. A belief is non-observationally self attributable just in case the believer takes herself to be justified in holding it. Second, a belief is non-observationally self attributable just in case it is consciously held. The problem is this. We find it fruitful to explain some actions by taking them to result from desires and beliefs that the agent is not conscious of having. For example, we find it natural to characterize a case of self-deception in the following way. The self-deceiver forms a belief that she takes herself to be justified in having. Nevertheless, it is in her interests to avoid consciously holding it. So, the self-deceiver comes 16
The inclusion of 'sincerely' is important here. Otherwise my characterization of a consciously held belief would be open to the following counterexample which was called to my attention by Kent Bach. I non-consciously believe p. Nevertheless, I insincerely state that p.
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to non-consciously hold a belief that she is subjectively justified in holding. If this characterization of a case of self-deception is accurate then it cannot be that consciously holding a belief is a necessary condition for non-observationally self attributing it, and that being subjectively justified in holding a belief is a sufficient condition for non-observationally self attributing it. The self-deceiver is subjectively justified in holding a belief she excludes from consciousness. Indeed, she excludes her belief from consciousness, in part, because she takes herself to be justified in holding it. One response to this objection strikes me as unduly heavy-handed. The objection arises because a plausible account of self-deception conflicts with the following alleged entailments: (1) X is subjectively justified in believing p entails X is nonobservationally justified in believing that she believes p. (2) X is non-observationally justified in believing that she believes p entails X consciously believes p. The heavy-handed response is to reject any account of self-deception, and like cases, that would lead us to give up either (1) or (2). Of course, it is controversial that any non-conscious state deserves the title of belief. There may be no non-consciously held beliefs. However, I would be reluctant to make an account of our distinctive epistemic access to our beliefs depend on the impossibility of there being any non-conscious beliefs. An alternative would be to concede that there are non-conscious beliefs, but deny that it is possible to believe, even non-consciously, that any given non-conscious belief is justified. What makes this proposal unpalatable is that it is difficult to see why it is impossible to hold the nonconscious belief that p together with the non-conscious belief that q if there is no problem with combining the consciously held belief that p together with the consciously held belief that q. Suppose, to revert to a hackneyed example, a woman believes with good reason that her husband is unfaithful. Why is it possible for her to combine the conscious belief that her husband is unfaithful with the conscious belief that she is justified in having that belief, but impossible to combine a non-conscious belief in her husbands infidelity with a non-conscious belief that she is justified in having that belief? (1) says that X being subjectively justified in believing p entails that X is non-observationally justified in self attributing that belief. (2) says that 122
Objections
X being non-observationally justified in self attributing the belief that p entails that X consciously believes p. Suppose, instead we renounce either (1) or (2). Why not give up (1)? Giving up (1) is tantamount to abandoning the basic account. The basic account depends on the legitimacy of moving from justifiably believing something to be true to non-observationally attributing a belief in what one takes to be true. Rather than too hastily abandoning the basic account, let us consider the consequences of retaining (1), but rejecting (2). Why suppose that a belief is non-observationally self attributable only if it is consciously held? Here is one reason for doing so. Consider again the woman who deceives herself into believing that her husband is faithful when she unconsciously believes that he is not. For her belief that her husband is unfaithful to be non-observationally justified the following must be true. If the self-deceiver believes that she believes her husband is unfaithful, her second-order belief will be non-observationally justified. Surely, that is not true. Surely the self-deceiver could only be justified in attributing to herself a belief in her husband's unfaithfulness in one of two circumstances. Either her belief in her husband s unfaithfulness becomes consciously held, or she has evidence for self-attributing it. This argument rests on a confusion. What is true is this. The selfdeceiver is only justified in consciously believing that she believes her husband is unfaithful on the basis of evidence. It does not follow that the self-deceiver fails to be non-observationally justified in self-attributing a belief in her husband's infidelity. She may be non-observationally justified in non-consciously believing that she believes him to be unfaithful. Concede that the self-deceiver's conscious belief that she believes in her husband's infidelity requires evidential backing in order to be justified. Making that concession is consistent with maintaining that if the selfdeceiver comes to non-consciously believe that she believes in her husband's infidelity, her second-order belief does not need evidential support to be justified. According to (2), if X is non-observationally justified in self attributing the belief that p, that entails X consciously believes p. Is there any other reason for endorsing (2)? Here is one. I have had a good deal to say about what is distinctive about our epistemic access to our propositional attitudes, and why we have that mode of access to our beliefs. I have had little to say about whether any of our self ascriptions of propositional attitudes are epistemically privileged. When we say that someone has privileged access to her propositional 123
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attitudes we mean at least this. She is in an epistemically better position than anyone else to discern her propositional attitudes. In one important sense, when it comes to assessing the truth value of some proposition p, one cannot enjoy an epistemic advantage over someone unless one is conscious of the justification for believing p. In order to see why we need to distinguish two senses in which one person can be epistemically privileged over another. Suppose we say that A is epistemically privileged over B with respect to proposition p just in case this is so. A's belief about the truth value of p is more justified that B's. In this sense one person can be epistemically privileged over another with respect to some proposition because she possesses a justification for believing it that she is not aware of possessing. The selfdeceiver's friend has some evidence that indicates the self-deceiver's husband is faithful. The self-deceiver has much stronger evidence indicating that he is not. However, the self-deceiver has rendered herself unconscious of the evidence in favour of her husband being unfaithful. Nevertheless, the self-deceiver is more justified in believing that her husband is unfaithful than her friend is in believing the opposite. What the self-deceiver is unable to do is communicate the justification she has for believing in her husband's infidelity. Let us say that A is strongly epistemically privileged over B with respect to believing p just in case this is true of A. A is able to communicate to B a justification for believing p which satisfies this condition. It renders B more justified in believing p than she would be without A communicating that justification. An individual cannot be strongly epistemically privileged in believing p unless she is conscious of her justification for believing p. If we take it that non-observational justification automatically confers strong epistemic privilege, we will endorse (2). However, there is no obvious reason to tie non-observational justification to strong epistemic privilege. Are there any necessary connections between being nonobservationally justified in holding a belief, consciously holding a belief, and being strongly epistemically privileged with respect to it? There are two that I can discern. First, consider a link between being non-observationally justified in holding a belief, and consciously holding it. I have suggested that consciously holding a belief is not a necessary condition for being non-observationally justified in holding it. I have suggested that (2) is false. At first sight, it is more promising to maintain that consciously holding a belief is a sufficient condition for being non-observationally justified in holding it. An example mentioned earlier makes the 124
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converse of (2) look less promising. I have in mind the example of the compulsive who believes that disaster will strike since a pointless ritual was not carried out. Nevertheless, the compulsive's irrational belief is consciously held. Moreover, I argued that the compulsive fails to be nonobservationally justified in self-attributing that belief. The compulsive self attributes that belief on the basis of the evidence provided by feelings of anxiety, and the like. The compulsives belief is consciously held without her belief that she has it being non-observationally warranted. As always, it is open to someone to insist that the compulsive is not self attributing a belief. When she announces that disaster will strike, she is only attributing to herself a belief-like state. If we are not prepared to go that far, something close to the converse of (2) can be defended. Allow that the compulsive consciously believes that disaster will strike. She lacks a non-observational justification for believing that she has her compulsive belief. However, she is justified in self-attributing it on the basis of evidence. What cannot happen is this. Someone consciously holds a belief, and has no justification at all for self-attributing it. Hence, if the compulsive lacks any evidence for believing that she believes disaster will strike, but consciously believes that it will, it follows that she is non-observationally justified in self-attributing her belief in impending disaster. Consciously holding a belief is not a sufficient condition for being non-observationally justified in self-attributing it. On the other hand, lacking any evidence for self-attributing a belief together with consciously holding it is a sufficient condition for being non-observationally justified in self-attributing it. Now consider a link between consciously holding a belief, being nonobservationally justified in self-attributing it, and being strongly epistemically privileged with respect to it. To be non-observationally justified in holding a belief is to be justified in holding it without relying on evidence. To be strongly epistemically privileged with respect to a belief is to be in a position to raise another's justification for holding it by communicating one's own. I have suggested that someone can be non-observationally justified in holding a belief without consciously holding it. In addition, someone can be strongly epistemically privileged with respect to a belief without consciously holding it. The psychoanalyst's patient believes that her family is persecuting her, but does not consciously hold that belief. Nevertheless, she recognizes that her behaviour constitutes evidence for her holding the belief about her family So, the psychoanalyst's patient is in the following situation. She is conscious of a justification for believing 125
The basic and extended accounts
that she has a belief she is not conscious of holding. Moreover, she is able to communicate that justification to another who is not in as good a position to tell what the psychoanalyst's patient believes about her family. Consequently, it is possible for someone to be strongly epistemically privileged with respect to a belief she does not consciously hold. What is not possible is this. An individual believes that p without consciously believing that p. In addition, she is non-evidentially justified in believing that p, and is strongly epistemically privileged with respect to that belief. If the psychoanalyst's patient is non-observationally justified in self attributing the belief in her family's persecution, and is in a position to communicate her justification to another, she must consciously hold that belief. We may say that consciously holding a belief supervenes on non-observational justification and strong privileged access.17 17
Recall that strong epistemic privilege does not only amount to this. A is strongly epistemically privileged over B with respect to p if and only if A is able to raise B's justification for believing p. If it did, we would have the following counter-example to the claim that first-person authority together with strong epistemic privilege is sufficient for consciously holding a belief. A has first-person authority over the belief that p, but does not consciously believe p. Nevertheless, A non-consciously believing p causes her to behave in a way that causes B to recognize that A has a well-founded belief in p. Strong privileged access requires that one be able to raise someone else's justification by communicating one's own. I am indebted to Daniel Nolan for a discussion of these issues.
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7 The problem of scope Without having recourse to evidence, I can tell what I consciously believe. I can also tell, without relying on evidence, what I consciously desire, fear, hope for, intend, imagine, conjecture, and entertain. Does the basic account throw any light on how one can non-observationally self attribute propositional attitudes other than belief? At first sight, it does not. The basic account focuses on the transition from taking something to be true to self attributing a belief in what is taken to be true. For various reasons I take it to be true that Sydney is in Australia. According to the basic account, in order to form a plausible picture of the world as it is independently of my beliefs, I am entitled to attribute to myself the belief that Sydney is in Australia. Obviously, when I desire, fear, or hope for something, I need not take what I desire, fear, or hope for to be true. There is no prospect of simply extending the basic account to cover the self attribution of propositional attitudes apart from belief. Nevertheless, the basic account does provide a foundation for a general account of the non-observational self attribution of propositional attitudes. In order to say how, I will first need to provide a taxonomy of states that are non-observationally self attributable. CLASSIFYING ATTITUDES
Some states that are non-observationally self attributable are directly subject to the will, but others are not. Imagining, conjecturing and entertaining are all directly subject to the will in the following sense. I can, at will, directly, without taking intermediate steps, imagine, conjecture, or entertain something. On the other hand, I cannot at will, or directly, believe, desire, hope for, or intend something. Consider propositional attitudes that are not subject to the will. In formulating an objection to the basic account I contrasted strategic with 127
The basic and extended accounts
cognitive reasons for believing. The unfaithful wife's husband has only a strategic reason for believing in his spouse s fidelity. Sophie the physicist has only a strategic reason for believing in God. The contrast between strategic and cognitive reasons is an instance of a more general contrast. In the case of desiring, fearing, hoping, and intending we may have either attitude- or object-focused reasons for being in any of those states.11 desire to eat an ice-cream because it will be delicious. In this case my reason for having a desire, that the ice-cream will be delicious, relates to the object of my desire. A schoolboy induces in himself a desire to play football because, whether or not he ever plays, if his schoolfellows detect a lack of enthusiasm for the game they will punish him. The schoolboy has a reason to desire to play football that relates to the benefits of having that attitude, desiring to play, rather than the object of the attitude, playing. The schoolboy has an attitude- rather than object-focused reason for wanting to play football. I intend to leave shortly because I have promised to meet someone. My reason for intending to leave is object-focused. In the famous toxin puzzle, someone has reason to intend to take a toxin which will result in a day's agony. Her reason for intending to take the toxin is that, whether or not she takes it, she will receive a million dollars if she succeeds in intending to. The protagonist in the toxin puzzle has only an attitude-focused reason to intend to take the toxin.2 I distinguished between those propositional attitudes that are subject to the will and those that are not. One can have both attitude- and objectfocused reasons for adopting any propositional attitude that is not subject to the will. I can have a reason for believing, desiring, or hoping, which is not just a reason for being in a state of belief, desire, or hope unrelated to the object of that state. Moreover, whether or not I have an attitudefocused reason, I must, pending a qualification we will come to shortly, have an object-focused reason for holding any propositional attitude that is not subject to the will. Attitudes subject to the will differ in this respect from those that are not. I cannot have an object-focused reason for adopting a propositional attitude that is subject to the will. I can only have an attitude-focused reason for adopting such attitudes as imagining, conjecturing, or entertaining. Consider Albert, an actor, who has reason to imagine that he is jealous. If he does, he will perform better as Othello. It makes sense to say that, 1 2
I borrow the labels 'attitude-focused' and 'object-focused' from Robert Dunn. The toxin puzzle is due to Gregory Kavka. For his statement of it see Kavka 1983.
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The problem of scope
though Sophie the physicist has a reason to get herself to believe that God exists, she has no reason to believe that He does. It makes sense to say that, though the schoolboy has reason to get himself to want to play football, he has no reason to want to play football. It makes sense to say that, though the protagonist in the toxin puzzle has a reason, obtaining a million dollars, to get herself to intend to take the toxin, she has no reason to intend to take it. On the other hand, it makes no sense to say that, though Albert has reason to get himself to imagine that he is jealous, he has no reason to imagine that he is jealous. One further distinction needs to be drawn within the class of attitudes that one can have object-focused reasons for holding, and are not subject to the will. Consider believing and intending. As was observed at the outset, believing and intending lack a distinctive phenomenology. There is nothing that it is like to believe or intend something. In contrast, desiring, fearing, and hoping appear to have a distinctive phenomenology. Certainly, there is something that it is like to be in the grip of desire. There is something that it is like to feel fearful or hopeful. We need to distinguish between what I will call a phenomenological attribution and a non-phenomenological attribution of an attitude. An attribution of an attitude to an individual X is phenomenological provided X feels for an appropriate substituend of in virtue of having that attitude. Consider desiring and fearing. Michael is the object of Sadie's lust. She desires to sleep with him. Sadie feels desire in virtue of desiring to sleep with Michael. Michael is about to write a paper on propositional attitudes. He wants to switch on his word processor. There need be nothing that it is like to be Michael in virtue of his desiring to switch on the word processor. Michael does not feel a desire to switch on his word processor in virtue of desiring to switch on his word processor in the sense that Sadie feels a desire to sleep with him in virtue of desiring to do so. Michael is terribly afraid of spiders. He fears that a spider is in the room. Michael feels fear in virtue of fearing the presence of a spider. Sadie remarks to a colleague that she fears that a student she knows slightly will fail unless he works harder. It is improbable that Sadie feels fear in virtue of fearing that the student will fail. Now is the time to introduce a qualification to a claim made earlier. I said that one must have an object-focused reason for adopting any consciously held propositional attitude not subject to the will. That claim is not applicable to phenomenologically attributed attitudes. Michael feels fear in virtue of fearing that a spider is near. He need not, even in his own 129
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estimation, have any justification for fearing the presence of a spider. He may regard his fear as irrational. Sadie feels desire in virtue of desiring to sleep with Michael. Sadie need not, in her own view, be justified in desiring to sleep with Michael. Sadie may regard her desire as arational if not irrational. Sadie is conscious of fearing that the student will do badly. She does not feel fear in virtue of fearing that the student will do badly. Consequently, Sadie must see herself as having some justification for fearing that the student will do badly. Michael does not feel any desire in virtue of consciously wanting to switch on the word processor. Consequently, Michael must see himself as having a justification for wanting to switch it on. We now have the taxonomy of attitudes required to extend the basic account. Let us review it. Propositional attitudes divide up into those, such as imagining, conjecturing, and entertaining, that are subject to the will, and those, such as believing, desiring, and intending, that are not. Reasons for having propositional attitudes, likewise, divide up into attitude- and object-focused reasons. Attitude-focused reasons pertain to having a propositional attitude. Object-focused reasons pertain to the object of a propositional attitude. One can have both attitude- and object-focused reasons for adopting any propositional attitude that is not subject to the will. An attitude is phenomenologically attributed provided that someone feels a certain way in virtue of having it. One must have an object-focused reason for adopting any consciously held propositional attitude not subject to the will, unless that attitude is phenomenologically attributed. Finally, one cannot have an object-focused reason for adopting any attitude subject to the will. PHENOMENOLOGICALLY ATTRIBUTED ATTITUDES
I have embarked on this classification of attitudes for the following reason. The epistemology of self attributions of propositional attitudes will vary depending on how they are classified. Let us begin with attitudes not subject to the will. First, consider attitudes not subject to the will that are phenomenologically attributed. Sadie feels desire in virtue of desiring to sleep with Michael. Michael feels fear in virtue of fearing the presence of a spider. How does Sadie know that she desires to sleep with Michael? How does Michael know that he fears that there is a spider nearby? In the first chapter 130
The problem of scope
I discussed our epistemic access to psychological episodes with a distinctive phenomenology. I am in a position to know what sensations I consciously have because there is something that it is like to have them. I consciously experience a toothache. What it is like to be me right now is different from what it would have been like to be me had I not consciously experienced a toothache. Michael feels fear in virtue of fearing the spider. What it is like to be Michael differs from what it would have been like to be him had he not feared the spider. That is how he knows that what he feels is fear. Moreover, his knowledge is observational in the minimal sense discussed in the first chapter. Michael knows that his attitude towards the spider is fear because he knows that he feels fear. He knows that he feels fear because his feeling fear has a distinctive phenomenology.3 How does Michael know that what he fears is the presence of a spider? How does Michael know that his present attitude with the distinctive phenomenology of fear has the presence of a spider as its object? When Michael fears the spider he need not believe that there is one nearby. He may be able to see his fear as wholly irrational. Nevertheless, if Michael fears the presence of a spider, he must, at least, entertain the thought that there is one nearby. We may say that Michael fearing that there is a spider nearby amounts to his fearfully entertaining the thought that there is one in the vicinity. So, the question as to how Michael knows what the object of his fear is comes to this. How does he know that he is entertaining a certain thought about a spider? ENTERTAINING THOUGHTS
Entertaining a thought plays a special role in our mental life. Whenever someone adopts a propositional attitude towards some proposition p, she entertains the thought that p. Entertaining a thought is an ingredient of any propositional attitude. When one entertains a thought in virtue of adopting a propositional attitude such as belief or desire, entertaining it is not subject to the will. On the other hand, some cases of entertaining a thought are subject to the will. For various reasons, I come to believe that someone has proved Fermat s last theorem. In 3
Each case of feeling fear is associated with a distinctive phenomenology. However, there need be no distinctive phenomenology associated with each case of feeling fear.
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holding that belief I entertain the thought that someone has proved Fermat's last theorem. It is not up to me, at least directly, whether I believe that someone has proved Fermat's last theorem. It is, in this case, not up to me whether I entertain the thought that someone has proved Fermat's last theorem. In contrast, suppose I hold no view about Winston Churchill's adult height. Someone invites me to entertain the thought that he was five feet eight. It is entirely up to me whether I entertain that thought. Considering the first-person epistemology of entertaining thoughts requires us to distinguish three categories: (i) Entertaining the thought that p in virtue of adopting a propositional attitude such as belief or desire. (ii) Entertaining the thought that p being subject to the will, (iii) A case of entertaining the thought that p which, like cases of (i), is not subject to the will, but, unlike those falling under (i), is not an ingredient of a distinct propositional attitude, such as belief or desire, which is not subject to the will. This category includes compulsively entertaining a thought which does not amount to belief. It will transpire that the first-person epistemology of cases of entertaining a thought which fall under (ii) and (iii) is, in a certain way, parasitic on the first-person epistemology of other propositional attitudes. For that reason, I will delay consideration of cases falling under (ii) and (iii). On the other hand, cases falling under (i) can be simply dealt with now. Consider entertaining the thought that p in virtue of holding the belief that p. In that case, how can one non-observationally know which thought one is entertaining? Only by non-observationally knowing that, in entertaining the thought that p, one is adopting a distinct propositional attitude. I entertain the thought that Princeton is in New Jersey in virtue of believing that it is. How can I non-observationally know I am entertaining the thought that Princeton is in New Jersey? Only by being in a position to non-observationally know that I believe it is. The same point applies to entertaining a thought in virtue of adopting a propositional attitude other than belief. I entertain the thought that it will be fine tomorrow in virtue of wanting it to be fine tomorrow. How do I non-observationally know which thought I am entertaining? In this case only by non-observationally knowing that I want it to be fine tomorrow. 132
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ATTITUDES LACKING A DISTINCTIVE PHENOMENOLOGY THAT ARE NOT SUBJECT TO THE WILL
What of consciously held propositional attitudes that are not phenomenologically ascribed? Such attitudes are subject to the will, or, if not subject to the will, held for reasons. Consider first attitudes that are not subject to the will, but are held for reasons. Suppose I believe that Citizen Kane is showing at the local cinema. My reason for believing that it is showing is that it was announced in the newspaper. According to the basic account, here is why I am able to non-observationally self attribute my belief about Citizen Kane. Suppose I am self-blind, and lack any evidence for attributing to myself either the belief about Citizen Kane, or the belief about the newspaper announcement. For me, a certain fact about the world, that Citizen Kane is showing at the local cinema, is related in a particular way to another fact about the world, that the first one was announced in the local newspaper. Whether I believe either fact obtains is a matter I cannot pronounce on. I have explored at some length the consequences of being self-blind with respect to beliefs. For present purposes, allow that those consequences justify me in non-observationally self attributing both my belief about Citizen Kane, and a belief in my reason for holding that belief. Now, consider an example of a different propositional attitude. Consider my desire that Citizen Kane be showing at the local cinema because it is a much-acclaimed film. I desire that Citizen Kane be showing at the local cinema. My objectfocused reason for having that desire is that Citizen Kane is much acclaimed. Suppose, as is likely, I lack any evidence for self attributing that desire. How can I tell that I have it? When I consciously desire that Citizen Kane be showing, I am able to non-observationally self attribute entertaining the thought that Citizen Kane is showing. Hence, my epistemic problem amounts to this. How can I tell whether, in entertaining that thought, I have a desire rather than a belief, fear, hope, or some other propositional attitude? We are assuming that my desire about Citizen Kane is not phenomenologically attributable. Moreover, it is consciously held. Consequently, at least from my own point of view, I have a reason for holding it. In addition, I can tell what that reason is. It is that Citizen Kane is much acclaimed. We are entitled to make one further assumption. We are entitled to assume that I have the full complement of propositional attitude concepts. In particular, I have the concepts of belief and desire. 133
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Since I have the concepts of belief and desire, I can tell what counts as a reason for believing and what counts as a reason for desiring. Subject to a proviso we will come to soon, in virtue of having the concept of belief I can tell that my reason for believing that Citizen Kane is showing, namely that the newspaper says so, is a reason for believing rather than desiring that it is. Again, subject to the same proviso, in virtue of having the concept of desire, I can tell that my reason for desiring that Citizen Kane be showing, namely that it is a much-acclaimed film, is a reason for desiring rather than believing it is, I non-observationally know that I have adopted a certain propositional attitude. I non-observationally know what my reason for adopting that attitude is. Finally, in virtue of having the concept of desire, I non-observationally know that my reason is a reason for desiring. Putting together my non-observational knowledge, I am in a position to non-observationally know that the propositional attitude I have adopted is desire. I am able to non-observationally self attribute other propositional attitudes in the same way. I consciously fear that Citizen Kane is showing because if it is, a film I very much want to see will not be. Again, I nonobservationally know that I have adopted a propositional attitude with a certain object. I know that in adopting whatever propositional attitude I have adopted, I am entertaining the thought that Citizen Kane is showing at the local cinema. How do I know which attitude it is? I have nonobservational knowledge of my reason for adopting that attitude. Moreover, in virtue of having the concepts of belief, desire and fear, I have some further non-observational knowledge. My reason for adopting the propositional attitude I have adopted is this. If Citizen Kane is showing, a film I greatly desire to see is not. I non-observationally know that that reason is a reason for fearing rather than desiring or believing that Citizen Kane is showing. As before, I am in a position to infer what my propositional attitude is from what I non-observationally know. Call this account of our ability to non-observationally self attribute propositional attitudes that are not subject to the will the extended account. OBJECTIONS TO THE EXTENDED ACCOUNT
Here is an obvious objection to the extended account. I consciously adopt a propositional attitude. According to the extended account I am in a position to know what type of attitude I have by recognizing the type of reason I have for adopting it. However, a reason for adopting one propositional 134
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attitude can, in a different context, serve as a reason for adopting another. For example, a reason for believing can, in a different context, serve as a reason for desiring, hoping, fearing, or any other propositional attitude. Consider the example given above of having a reason for believing. I believe that Citizen Kane is showing at the local cinema. My reason for doing so is that the newspaper says that it is. Standardly that reason would be a reason for believing that Citizen Kane is showing. However, in less typical circumstances, it is a reason for desiring that Citizen Kane be showing. Suppose I know that the newspaper advertising Citizen Kane is extremely unreliable. I know that the announcement about Citizen Kane gives me no reason to believe that the film will be shown. Nevertheless, I am part owner of the newspaper advertising Citizen Kane. Prospective advertisers will withdraw their support unless the newspaper becomes more reliable. Hence, it is in my interest for its advertisements to be accurate. In these circumstances, the newspaper announcing that Citizen Kane is showing at the local cinema gives me a reason for wanting that it be rather than believing that it is. On the extended account, when I consciously believe something I know that the propositional attitude I have adopted is belief because my reason for adopting it is a reason for believing. How do I know that? I know non-observationally what that reason is. However, if a suitable story is told, a reason for believing can function as a reason for adopting a propositional attitude other than belief. Since that is so, how do I know that a reason is functioning as a reason for believing instead of a reason for having a different propositional attitude? I have implicitly provided the reply to this objection in stating it. I said that a reason for having a propositional attitude can, if a suitable story is told, function as a reason for adopting a different one. What is crucial is this. In order for a reason for, say, believing to do duty as a reason for desiring it must be embedded in a different propositional attitude context. I have a reason, that Citizen Kane has been advertised in the newspaper, for adopting a certain propositional attitude. Suppose that reason is a reason for believing that Citizen Kane is showing. In that case, if asked to amplify on that reason, I will respond along the following lines. The advertisement gives me a reason to believe that the film is showing because it is in the interests of newspaper proprietors to ensure that their advertisements are accurate. Now suppose that the same reason is functioning as a reason for desiring that Citizen Kane be showing. Suppose that the story I related above 135
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to illustrate this possibility eventuates. In that case, when pressed to elaborate on my reason for desiring that Citizen Kane be showing, I will say something like this. The advertisement gives me a reason to want the film to be showing because, if it is misleading, the reputation of the newspaper, and, in consequence, my livelihood, will suffer. The background beliefs invoked to support a reason will depend on what kind of attitude that reason is a reason for having. A reason will connect with an individual's background beliefs quite differently if it is a reason for believing something rather than a reason for wanting, hoping for, or fearing the same thing. How am I able to non-observationally self attribute a propositional attitude that is not subject to the will? I can do so because I can rely on the following body of non-observational knowledge. I non-observationally know that I am entertaining a certain thought. I non-observationally know that, in entertaining that thought, I am adopting a propositional attitude for a certain reason. How do I know which attitude that is? Because I non-observationally know two further things. What reason I have for adopting it, and how that reason is linked to other attitudes I have. Another objection to the extended account goes like this. Suppose, someone desires that p. In addition, suppose q is her reason for desiring that p. How does she non-observationally know that she desires that p. According to the extended account she non-observationally knows that she desires that p because she has the following non-observational knowledge. She non-observationally knows that, in entertaining the thought that p, she is adopting a propositional attitude for the reason that q. Finally, she non-observationally knows that q is a reason for desiring. Surely, the objection runs, there is a gap in this account. Allow that the individual who desires that p has all of the non-observational knowledge attributed to her by the extended account. That is not enough to ensure that she non-observationally knows what she desires. She non-observationally knows that she is adopting a propositional attitude for a reason pertaining to desire. What precludes her adopting a propositional attitude other than desire for a reason pertaining to desire? There is a gap between knowing that one has adopted a propositional attitude towards p for a reason pertaining to desire and knowing that one desires that p. I will address the problem of filling it when I come to explore the link between the extended and basic accounts. For now, I will simply issue a promissory note to the effect that the problem will be addressed. A final objection to the extended account is that it threatens a regress. 136
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Suppose someone desires to go for a walk because it will clear her head. According to the extended account, she non-observationally knows what she desires, in part, because she non-observationally knows her reason for having that desire. On a widely held, if controversial, view of reasons for desiring, a reason for desiring has two components. A reason for desiring is a combination of a desire and a belief.4 The person who desires to go for a walk has a certain reason for so desiring. She believes that going for a walk will clear her head. However, this incompletely specifies her reason. A more complete specification would add that she desires to clear her head. The difficulty is this. The individual who wants to go for a walk allegedly knows what propositional attitude she has adopted, in part, because she knows what reason she has for adopting it. Knowing what reason she has for adopting it implies knowing she has a further desire: the desire to clear her head. How does she know that she has that desire? Presumably by means of recognizing what reason she has for adopting it. Recognizing what reason she has for desiring to clear her head implies recognizing she has a still further desire. Knowledge of an infinite number of desires is required in order to have knowledge of any given desire. This objection misfires at a number of points. First, it conflates how someone comes to know something with the justification that has to be available in order for her to know it. Consider the individual who desires to go for a walk. She non-observationally knows that she wants to go for a walk. However, she need not acquire that knowledge by employing the reasoning specified in the extended account. She almost certainly will not come by her non-observational knowledge by reasoning that, since she has adopted a propositional attitude for a reason pertaining to desire, she must have adopted a desire. The reasoning spelled out in the extended account constitutes a justification that must be available to her if her belief that she wants to go for a walk is to amount to non-observational knowledge. It need not constitute her route to such knowledge. Hence, she does not need to have knowledge of an infinite number of desires in order to have knowledge of any given desire. No infinite regress threatens. The objection we are considering rests on a second conflation. According to the Humean thesis a reason for desiring must, in part, be constituted by a desire. There are, at least, two ways of taking this claim. Construed in one way it may be true. Construed in the other way it is false. Here is the first way of construing it. q is someone's reason for desiring 4
Commonly referred to as the Humean theory of reasons for desiring.
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that p only if that individual has an appropriate background desire. Here is the second way. Whenever someone has a reason for desiring something, having a further desire is part of that reason. Alice wants Oxfam to be supported. Her reason for wanting Oxfam to be supported is that it will help to alleviate starvation. It may be that that reason for wanting Oxfam to be supported will only be Alice's reason if she has a suitable desire. For example, it may be that Oxfam helping to relieve starvation will only give Alice a reason for wanting Oxfam to be supported if she wants to alleviate starvation. Grant that Alice wants to alleviate starvation. It does not follow that part of her reason for wanting Oxfam to be supported is that she wants to alleviate starvation. Indeed, it is extremely unlikely that part of her reason for wanting Oxfam to be supported is that she wants to alleviate starvation. Suppose Alice is asked the following question. If contributing to Oxfam did not help to relieve starvation, would you still want it to be supported? That question is ambiguous. It could be taken like this. Consider a possible, hopefully non-actual, situation in which contributing to Oxfam does not help to relieve starvation. In that situation would you want Oxfam to be supported? Alternatively, it may be taken like this. When you consult your actual desires, do you actually desire that Oxfam be supported in a situation in which doing so does not help alleviate starvation? The answer to this second question may be no even if Alice has the desire to support Oxfam in the situation in which Oxfam is inefficacious. Alice's answer to the second question is what matters when we estimate Alice's reason for wanting Oxfam to be supported. What is the reason for her actually wanting to support Oxfam? Does the food aid supplied by Oxfam form part of that reason? In order to answer that question we need to consider what Alice's actual attitude is towards Oxfam being supported in the possible situation in which it does not help to reduce starvation. Does Alice's wanting to alleviate starvation form part of her reason for wanting Oxfam to be supported? The crucial question is this. Does Alice actually want Oxfam to be supported in a situation in which she lacks the desire to reduce starvation? Unless Alice is a very unusual person, the answer to that question will be yes. Hence, her wanting to alleviate starvation is no part of Alice's reason for wanting to support Oxfam.5 The distinction I am relying on between a desire being a necessary condition for having a reason and a desire being part of a reason is drawn by Philip Pettit and Michael Smith in Pettit and Smith 1990.
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Let us reconsider the person who wants to go for a walk. Her reason for wanting to go for a walk is that it will clear her head. Allow that it is a necessary condition for that reason qualifying as her reason to go for a walk that she wants to clear her head. As we have seen, it does not follow that part of her reason for wanting to go for a walk is that she wants to clear her head. Consequently, Alice need not know that she has a certain desire in order to know what reason she has for wanting to go for a walk. The threatened regress cannot get off the ground. THE RELATION BETWEEN THE BASIC AND EXTENDED ACCOUNTS
Even if the extended account survives objections, its relation to the basic account requires clarification. I have offered the extended account as an extension of the basic account. It may seem that it is not. It may seem that the basic and extended accounts are independent. The basic account applies to only one type of propositional attitude: belief. On the other hand, the extended account is an entirely separate account of the self attribution of all propositional attitudes including belief. Explaining how the extended account is built on the basic account will throw light on both. In addition, such an explanation will serve to distinguish the extended account from others that it may be conflated with. For those reasons I will discuss the relationship between the basic and extended accounts before passing on to consider our epistemic access to propositional attitudes subject to the will. One account of the self attribution of propositional attitudes that it would be easy to conflate with the extended account goes like this. Someone who is self-blind has the capacity to recognize what reasons she has for believing, desiring, fearing, hoping and so on. Consider a self-blind person who believes that Citizen Kane is showing, and also believes that it has been advertised in the local newspaper. From her perspective the following two facts obtain. First, there is the fact that Citizen Kane is showing. Second, there is the fact that it has been advertised. Our self-blind individual is able to recognize that the fact that Citizen Kane has been advertised constitutes a reason for believing that it is showing. Since she believes that she has a reason to believe that Citizen Kane is showing, she has a reason to conclude that she does believe it is showing. What goes for belief goes for other propositional attitudes. A self-blind individual has a reason for wanting Citizen Kane to be showing. It is that Citizen Kane is a much-acclaimed film. She is in a position to recognize 139
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that the fact that Citizen Kane is a much-acclaimed film gives her a reason to want it to be showing. So, she is entitled to conclude that she does want it to be showing. Call this account of the self attribution of propositional attitudes the reason-based account. The reason-based account is not the same as the extended account. Moreover, the reason-based account is inadequate as it stands. Suppose, someone recognizes that she has reason to believe p. It does not follow that she has reason to believe that she believes p. Recognizing that she has a reason to believe p amounts to recognizing that she ought to believe p. In order for her to justifiably infer from the premiss that she ought to believe something to the conclusion that she does believe it, she needs an additional premiss. She needs the additional premiss that, by and large, she believes what she ought. She needs the additional premiss that, by and large, she is a rational believer. For the reasons-based account to succeed it is not enough that individuals are, by and large, rational. It is not even enough that, by and large, they know they are. What needs to be shown is that rational believers nonobservationally know that they are rational. Perhaps that can be shown by appealing to principles governing interpretation.6 However, the extended account does not rely on it being true. How then are the extended and basic accounts related? I said that there is no straightforward way to apply the basic account to propositional attitudes other than belief. In one sense, that is obviously so. The basic account focuses on the legitimacy of moving from taking something to be true to self attributing the belief that it is. Clearly, with the possible exception of intending, no like move is warranted in the case of other propositional attitudes. Nevertheless, there is a more plausible way of widening the scope of the basic account. From a first-person perspective the following questions are indistinguishable in the sense that, from that perspective, answering one is tantamount to answering the others: (ia) Is P true? (ib) Do I believe P? (ic) Is there, on balance, reason to believe P? Likewise, from the same perspective, the following questions are indistinguishable: I have in mind, of course, the approach adopted by Donald Davidson. Daniel Dennett also argues that we must believe, for the most part, what it is rational for us to believe.
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(iia) Is P desirable? (iib) Do I desire that P? (iic) Is there, on balance, reason to desire that P? as are: (iiia) Is P fearful? (iiib) Do I fear that P? (iiic) Is there, on balance, reason to fear P? and: (iva) Is P hopeful? (ivb) Do I hope that P? (ivc) Is there, on balance, reason to hope that P? Here is how we might try to widen the application of the basic account. According to the basic account, giving an affirmative answer to (ic) enables one to give an affirmative answer to (ia). Moreover, giving an affirmative answer to (ia) enables one to give an affirmative answer to (ib). We can say the same about (iib), (iiib), and (ivb). Giving an affirmative answer to (iic) enables one to give an affirmative answer to (iia). In turn, giving an affirmative answer to (iia) enables one to give an affirmative answer to (iib). Likewise, for (iiib) and (ivb). So far as they go, these observations about each trio of questions are correct. However, in the case of desiring, hoping, and fearing they leave something unexplained. The basic account does not simply maintain that (ia) and (ib) are indistinguishable from a first-person perspective. It purports to explain why, from that perspective, a believer is justified in treating (ia) and (ib) as indistinguishable. If, as is the case with the self-blind, the answers to (ia) and (ib) come apart, untoward consequences follow. Someone who, from a first-person perspective, treats (ia) and (ib) as separate questions will be compelled to project widespread indeterminacy, inconsistency and inexplicable change onto the world. No like consequences follow from refusing to treat (iia) and (iib) as indistinguishable. A key example for developing the basic account concerned someone who was agnostic about some matter, but is not able to tell that she is. Such an individual is obliged to project her agnosticism onto the world. Moreover, projecting her agnosticism onto the world results in her taking the world to be indeterminate in ways that it clearly is not. 141
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In the case of desire, neutrality corresponds to agnosticism. Someone who is neutral about p does not desire p, and does not desire not p. Now consider someone who is neutral about ice-cream. She does not have the desire to eat ice-cream, or the desire not to eat ice-cream. Moreover, like the self-blind believer, she is unable to tell that she is neutral about icecream. What happens when such a one projects her neutrality about ice-cream onto the world? She considers the question whether eating ice-cream is desirable, and answers that it is not. She also considers the question whether eating ice-cream is undesirable, and, again, answers that it is not. So, she concludes that eating ice-cream is neither desirable nor undesirable. However, there is nothing untoward about arriving at that conclusion as there is something untoward about concluding that there is no fact of the matter about someone's presence at a party. Concluding that eating ice-cream is neither desirable nor undesirable does not oblige someone to adopt a view of the world that is conceptually askew. The relationship between the extended and basic accounts is more complex. Consider Sadie who comes to believe that her colleague, Sam, is in his office. Sadie's reason for believing this about Sam is that his office light is on. So, Sadie believes that: (1) Sam is in his office, for the reason that: (2) Sam's light is on. Suppose that Sadie is self-blind. Moveover, suppose that Sadie has no evidence that she believes either (1) or (2). For Sadie (1) and (2) are facts about the world. In addition, they are facts that, as far as she can tell, no one, including herself, believes in. In virtue of believing (1) Sadie entertains the thought that Sam is in his office. She is unable to tell that she believes (1). Can self-blind Sadie at least know that she is entertaining the thought that (1)? Earlier I maintained that if someone entertains a thought in virtue of adopting a distinct propositional attitude such as desire or belief, she can non-observationally tell which thought she is entertaining only if she can non-observationally tell that she has the distinct propositional attitude. Consequently, Sadie is unable to tell that she is entertaining the thought that Sam is in his office. For our purposes, what it is crucial to note is this. When she considers whether (1) is true Sadie will answer that it is. Why? Sadie is entertaining 142
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the thought that Sam is in his office. In entertaining that thought she is representing to herself Sam being in his office. She is not in a position to know that she believes (1). Consequently, she is not in a position to know that she is entertaining the associated thought. From her point of view, it is just a fact about the world that Sam is in his office because she is entertaining the thought that he is without being able to self attribute entertaining that thought. (1) says that Sam is in his office. Sadie will take (1) to be true simply because she is entertaining the thought that Sam is in his office without being able to recognize that she is consciously entertaining that thought. In entertaining the thought that Sam is in his office she registers entertaining a thought without registering it as entertaining a thought. So, how does Sadie register entertaining the thought that Sam is in his office? She registers it thus. It is simply a fact that Sam is in his office, even if it is a fact that has not impinged on anyone's consciousness. Now suppose that Sadie is self-blind about propositional attitudes other than belief. She consciously wants Sam to be in his office. Moreover, she has no evidence that she has that non-phenomenological desire. She cannot tell that she wants Sam to be in his office. Hence, she cannot tell that she is entertaining the thought that he is there in virtue of wanting him to be there. However, she is entertaining the thought that Sam is in his office in virtue of wanting him to be there. So, Sadie cannot tell that she is entertaining the thought that Sam is in his office. Nevertheless, she is consciously entertaining the thought that Sam is in his office. When she entertains that thought she is representing the world as being a certain way. She is representing the world as being this way. Sam is in his office. However, when she so represents the world, Sadie is not in a position to realize that she is representing the world as she desires it to be. She is not in a position to realize that she is representing the world in any way at all, including entertaining a thought about it. From her perspective, as with believing Sam to be in his office, it is simply a fact that he is there. It is not a fact that she believes, desires, or entertains the thought of. According to the basic account, Sadie is non-observationally justified in self attributing her consciously held beliefs for the following reason. If she does, she will attain a more coherent view of her non-doxastic world. We might think of it like this. Initially Sadie attributes to herself only beliefs about her beliefs that are warranted by the evidence. She then proceeds to make an inventory of the facts about her non-doxastic world. Of course, she will only be able to register facts that she believes to obtain. However, she will not see it like that. For her, the question whether something is so 143
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comes apart from the question whether she believes it to be so. As far as Sadie is concerned, she is simply making an inventory of the facts whether or not any of them have impinged on her in any way As she makes her inventory Sadie considers questions that she has no opinion on. In the majority of those cases she is unable to recognize her agnosticism. As a result she projects an inexplicable indeterminacy on to the world. She now has reason to self attribute beliefs independently of having any evidence for doing so. If she does, she can take the world to be determinate in ways that she is justified in taking it to be. Sadie is self-blind about her beliefs. Suppose she is also self-blind about her desires. Sadie desires to be a famous pianist without being justified in self attributing that desire. In desiring to be a famous pianist Sadie entertains the thought that she is one. In entertaining the thought that she is a famous pianist Sadie represents the world as she desires it to be. Nevertheless, she is unable to acknowledge that when, as others see it, she entertains the thought of being a famous pianist she is representing anything at all. Recall that Sadie can only know she is entertaining a thought which is an ingredient in one of her propositional attitudes by knowing that she has the attitude it is an ingredient in. As far as Sadie is concerned, the thought that she is a famous pianist may never have entered her head. From her point of view it is just a fact, to be added to her inventory of facts, that she is a famous pianist. A great many of most peoples desires are unfulfilled. Sadie's desire to be a famous pianist is one of those. Moreover, the majority of her beliefs indicate that she is not a famous pianist. Consequently, Sadie ends up with an epistemically unsatisfactory view of the world. As she sees it, her inventory of the facts includes the fact that she is a famous pianist. Unfortunately, it also includes a large number of facts that count against her being a famous pianist. Attributing to herself the belief that she is a famous pianist will, of course, not help her to attain a more satisfactory view of the world. She will simply end up attributing a belief to herself which clashes with a number of her other beliefs. What will help is attributing to herself a desire to be a famous pianist. If she does so, she need not self attribute the belief that she is a famous pianist. In line with the basic account, self attributing the desire to be a famous pianist enables Sadie to tell an epistemically preferable story about her non-doxastic world. The basic account explains why Sadie, in entertaining the thought that she is a famous pianist, is non-observationally justified in self attributing a 144
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propositional attitude other than belief. Nevertheless, it leaves something unexplained. It does not explain why Sadie is non-observationally justified in self attributing a desire rather than a hope, fear, or some other propositional attitude. At this point reasons enter the picture. Sadie is non-observationally justified in believing the following. She is adopting an attitude other than belief in entertaining the thought that Sam is in his office. She is also nonobservationally justified in believing the following. She has a reason for wanting rather than, for example, hoping or fearing that Sam is in his office. Connecting the two, she is non-observationally justified in believing that the attitude she has towards Sam being in his office is desire. Earlier I remarked that there is a gap between knowing that one has a propositional attitude for a reason pertaining to desire, and knowing that one has a desire. Now is the time to fill in that gap. Sadie consciously desires to be a famous pianist. In virtue of having that desire, she consciously entertains the thought that she is a famous pianist. If Sadie is unable to acknowledge that she is entertaining that thought, she will, irrationally, take it to be a fact about the world that she is a famous pianist. So, she has reason to self attribute a propositional attitude which involves entertaining the thought that she is a famous pianist.7 Moreover, she has reason not to take that attitude to be belief. Why should she take it to be desire rather than some other attitude? Because she recognizes that her reason for having it pertains to desire rather than some other attitude. Before moving on to consider attitudes subject to the will here is a final objection to the extended account as an account of first-person authority over attitudes not subject to the will.8 I consciously intend to cut down on my coffee consumption. I have the following reason for so intending. Drinking too much coffee is bad for one's health. According to the extended account, I can tell that I intend to reduce my coffee intake by consulting the reason I have for forming that intention. However, my reason for doing so, that drinking too much coffee is bad for one's health, is a reason for adopting a different propositional attitude from intending. Why should Sadie not rest content with just attributing to herself entertaining a thought? Why does she have to go on to self attribute a propositional attitude distinct from entertaining a thought? Because if one, non-compulsively, entertains a thought, where entertaining that though is not subject to the will, one can only tell that one is entertaining it by discerning that one is in a distinct propositional attitude. I am indebted to Robert Dunn for calling this, and the previous objection, to my atten-
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It is a reason for me wanting to reduce my coffee intake. Becoming cognizant of my reason for adopting the propositional attitude I have adopted will not tell me what that attitude is. Consulting one's reason for adopting a propositional attitude is not a fine-grained enough procedure to discriminate between different propositional attitudes that may have been adopted. An initial response to this objection hearkens back to an earlier discussion. I considered a case where the same reason does double duty as a reason for believing and a reason for desiring. Hence, appealing to that reason will not, by itself, settle whether the attitude based on it is desire or belief. I replied that a reason for adopting a propositional attitude will be embedded in a wider propositional attitude context. Appealing to the reason I have for adopting a propositional attitude will not automatically resolve which attitude that is. Nevertheless, I will be able to tell which attitude I have adopted once it becomes clear how it is linked to my other propositional attitudes. The same observation goes some way towards meeting the present objection. I have a reason for desiring or intending something. Confining my attention to the content of that reason will not decide which attitude I have adopted in the light of it. Typically, which attitude I have adopted will be revealed when I situate that attitude in a wider context. My reason is that drinking too much coffee is bad for one's health. How is the belief that specifies that reason linked to my other beliefs? I believe that, despite drinking too much coffee being bad for one's health, it would not, all things considered, be a good idea for me to reduce my coffee intake. I believe that, in any case, I could not drink less coffee. Clearly, the attitude I have adopted is a desire, or even a wish, rather than an intention.9 While this reply blunts the objection we are considering, it does not entirely meet it. Suppose, as could happen, that articulating the complex of propositional attitudes associated with a reason does not settle which attitude has been acquired in the light of that reason. I consider my reason for reducing my coffee consumption to be overriding. That speaks in favour of my attitude being intention rather than desire. I am doubtful whether I will reduce my coffee intake. That speaks in favour of my attitude being desire rather than intention. I am doubtful about reducing my 9
There is no suggestion that my belief that I want to consume less coffee is indubitable. Scrutinizing my reasons may support the conclusion that I have a desire rather than intention. Nevertheless, that conclusion may be mistaken. I may, after all, intend to consume less coffee.
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coffee intake because I suppose I am weak-willed. Now it looks as though I may well have gone beyond simply desiring something to intending to accomplish it. Putting the objection to the extended account this way actually speaks in favour of that account. The objection would be telling if the following situation could arise. On the basis of considering the complex of propositional attitudes associated with a reason for desiring or intending, someone is unable to tell whether she has adopted a desire or intention. Nevertheless, that individual does non-observationally know which of those attitudes she has adopted. The situation we are envisaging is not like that. It is one in which scrutinizing the propositional attitudes associated with a reason for desiring or intending to drink less coffee does not enable me to tell whether I intend or only desire to do so. However, it is also a situation in which I could be expected to be unable to tell whether my attitude is an intention, or only a desire. More accurately, it is a situation in which I could not be expected to be non-observationally justified in believing that I intend, rather than simply want, to drink less coffee. Indeed it is a situation in which I will need to rely on evidence such as the evidence provided by observing my past behaviour to decide whether I really intend to cut down on my coffee consumption. In this respect the extended account is faithful to the facts about our inner life. Having said this much, something must be conceded in the light of the last objection to the extended account. I have assumed that one is nonobservationally justified in self attributing any consciously held propositional attitude that one has no evidence for self attributing. That assumption is incorrect. In the above example I consciously intend to consume less coffee without being non-observationally justified in believing that I have that intention. ATTITUDES SUBJECT TO THE WILL
Finally, let us consider attitudes subject to the will. Typically, when someone entertains a thought at will she does so for a reason. Someone entertains the thought that turnips grow on the moon in order to think of something absurd. Earlier, I distinguished between attitude-focused and object-focused reasons. In the case of belief, an attitude-focused reason is a reason for bringing oneself to hold a belief. An object-focused reason is a reason for believing something true. I entertain the thought that water 147
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is not H 2 O in order to explore a philosophical view. In these cases thoughts are entertained for attitude-focused reasons. However, the attitudefocused reason, namely that it leads one to think of something absurd, for entertaining the thought about turnips is an object-focused reason for choosing to entertain that thought. Likewise, the attitude-focused reason, namely that it will enable me to reflect on the plausibility of an essentialist claim, for entertaining the thought about water is an object-focused reason for choosing to entertain that thought. In general, whenever someone has an attitude-focused reason for entertaining a thought she has chosen to entertain, her attitude-focused reason is an object-focused reason for choosing to entertain it. When I make a choice how do I know what choice I have made? The answer to that question has, in effect, already been given. In the case of non-phenomenological attitudes that are not subject to the will, I am able to tell that I have such an attitude by inspecting my object focused reason for adopting it. How do I non-observationally know what reason I have for wanting to go to bed early. I non-observationally know what reason I have for wanting to go to bed early in virtue of having the concept of desire. Moreover, in virtue of having the concept of desire, I know that it is a reason for wanting. The same applies to my knowing that I have chosen to go to bed early. I non-observationally know what reason I have for making that choice, and that it is a reason for choosing something. The extended account applies to choices. Hence, it applies to choosing to entertain a thought. How does the individual who has chosen to entertain an absurd thought know what choice she has made? She knows what she has chosen for the same reason that she knows what she nonphenomenologically wants, hopes, or fears. She knows she has adopted a propositional attitude with a certain content. She knows what reason she has for adopting that attitude. Finally, she knows that it is a reason for choosing. Allow that the extended account explains how someone non-observationally knows that she has chosen to entertain the thought that turnips grow on the moon. How does she non-observationally know that she is entertaining that thought? I may non-observationally know that I have chosen to spend Christmas overseas. It does not follow that I non-observationally know that I will spend Christmas overseas. There is a gap between knowing that one has chosen to spend Christmas overseas, and knowing that one will spend Christmas overseas. I may choose to spend Christmas overseas without, alas, doing so. There 148
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is no like gap between choosing to entertain a thought and entertaining it. I am entertaining the thought that turnips grow on the moon in choosing to entertain it. Moreover, this is something I am in a position to nonobservationally know. So, if I am in a position to non-observationally know that I have chosen to entertain a certain thought, I am in a position to non-observationally know that I am entertaining that thought. A similar account can be given of our non-observational knowledge of other attitudes subject to the will. Consider imagining something. I choose to imagine that turnips grow on the moon.10 In choosing to imagine that turnips grow on the moon I am entertaining the thought that they do. I am in a position to non-observationally know that I am entertaining the thought that they do. Moreover, I am in a position to non-observationally know that my reason for choosing to entertain that thought is a reason pertaining to imagining something. That is how I non-observationally know that I am choosing to imagine turnips growing on the moon. A person may be in an instance of a type of state subject to the will without that instance being subject to the will. We have considered at some length one example of this. We have considered entertaining a thought in virtue of adopting a propositional attitude, such as desire, that is never directly subject to the will. However, some unchosen instances of states generally subject to the will are not like this. Someone, for no discernible reason, may obsessively entertain a thought, or imagine something. What account are we to give of the first-person epistemology of such cases? Once again, the holistic considerations appealed to earlier come into their own. The obsessive entertains a thought against her will. She cannot help but entertain the thought that someone is watching her. She does not believe that someone is watching her. She does not believe that she has any reason to believe that someone is watching her. How does the obsessive non-observationally know that she is involuntarily entertaining a certain thought? Someone who consciously believes, hopes, or fears something represents the world a certain way. The basic and extended accounts show how an individual can move from consciously representing the world a certain way to self attributing the propositional attitude she has adopted in representing the world that way. In the case of such attitudes as desire, belief 10
I say imagine as opposed to imaging. Imaging something is being in a state with a distinctive phenomenology.
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and hope the move is warranted by an agent's recognition of her reasons for adopting that attitude. We are considering a case where adopting a propositional attitude, entertaining a thought, is not the outcome of adopting a further propositional attitude, such as choosing to entertain a thought, for a reason. Hence, the obsessive agent is in the following situation. She knows how she is representing the world. She is representing the world thus. Someone is watching her. Suppose, she is not in a position to know that she is so representing the world. In that case, she would take it to be a fact, whether represented by her or anyone else to be so, that someone is watching her. However, she has reason to take that not to be a fact. In order to take it not to be a fact that someone is watching her, she must attribute to herself a propositional attitude with the content that someone is watching her. Which propositional attitude with the relevant content is she warranted in self attributing? Not the belief that someone is watching her. That belief clashes with her other beliefs, and is one that, from her own point of view, she has no reason for holding. Not a desire, hope, fear or intention that someone is watching her. As she knows, from her own point of view, she has no reason to adopt any of these attitudes. Not, as we have seen, the voluntary entertaining of a thought. She is left with only one option. She is unwillingly entertaining the thought that someone is watching her. RECAPITULATION
Here is a summary of the overall account I am offering of our ability to non-observationally self attribute propositional attitudes. We are able to have non-observational knowledge of our consciously held beliefs, desires, hopes, fears, intentions, imaginings, entertainings and the like. When it comes to explaining how we are able to have such knowledge, belief occupies a privileged position. Our ability to non-observationally know what propositional attitudes we have, apart from belief, depends on our ability to non-observationally know what beliefs we have. In contrast, our ability to non-observationally know about our beliefs does not, in the same way, depend on our ability to non-observationally know about propositional attitudes other than belief. We need to distinguish two issues. One is this. How do we come to non-observationally self attribute consciously held beliefs? Another is this. What justifies us in non-observationally self attributing beliefs? I have not been concerned to address the first issue in this work. What I have called 150
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the basic account is intended to address the second. It goes as follows. From a third-person point of view the following questions are typically separate in the sense that an answer to one does not automatically deliver an answer to the other: (a) Does an individual X believe p? (b) Is p true? On the other hand, from X's first-person point of view (a) and (b) are not separately answerable. In particular, giving an answer to (b) constrains the answer X will give to (a). Moreover, X appears to be justified in treating (a) and (b), from a first-personal point of view, as indistinguishable questions. If she is, she can utilize evidence bearing on the answer to (b) to answer (a). Suppose, in the light of that evidence, she is justified in affirmatively answering (b). If she is justified in treating (a) and (b) as, firstpersonally, indistinguishable, she is justified in affirmatively answering (a). She is justified in doing so without having to invoke evidence distinctively pertaining to (a). (a) asks whether an individual believes p. (b) asks whether p is true. Is X justified in treating (a) and (b), and like questions, as indistinguishable from a first-person perspective? What are the consequences of X being prepared to give separate answers to such questions as (a) and (b)? What are the consequences of X being what I called a self-blind individual? X is self-blind only if she meets the following conditions. She has the concept of belief. She is able to justifiably form any justified belief about the world as it is independently of her beliefs. Finally, she is not able to answer a question about her own beliefs, unless she has evidence that directly bears on its answer. I argued that anyone meeting these conditions would be obliged to project her agnosticism, changes of belief, and inconsistent beliefs onto the world. As a result she will, in ways she is not warranted in doing, take the world to be pervasively indeterminate, unstable, and inconsistent. In order to hold a more rational view of the world, without having to rely on evidence, self-blind X is justified in self attributing states of agnosticism, changes of mind, and inconsistencies in her beliefs. I also argued that if X is justified in non-observationally self attributing these belief states, she will be justified in self attributing any consciously held belief. Hence, whenever X comes to justifiably hold a view about the world, she is non-observationally justified in taking that to be her view of the world. 151
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The basic account is designed to show why we are justified in nonobservationally self attributing consciously held beliefs. The extended account is designed to show this. If we are non-observationally justified in self attributing beliefs for the reasons specified in the basic account, we are non-observationally justified in self attributing any consciously held propositional attitude. Entertaining the thought that something is so is a constituent in any propositional attitude. Moreover, when entertaining the thought that p is a constituent of a distinct propositional attitude A, knowing that one is entertaining the thought that p requires knowing that one has A. Suppose self-blind X consciously desires p, but is unaware that she consciously desires p. Hence, self-blind X consciously entertains the thought that p, but is unaware that she does. In entertaining the thought that p, X is representing the world as being a certain way, but is unaware that she is so representing it. From her point of view the world is just that way. X is thus led to take to be so what she desires, hopes, fears and intends simply because she desires, hopes, fears or intends it. In order to escape this predicament X is justified, without the benefit of evidence, in self attributing not only consciously held beliefs, but the entire range of consciously held propositional attitudes.
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Self-knowledge and content externalism
8 Arguments from content externalism According to an externalist theory of content (for short ETC) the content of an individual's thoughts and the meanings of her words need not supervene on her intrinsic history. Two individuals may be intrinsically exactly alike yet entertain different thoughts, and attach different meanings to the words they use.1 Externalist theories of content, while controversial, have gained widespread acceptance. I am not concerned here to defend such theories. My concern is to examine the claim that externalist theories conflict with first-person authority. Some claim that if an externalist theory is true, we lack first-person authority over, at any rate, our beliefs. Since externalist theories are both popular and plausible, it is well worth assessing arguments for that claim. In chapter two I considered different sceptical positions on selfknowledge. According to (1) we have no first-person authority over, or privileged access to, our propositional attitudes. According to (2) we have, at best, contingent privileged access to some of our propositional attitudes. ETC features as a premiss in arguments for (1), that we have no knowledge of our consciously held propositional attitudes, or (2), that our knowledge of some of our consciously held propositional attitudes is no different in kind from, and no better than, the knowledge that others have of them. Whether one takes such arguments to be arguments for (1), or only (2), depends on whether one accepts, with Paul Boghossian, the following. Any knowledge we have of our consciously held propositional attitudes is non-observational. In the remainder of this chapter I will set out three arguments from ETC against first-person authority. In the next chapter I will consider at some length Donald Davidson and Tyler Burge s responses to the first argument, and consider how effective they are against The notion of an intrinsic feature is intuitively clear, but difficult to explicate. For a survey of those difficulties see Lewis 1983. I am indebted to John O'Leary-Hawthorne for the characterization of content externalism in terms of intrinsic histories.
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the second and third. One reason for doing so is that, in the course of responding to arguments from ETC, Davidson and Burge develop accounts of first-person authority that rival the one defended here. Finally, in the next chapter but one, I will give what I take to be the most satisfactory replies to the three arguments set out below.2 The argument from counterfeit error:
Perceptual beliefs are epistemically vulnerable in a variety of ways. For example, perceptual beliefs are vulnerable to counterfeits. I believe I am seeing a red cricket ball. I may hold that belief because I am seeing something which looks just like a red cricket ball, but is not one. From a firstperson perspective things could have been just as they are even if my belief that I am seeing a cricket ball is false. Perceptual beliefs are vulnerable to error induced by counterfeits. However, if I have first-person authority over my propositional attitudes, my beliefs about my propositional attitudes are not subject to counterfeit error. In particular, if I have firstperson authority over my propositional attitudes, the following situation cannot arise. I believe that I believe that water is tasteless. From a firstperson perspective, it is exactly as if I believe that water is tasteless. Nevertheless, my belief that I have that belief is false for the following reason. I have a belief that counterfeits my belief that water is tasteless. The argument continues, if ETC is correct, some beliefs to the effect that one has certain beliefs would be subject to counterfeit error. On the legendary Twin Earth the substance that is perceptually indiscernible from water is not water, but twater. Suppose, contrary to what I believe, I am on Twin Earth. In that case, the concept I associate with my use of the expression 'water' is not the concept of water, but the concept of twater. Hence, the belief I express by means of the sentence 'Water is tasteless' is not the belief that water is tasteless, but the different belief that twater is tasteless. Moreover, if I am on Twin Earth, I lack the belief that water is tasteless. Consequently, if I am on Twin Earth, my belief that I believe that water is tasteless is false because I am in a state, believing that twater is tasteless, that counterfeits the belief that water is tasteless. ETC implies that my beliefs about what beliefs I have are vulnerable to counterfeit error. So, they are not subject to first-person authority. Boghossian's argument:
Suppose ETC is true. In addition, suppose the following possibility 2
There are other arguments from ETC against first-person authority that I do not consider. One is replied to by Akeel Bilgrami in Bilgrami 1991.
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eventuates. When asleep I am, without realizing it, transported to Twin Earth and back again a number of times. My sojourns on Earth and Twin Earth last long enough for this to be the case. On Earth I employ the concept of water, and on Twin Earth the concept of twater. Hence, on Earth the belief I express by means of 'Water is tasteless' is the belief that water is tasteless, but on Twin Earth it is the belief that twater is tasteless. Today I am informed that my transportation between Earth and Twin Earth has taken place. I am not informed which planet I was on yesterday. Consequently, today I do not know which belief I expressed by means of 'Water is tasteless'. It could have been the belief that water is tasteless. Alternatively, it could have been the belief that twater is tasteless. Paul Boghossian argues that, in the above scenario, I did not know yesterday which belief I expressed by means of'Water is tasteless'. In order to argue this, he appeals to the following principle. If S knows that p at tl, and if at some later time t2, S remembers everything that S knew at tl, then S knows that p at t2. Boghossian remarks:3 . . . Now let us ask: why S does not know today whether yesterday's thought was a water thought or a twater thought. The platitude insists that there are only two possible explanations: either 5 has forgotten or he never knew. But surely memory failure is not to the point. In discussing the epistemology of rationally individuated content, we ought to be able to exclude memory failure by stipulation . . . The only explanation, I venture to suggest, for why S will not know tomorrow what he is said to know today, is not that he has forgotten but that he never knew. Since I do not know today whether I was having a water or a twater thought yesterday, today I do not know what I thought yesterday. However, today I can remember everything that I knew yesterday. So, yesterday I did not know what I thought then. In the situation described by Boghossian, yesterday I lacked first-person authority over what I thought then. The McKinsey* argument:
Consider the thought that one lives in a watery world. Suppose that there could be someone who has a priori knowledge that she entertains that thought. That is: (1) y* (3x) (x knows a priori that x thinks that x lives in a watery world). In addition, assume: (2) ETC. 3
Boghossian 1989, p. 23.
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ETC is a thesis about the content of certain concepts including the concept of content itself. As such, it seems, ETC does not need to be established through empirical investigation. If ETC can be known to be true then it can be known a priori to be true. Moreover, it is implausible to suggest that, even if ETC is true, it is impossible to know that it is. Hence, if ETC is true, it is possible for someone to know a priori that it is. That is: (3) ETC-»0 (3x) (x knows a priori that ETC). It follows from (2) and (3) that: (4) 0 (3x) (x knows a priori that ETC). An apparent consequence of ETC is that no one in a waterless world can entertain thoughts about water. Hence: (5) ETC—> (x) (x thinks x lives in a watery world—»x lives in a watery world). Moreover, like ETC, (5) is something that, if true, can be known a priori. That is: (6) v* (3x) (x knows a priori that (5)). From (4) and (6) we can derive: (7) 0 (3x) (x knows a priori that • (y) (y thinks that y lives in a watery world—*y lives in a watery world)). Finally, (1) and (7) yield: (8) 0 (3x) (x knows a priori that x lives in a watery world). (8) is false. It is impossible for anyone to know a priori that water exists. Hence, it is impossible for (1) and (2) both to be true. So, (2) entails that (1) is false. ETC implies that we lack the form of first-person authority defended here over some of our propositional attitudes. Before concluding, some remarks about the above three arguments are in order. I have referred to the last as the McKinsey* argument because it is close to an argument given by Michael McKinsey.4 The main differences between the McKinsey* argument and McKinsey s own argument are these. McKinsey takes it that ETC implies the following is conceptually, as opposed 4
McKinsey gives his argument in McKinsey 1991.
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to metaphysically, necessary. If someone entertains thoughts about water, water exists.5 He concludes from this that ETC implies that it can be known a priori that if someone entertains thoughts about water, water exists. The McKinsey* argument is neutral about the epistemic commitments of ETC. In that respect, the McKinsey* argument assumes less than McKinsey s. In order for the McKinsey* argument to succeed, we need not assume that ETC has any implications about what is a priori knowable. We need only assume that ETC is, if true, a priori knowable, and that it is a priori knowable what implications ETC has. Is the McKinsey* argument valid? It is only if the following assumptions are granted. Premiss (4) says that it is possible for someone to know ETC a priori. Premiss (5) says that if ETC is true, necessarily anyone who thinks she lives in a watery world does live in one. If (4) and (5) are both true, there could be someone who combines the a priori knowledge mentioned in (4) with the a priori knowledge mentioned in (5). Premiss (1) says that it is possible for someone to know a priori that she thinks she lives in a watery world. Premiss (7) says that it is possible for someone to know the following a priori. Necessarily anyone who thinks she lives in a watery world does so. The further assumption is this. There could be someone who combines the a priori knowledge mentioned in (1) with the a priori knowledge mentioned in (7). There seems no reason to dispute these assumptions. Suppose (1) and (7) are both true. What could preclude the possibility of someone who knows a priori that she lives in a watery world also knowing a priori this? A necessary condition for having the thought that one lives in a watery world is that one does live in such a world. 5
I find McKinsey s argument for the conclusion that ETC implies this is necessary, in some sense other than metaphysically necessary, unconvincing. Here is how his argument goes. ETC is the thesis that the content of some propositional attitudes is externally determined. Suppose this amounts to the thesis that it is merely metaphysically necessary that if someone entertains, say, a thought about water then the external world is disposed in a certain way. In that case, we would be forced to hold that ETC is true for reasons that do not support ETC. For example, we do not want to say that ETC is true because this is metaphysically necessary. McKinsey's thinks that water is tasteless only if this is so. McKinsey's mother exists. It seems to me that this argument fails. ETC applies to type rather than token thoughts. Suppose, t is a token thought entertained by McKinsey. It may be that no one other than McKinsey could have entertained t. In which case, it would be metaphysically impossible for someone to entertain t unless McKinsey's mother exists. However, it remains an open question whether it is metaphysically possible for anyone to entertain a thought of the relevant type to which t belongs. That is the question pronounced on by ETC.
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In order to ensure the validity of the McKinsey* argument one further assumption needs to be made. We need to assume the following principle: (9) 0 (3x) (x knows a priori that (p & p—*q))—*§ (3x) (x knows a priori that q)). Epistemic closure principles such as (9) are disputable. However, the one subject to most debate is stronger than (9). It says that if someone knows that p, and knows that p implies q, then she knows that q.6 (9) only says that if someone could know a priori both that p, and that p implies q, then someone could know a priori that q. It is important to distinguish the above three arguments against firstperson authority from one that is even less plausible. I have in mind an argument that goes like this. An empirical investigation needs to be conducted to discover whether there is any water. Suppose, it is metaphysically necessary that one entertains thoughts about water only if water exists. In that case, one needs to conduct an empirical investigation to discover whether one entertains thoughts about water. The decisive reply to this argument has been given by Tyler Burge among others.7 Suppose it is metaphysically necessary that p implies q, and that q can only be known through empirical investigation. It does not follow that p can only be known through empirical investigation. After all, it may be that one can only know through empirical investigation that p implies q. I have considered three arguments against the existence of first-person authority. In the previous two parts I elaborated and defended my own account of first-person authority. That account is not deflationary in that it takes self-knowledge to be a substantive cognitive achievement. In the next chapter I explore two deflationary accounts of self-knowledge developed in response to externalist theories of content. I will say why those accounts are ineffective against Boghossians argument and the McKinsey* argument. 6 7
For a critical discussion of this epistemic closure principle see Nozick 1981, chapter three. In Burge 1988.
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Deflationary self-knowledge: Davidson and Burge
Donald Davidson is one philosopher who attempts to give an account of our first-person authority over our own propositional attitudes.1 Tyler Burge is another.2 Davidson and Burge share a common preoccupation with first-person authority. Both are externalists about the content of psychological states. Both believe that the content of a psychological state can vary independently of variations in the intrinsic features of one who is in that state. In addition, Davidson and Burge accept that we have firstperson authority over psychological states whose content is externally determined. As a result, they are both concerned to show that the apparent conflict between ETC and first-person authority is only apparent. In the last chapter I gave three arguments from ETC against first-person authority. The first was the argument from counterfeit error. It goes like this. If the content of a thought is determined by external circumstances, we might have a false belief that we entertain a certain thought because the thought we actually entertain has a content determined by the wrong external circumstances. I believe that I think that water is wet. I may be mistaken because I am on Twin Earth, and there believe that twater is wet. Davidson and Burge only explicitly consider the argument from counterfeit error. Davidson and Burge do not simply respond to the argument from counterfeit error, but venture accounts of first-person authority. For that reason, I will set Davidson and Burge s replies to the argument from counterfeit error in the context of their overall discussion of first-person authority. Davidson's account, or, perhaps more accurately, accounts, of privileged access are to be found in a number of papers including Davidson 1984, 1986, and 'Epistemology 2 Externalized' (unpublished). Burge 1988.
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DAVIDSON ON FIRST-PERSON AUTHORITY
Davidson takes the claim that we have first-person authority over our propositional attitudes to amount to the following. First, that there is a striking asymmetry between our knowledge of our own propositional attitudes, and our knowledge of the propositional attitudes of others. I can know, at least, about the content of my own desires, beliefs, intentions and the like in a way that you do not, or even cannot, know. Secondly, that my knowledge of my own propositional attitudes is, in general, non-inferential. Finally, that my knowledge of my own propositional attitudes is, in general, superior to yours.3 Davidson finds first-person authority over desires, beliefs, and the like to be problematic in at least two respects. For one thing, if first-person ascriptions of propositional attitudes are based on no evidence, how can they be as, let alone more, justified than third-person ascriptions that are evidentially based? For another, if a psychological concept is applied to oneself on a basis which is so different from the basis on which one applies it to another, are we entitled to hold that the same concept is being applied?4 For Davidson an adequate account of first-person authority will deliver a solution to these problems. In developing his own account of first-person authority Davidson pursues three themes. The third is the most central, and, accordingly the one I will focus attention on. It is, as Davidson puts it, that: 'Knowledge of the contents of our own minds must, in most cases, be trivial'. Nevertheless, something needs to be said about the other two themes. Little needs to be said about the first. As I previously remarked, one of Davidson's central preoccupations is to reconcile externalism about content with first-person authority. Here is an argument we have not considered for holding that they conflict.5 If ETC is true, our thoughts depend on things located outside us. Since they depend on things located outside us, our thoughts cannot be wholly located within us. Only what is wholly located within can be subject to first-person authority. So, 3
4
5
Davidson, like many others, does not distinguish between first-person authority and privileged access. One need not be a verificationist to find this problematic. It is one thing to hold that in order to have a concept one must be able to say what evidence would warrant its application. It is another to hold that if concept C t is standardly applied on a different basis from C2 s then Cj is a different concept from C2. John McDowell appears to argue like this in McDowell 1986.
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we do not have first-person authority over thoughts that illustrate externalism. Davidson rightly dismisses this type of argument. We do not have to revise our estimate of a thing's location just because its nature turns out to depend on something located elsewhere. As Davidson points out, something clearly located on the skin counts as a sunburn only if it is caused by something located outside the skin. In any case, it is unclear why firstperson authority must go together with spatial proximity.6 The second theme that Davidson pursues is this. He offers the following diagnoses of a temptation to suppose that first-person authority excludes externalism. We associate with Frege the view that, in entertaining a thought, an individual completely grasps the content of a proposition, or something playing the same role as a proposition, which is the object of that thought. For the sake of a label, call this the Fregean view. Davidson says of the Fregean view:7 I am not now concerned with such (now largely disavowed) objects of the mind as sense-data, but with their judgmental cousins, the supposed objects of the propositional attitudes, whether thought of as propositions, tokens of propositions, representations, or fragments of 'mentalese'. The central idea I wish to attack is that these are entities that the mind can 'entertain', 'grasp', 'have before it', or 'be acquainted with'. . . and continues:8 The basic difficulty is simple: if to have a thought is to have an object 'before the mind', and the identity of the object determines what the thought is, then it must always be possible to be mistaken about what one is thinking. Davidsons argument appears to be this. Consider my entertaining the thought that water is wet. If the Fregean view is correct, my first-person authority over that thought consists in my complete grasp of, that is my complete knowledge of, the content of the proposition that I think that water is wet. Suppose the content of that proposition is externally determined. Suppose it is determined by its being about water. Since my knowledge of water is incomplete, my knowledge of the content of the proposition that I think that water is wet is incomplete. Hence, it follows from the Fregean view that I do not, after all, havefirst-personauthority over that thought. 6
Here is one suggestion why it must. In the case of, for example, visual perception, what is spatially distant is often less easy to see than what is nearby. However, this line of thought illegitimately assimilates our access to our own psychological states to perceptual access. As we have seen, this assimilation is especially implausible in the case of our access to our 7 8 propositional attitudes. Davidson 1986, p. 454. Davidson ibid., p. 455.
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I find this argument unpersuasive for at least two reasons. Davidson implicitly compares taking a proposition to be the object of a propositional attitude with taking a sense-datum to be the object of a perceptual state. Traditionally, it has been held that there is no gap between the properties a sense-datum appears to have and the properties it actually has. Likewise, Davidson is suggesting, if the Fregean view is correct, there is no gap between the apparent and actual properties of a proposition that one grasps. What this overlooks is the following. No sane theorist who believes in sense-data would allow that every property of a sense-datum is manifest to the one who has it. Suppose that in looking at a cricket ball I am aware of a red round sense-datum. There will be numberless properties of that sense-datum I am unaware of. For example, I may be unaware that it is a sense-datum of the last cricket ball to be used in a certain test match. At most I need only be aware of properties of the sense datum, such as redness and roundness, which belong to a select group. It is open to a proponent of the Fregean view to insist that I need only be aware of some properties of any proposition whose content I grasp. Which properties? Perhaps when I entertain the thought that p, and, on the Fregean view, consequently grasp the content of the proposition that p, I need only be aware that it is a proposition with the content that p. However, Davidson would be the first to admit, indeed insist, that when, for example, I entertain the thought that water is wet I have first-person authority over a thought with the content that water is wet. Those who make sense-data do epistemological duty have typically thought the following. I stand in a more intimate epistemic relation to my sense-data than to, say, the surfaces of physical objects. That is why I am more certain about the characteristics of my sense-data than I am about the characteristics of physical surfaces. Now, suppose I entertain the following thoughts: (i) The thought that I think that water is wet. (ii) The thought that water is wet. On the Fregean view when I have (i) I grasp the content of a proposition which is different from the one that I grasp when I have (ii). Nevertheless, I grasp the contents of those propositions in just the same sense. Hence, my grasping the content of the proposition associated with (i) does not put me in a more intimate epistemic relation to the subject matter of (i) than I stand in to the subject matter of (ii). So, my having a Fregean grasp of 164
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Deflationary self-knowledge: Davidson and Burge the content of the proposition associated with (i) has nothing to do with my having first-person authority over the subject matter of (i). When it comes to assessing the relation between first-person authority and externalism, introducing the Fregean view is a red herring. In particular, the truth or falsity of the Fregean view has no bearing on the consistency of privileged access with externalism. Evidently, for Davidson the third theme is the most important. He characteristically introduces it by means of an argument which deploys considerations about interpretation. It goes like this. Suppose you know that I assent to the sentence 'Water is wet'. In order to know what I believe, you need to know what I mean by that sentence. Now suppose you express your knowledge about what I mean thus: (1) By 'Water is wet' AG means that water is wet. For you (1) is an empirical hypothesis open to falsification. If it turns out that I am an inhabitant of Twin Earth, and you are an inhabitant of Earth, (1) is false. Compare (1) with: (2) By 'Water is wet' I mean that water is wet. I cannot be mistaken about (2). Why not? Because, whatever it means, the sentence used on the right of (2) is bound to be synonymous with the one mentioned on the left. Consequently, the same external factors determine the content of the sentence mentioned on the left and of the one used on the right. I know a priori that (2) is true. When I combine my a priori knowledge of (2) with my knowledge that I assent to 'Water is wet', I arrive at the conclusion that I believe that water is wet. Davidson has correctly identified an asymmetry between interpreting my own utterances and interpreting the utterances of another. When interpreting myself I am able to rely on a priori knowledge of a type that is not available when interpreting another. Nevertheless, this asymmetry does not help to account for first-person authority. If I know that (2) is true, it does not follow that I know what I believe. In addition, I need to know that I assent to 'Water is wet'. How do I know that? By assenting to 'Water is wet' one of two things could be meant. Either having a disposition to produce assenting behaviour to 'Water is wet', or believing that that sentence is true. Clearly, it is the second that is relevant. If I do not believe that the sentence 'Water is wet' is true then, no matter what I mean 165
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by that sentence, it does not follow that I believe that water is wet. So, how do I know that I believe that the sentence 'Water is wet' is true? Any problem with my knowing that I believe that water is wet re-emerges as a problem about my knowing that I believe that 'Water is wet' is true. There is an alternative way of putting Davidson's point that circumvents this difficulty. However, so put, the point becomes one that has nothing especially to do with interpretation. Consider the following passage:9 . . . An interpreter must discover, or correctly assume on the basis of indirect evidence, what the external factors are that determine the content of another's thought; but since these factors determine both the contents of the thought and the contents of the thought one believes one has, there is no room for error about the contents of one's own thoughts of the sort that can arise with respect to the thoughts of others.
Davidson employs his celebrated principle of charity, a principle governing interpretation, to defend externalism about the content of speech and thought. Nevertheless, it appears that the argument in the above passage is independent of issues about interpretation. It can be made whatever one's reasons for endorsing externalism. What is that argument? Here is my interpretation of it. Suppose, to take a by now familiar example, I think that water is tasteless, and, in addition, have the secondorder thought that I have that first-order thought about water. When I think to myself that water is tasteless I employ a concept I express by means of the word 'water'. Call that my 'water' concept. Whatever 'water' concept I employ when I think to myself that water is tasteless, I will be employing the same 'water' concept when I think to myself that I think that water is tasteless. So, if the content of my thought when I think that water is tasteless is determined by my being suitably related, for example causally related, to H2O, the content of my thought when I think that I think that water is tasteless will also be determined by my being suitably related to H2O. In this sense, there has to be a match between the content of first-order and second-order thoughts utilizing the concept of water. What is the relevance of this point about the matching content of firstand second-order thoughts to first-person authority? Here is the argument from counterfeit error. Consider my current thought that there is a wall in front of me. Had there been no wall, but, instead, a cardboard imitation, I would have entertained the same thought. However, my thought that there is a wall in front of me would have been false. Now suppose that 9
Donald Davidson 'Epistemology Externalized'.
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ETC is true, and over the last few years on a number of occasions I have been transported to Twin Earth and back again without being able to tell which planet I am on. When I am on Twin Earth the thought I express by uttering 'Water is tasteless' is one whose content is determined by my being suitably related to XYZ. Call that the twater thought. When I am on Earth the thought I express by uttering the same sentence is one whose content is determined by my being suitably related to H2O. Call that the water thought. I suppose I am entertaining the water thought. I suppose I am entertaining the thought that water is tasteless. However, if I am on Twin Earth, I am under the illusion that I am entertaining the water thought. I cannot rule out the possibility that I am on Twin Earth. So, I cannot rule out the possibility that I am deluded into thinking that I entertain the water thought. Now suppose I am on Earth, and in fact think that water is tasteless. In addition, I think that I am having that thought. Suppose I had been on Twin Earth instead. In that case, would I have entertained the twater thought, but been under the illusion that I have the water thought? I would not. The content of the Twin Earth thought I would express by uttering 'I think that water is tasteless' is determined by the same factors that determine the content of the thought I would express by uttering 'Water is tasteless'. On Twin Earth I do not mistakenly entertain the same second-order thought that I entertain on Earth. Instead, I would have correctly entertained a different second-order thought. When I think that there is a wall in front of me I may be taken in by a facsimile wall. In contrast, when I think that I am entertaining a thought about water there is no like possibility of my being taken in by a facsimile thought about water. This is because, as Davidson points out, the content of a thought about a thought will track the content of the thought it is about. Of course, the belief I have on Earth, the belief that I have the water belief, is falsified by the situation obtaining on Twin Earth. On Twin Earth I do not have the water belief. However, for the argument from counterfeit error to work, something else is required. It is required that the belief I would use 'I believe water is tasteless' to express on Twin Earth would be false there. Davidson is pointing out that ETC gives us no reason to think that it would be. I have construed Davidson as calling attention to the exclusion of what may be called facsimile-based error in the case of thoughts about thoughts. Does the exclusion of such error ensure that we have first-person 167
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authority over our thoughts? We can see why an account of first-person authority that holds that it does would be described as deflationary. When I entertain a thought there is a sense in which I may not be able to tell what the content of that thought is. Nevertheless, no matter what the content of my thought is, I am bound to be right in thinking that I have that thought. The exclusion of facsimile-based error is insufficient for first-person authority. Again, consider my thought that I think that water is tasteless. There are three types of error that that thought is subject to. First, it may lack an object altogether. There may be no first-order state my secondorder thought corresponds to. Second, there may be such a first-order state, but the wrong first-order state. I may hope rather than think that water is tasteless. Finally, there I may make no mistake about the existence or general type of a psychological state, but a mistake about its content. At best, the exclusion of facsimile-based error only precludes an error of the third type. Concede that there can be no illusions about the contents of propositional attitudes. Nevertheless, there may be illusions about their existence, or, apart from content, their type.10 Davidson may respond to this in one of two ways. He could maintain that we only have first-person authority over the content of our propositional attitudes.11 Alternatively, he could maintain that a different account needs to be given of our first-person authority over aspects of psychological states apart from their content. Is the exclusion of facsimile-based error sufficient for first-person authority over content? More generally, is the exclusion of facsimile-based error about p sufficient for first-person authority over p? If it is, we would have first-person authority in cases where, most would agree, we lack it. As I move from Earth to Twin Earth I do not erroneously retain my Earthly belief that I think that water is tasteless. Instead, I acquire a new otherworldly belief that is true. Likewise, as I move from Earth to its twin, and inspect a glass of colourless, odourless, tasteless XYZ, I do not retain my Earthly belief that there is water in the vicinity. Instead, I acquire a true belief about a different substance. Of course, when on Twin Earth it seems to me that I am inspecting some odourless, colourless, etc. liquid, there may be nothing for me to 10 II
Davidson calls attention to this point himself in Davidson 1988. From his writings on the topic it is not entirely clear to me whether Davidson wishes to restrict first-person authority to the contents rather than the type or existence of propositional attitudes.
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inspect. Likewise, so far as the exclusion of facsimile-based error is concerned, there may be no first-order thought that corresponds to my second-order thought. On Twin Earth I may be inspecting something which appears to be a colourless odourless liquid without really being so. Likewise, again so far as the exclusion of facsimile-based error goes, I may misclassify a propositional attitude that I have. We may say that if I do have a belief, and I think that it has the content I would express by means of the sentence 'Water is tasteless', then I cannot be mistaken in thinking that it has that content. However, if there is a colourless, odourless, etc. liquid in front of me, I cannot be mistaken in thinking that it falls under a concept that I would refer to as 'the concept of water'. Nevertheless, few would grant that on Earth I have privileged access to the colourless odourless liquid in front of me being water rather than some other substance. It must be admitted that in thinking that there is water nearby one can fall into an error that has no parallel in the case of thinking that one has a certain thought. When I arrive on Twin Earth I will not have had time to replace my Earthly concepts with their Twin Earthly counterparts. Shortly after arrival someone presents me with a quantity of XYZ. Since I retain my Earthly 'water' concept, I falsely judge that I am drinking some water. However, I do not falsely judge that I am judging that I am drinking some water. While this point is correct it is no defence against the previous objection that excluding facsimile-based error is not sufficient for first-person authority. Consider the following conditional: (3) If the substance in front of me is the same kind as the substance which generated my current 'water' concept then it is water. I do not have first-person authority over the truth of (3).12 Nevertheless, my thought that (3) is true is not subject to facsimile-based error. The exclusion of facsimile-based error is not sufficient for first-person authority. Despite that, thoughts about propositional attitudes are not 12
We need to be careful here. (3) is a different conditional from: (3') If the substance in front of me is the same kind as the substance which generated my current 'water' concept then it falls under my current 'water' concept. I seem to have privileged access to the truth of (3'). At any rate, I can know a priori that (3') is true. However, the consequent of (3) is essentially about water, the stuff to be found on Earth. The consequent of (3') is not essentially about water.
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subject to error in the way that first-order contingent a posteriori thoughts are. Since they are not, the argument from facsimile-based error fails. BURGE ON FIRST-PERSON AUTHORITY
Tyler Burge agrees with Davidson that we have first-person authority over some of our propositional attitudes.13 Like Davidson, Burge seeks to reconcile first-person authority with externalism about content. Moreover, the account he gives of first-person authority is, in many respects, close to Davidson's. Nevertheless, there are significant differences between the two. Differences that are sufficiently significant to warrant giving Burge s account of first-person authority separate treatment. As with Davidson's, a number of separate strands in Burge s discussion of first-person authority need to be disentangled. Burge begins his discussion by identifying a class of judgments he calls examples of basic selfknowledge. He gives as an example of such a judgment: 'I think (with this very thought) that writing requires concentration'. In general, judgments of basic self-knowledge have the form: 'I think (judge) that p \ For Burge judgments of basic self-knowledge are paradigms of firstperson authority. He is concerned to say what is special about basic selfknowledge which gives us first-person authority over its subject matter. However, the first point he makes about basic self-knowledge applies to knowledge in general. As I observed, Burge is principally concerned to show that there is no conflict between first-person authority and externalism. He addresses an argument for such a conflict that is akin to one I briefly examined at the end of the previous chapter.14 It goes as follows. It is metaphysically possible that I have been gradually transferred back and forth between Earth and Twin Earth in the manner described in the previous section. Call the situation in which such a transfer takes place the switching situation. A necessary condition for: (4) I know a priori that I think water is tasteless, is: 13
14
In Burge 1988 he has this to say: 'Descartes held that we know some of our propositional mental events in a direct, authoritative, and not merely empirical manner. I believe that this view is correct.' I refer to the argument that goes like this. A necessary condition for my thinking that water is tasteless is that water exists. So, if I know a priori I think that water is tasteless, I know a priori that water exists.
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(5) I am not in the switching situation. Moreover, I can know a priori that (5) is a necessary condition for my having the a priori knowledge mentioned in (4). I cannot know a priori that I am not in the switching situation. So, I cannot know a priori that I think water is tasteless. Call this argument the knowledge requirement argument. Burge has this to say about the knowledge requirement argument. Writing about perceptual knowledge, that is knowledge of external objects acquired through perception, he says: It is a fundamental mistake to think that perceptual knowledge of physical entities requires, as a precondition, knowledge of the conditions that make such knowledge possible. The knowledge requirement argument depends on the validity of the following argument schema: (KR) X knows a priori that p X knows a priori that [(X knows a priori that p)~*q] X knows that q15 (KR) appears to be invalid. I inspect a proof P of a mathematical hypothesis H. On the basis of inspecting P I come to know a priori that H is true. I am a mathematical novice. If a famous mathematician has announced that P contains a mistake then, even if P contains no mistake, I do not know H on the basis of inspecting P. Suppose I can know a priori that the mathematician's announcement would deprive me of my a priori knowledge of H. Surely, I do not need to know that no such announcement has been made in order to know a priori that H on the basis of P. If that is right, (KR) is invalid and the knowledge requirement argument fails. 15
We might think that the knowledge requirement argument depends on the even less plausible argument schema: (KR*) X knows a priori that p {X knows a priori that [(X knows a priori that p)-*q]} X knows a priori that q However, if we grant two assumptions, (KR) is enough to engender conflict between ETC and the claim that we can have a priori knowledge of our thoughts generally, including thoughts about water. The first assumption is that someone in the switching situation does not know what thoughts she is entertaining about water. The second is that if anyone knows a priori what thoughts she is entertaining, she knows a priori what thoughts she is entertaining even in the switching situation. For reasons that will emerge later, I am not inclined to dispute either of these assumptions.
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A necessary condition for my knowing a priori what I think about water is that I am not in a situation in which I entertain a thought counterfeiting the thought that water is tasteless. I do not need to eliminate the possibility that I am in such a situation in order to know a priori that I think that water is tasteless. However, apart from the failure of (KR), there is an additional reason why I do not need to rule out that possibility. Burge invokes the point that, as we have seen, was strongly pressed by Davidson. There could have been a counterfeit of my thought that water is tasteless in the following sense. Without entertaining that thought I could have been in a state indiscernible from thinking that water is tasteless. However, I could not have been deceived by having a Twin Earth simulacrum of the thought that water is tasteless into thinking that I have that thought. As I put it earlier, my thoughts about my thoughts are not subject to facsimile-based error. Why are second-order thoughts not subject to facsimile-based error? If I understand him correctly, Burge gives three different answers to this question. The first is one given by Davidson. The content of my thought that I have the thought that p will be determined by the same causal factors that determine the content of my thought that p. In addition, Burge holds that thoughts falling under the heading of basic self-knowledge are infallible. I cannot erroneously entertain the thought that I think that writing requires concentration. Burge offers this explanation for the infallibility of items of basic selfknowledge:16 When one knows that one is thinking that p, one is not taking one's thought (or thinking) that p merely as an object. One is thinking that p in the very event of thinking knowledgeably that one is thinking it. It is thought and thought about in the same mental act. and adds:17 . . . in the case of cogito-like judgments, the object, or subject matter, of one's thoughts is not contingently related to the thoughts one thinks about it. The thoughts are self-referential and self-verifying. An error based on a gap between one's thoughts and the subject matter is simply not possible in these cases. Are items of basic self-knowledge self-verifying? Is it, to take Burge s example, impossible to mistakenly entertain the following?1* 16 18
17 Burge 1988, p. 654. Burge ibid., p. 658. As we noted in the first chapter, even if judgments of basic self-knowledge are self verifying that does not account for our privileged access to their subject matter, unless one assumes a crude and implausible reliabilist view of knowledge.
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Deflationary self-knowledge: Davidson and Burge (6) I think that writing requires concentration. I will argue that Burge has given no reason to believe that it is. Burge alleges that when I have the second-order thought (6) I am thereby thinking that writing requires concentration. In general, whenever I have the thought that I think that p I thereby think that p. As he puts it:19 'In basic self-knowledge, one simultaneously thinks through a first-order thought . . . and thinks about it as one's own'. This seems to be wrong. Thinking that one thinks that p is not just a matter of thinking that p in a special way. If it were, whatever renders one's thought that p false would render one's thought that one thinks that p false. However, even if writing does not require concentration, I need not be mistaken to think that I think that it does. The weaker thesis that thinking that one thinks that p entails thinking that p also seems implausible. Surely I can mistakenly ascribe a thought to myself. Convinced by a dogmatic psychoanalyst I think that I think that my mother does not love me even though I have no such first-order thought. Should we concede this much to Burge? If any first-order thought corresponds to (6), its content must be that writing requires concentration. In general: (7) If any first-order thought corresponds to the second-order thought that I think that p, it must have the content that p. (7) seems right. However, Burge has given no reason to suppose that it is. Certainly, when I entertain (6) I have a thought whose content is, at least in part, that writing requires concentration. Nevertheless, for (6) to be true, it must correspond to a thought whose content is solely that writing requires concentration. What precludes (6) from corresponding to a thought whose content has nothing to do with writing? What prevents (6) from corresponding to the thought that doodling does not require concentration? Answers to this question depend on what is meant in saying that one thought corresponds to another. Suppose we take (6) to correspond to the thought that it is about. In addition, suppose we take (6) to be about whichever thought causally occasions (6) in the right way. If so, then, for all Burge has said, (6) could correspond to a thought whose content has nothing in common with that of (6).
Burge 1988, p. 659.
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I am not suggesting that it is at all plausible to suppose that a thought such as (6) could correspond to one with an entirely different content. The point is that Burge has failed to show that it could not. Consequently, he has failed to show that basic self-knowledge is even self verifying in the limited sense implied by (7).20 Burge writes: 21 Consider the thought, 'I hereby judge that water is a liquid'. What one needs in order to think this thought knowledgeably is to be able to think the first-order, empirical thought (that water is a liquid) and to ascribe it to oneself, simultaneously. and: One knows one's thought to be what it is simply by thinking it while exercising second-order self-ascriptive powers . . . Getting the 'right' one is simply a matter of thinking the thought in the relevant reflexive way . . . We 'individuate' our thoughts, or discriminate them from others, by thinking those and not the others, self-ascriptively These passages introduce the final, and closely related, strand in Burge s discussion of privileged access. What they suggest is the following. (6) is the thought that I think that writing requires concentration. A secondorder thought such as (6) is constructed upon a first-order thought. When I form (6) that is a matter of having the thought that writing requires concentration, and appending to it 'I think that'. Here is a comparison that may throw light on this proposal. Suppose I write the following sentence: 20
B u r g e m a y disagree w i t h this verdict o n t h e following grounds. As Davidson has s h o w n , whether I am on Earth or Twin Earth, the content of the belief I use: (a) 'Water is tasteless.' to express will not come apart from the content of the belief I use: (b) 'I believe water is tasteless.'
21
to express. For the same reason, there can be no mismatch between the content of (4) and the content of the belief (4) corresponds to. In the switching case, the reason why there has to be a match between the content of the belief expressed by (a) and the one expressed by (b) is this. On Twin Earth I employ the same 'water' concept in holding the belief expressed by (a), and the belief expressed by (b). That does not explain why a belief with the content of (4) does not correspond to a belief whose content is that doodling requires concentration. What we are trying to explain is why this is not so. An individual employs both the concepts of writing and doodling. She forms the belief that she believes writing requires concentration. That belief is causally occasioned by the belief that doodling requires concentration. Burge 1988, p. 656.
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(8) 'I am writing "Water is wet".' (8) is constructed by writing 'Water is wet', placing it in quotes, and prefixing it with 'I am writing'. In writing (8) I attribute to myself writing a sentence used to construct (8). Likewise, one may suppose, when I entertain (6), it is constructed from the thought that writing requires concentration by prefixing it with the mental analogue of the expression 'I think that'. If this suggestion is correct, it follows that basic self-knowledge is self verifying. I could not entertain (6) without thinking that writing requires concentration. I could not do so because, in order to have (6), I would have to construct it upon the thought that writing requires concentration. The view that having a thought such as (6) is a matter of entertaining a first-order thought in a certain manner is suggestive. Nevertheless, as it stands, it appears to be mistaken for a reason we noted earlier. It does seem possible to misattribute a current thought to oneself on the basis of misleading evidence. Any theorist who rules out that possibility has to explain why, appearances to the contrary, it is not possible.
BOGHOSSIAN'S ARGUMENT AND THE MCKINSEY* ARGUMENT
As Davidson and Burge have shown, the argument from counterfeit error fails. Nevertheless, Boghossian's argument and the McKinsey* argument are not, on the face of it, met by Davidson and Burge s accounts of firstperson authority. Consider Boghossian's argument. Boghossian employs a transmission principle to persuade us that an individual being switched back and forth between Earth and Twin Earth does not know which thought she is using * Water is tasteless' to express. According to Boghossian's transmission principle, if I know that p at some time t, and at a later time t' remember everything I knew at t, then I know that p at t'. Since the individual being switched between Earth and Twin Earth is, without any impairment of memory, subsequently unable to tell what belief she had during the period of switching, she was unable, during that period, to tell what belief she had. The most that Davidson has shown is that the content of a second-order belief to the effect that one has a certain first-order belief must match the content of that first-order belief. The most that Burge has shown is that such a second-order belief cannot be mistaken. Boghossian can cheerfully concede both of these points. The individual who is being switched between Earth and Twin Earth has a belief she would use: 175
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(9) 'Water is tasteless.' to express. She has a further belief she would use: (10) 'I believe water is tasteless.' to express. Grant to Davidson and Burge that, irrespective of whether someone is on Earth or Twin Earth, the content of the belief expressed by (9) will match the content of the belief expressed by (10), and that the belief expressed by (10) is not open to error. The question remains which belief is expressed by (9), in part, because the question remains open which belief is expressed by (10). Again, even if it is conceded to Burge that it is impossible to hold the belief expressed by (10) unless one holds the one expressed by (9), the question remains open which beliefs those sentences express. Even more obviously, the considerations brought to bear by Davidson and Burge leave the McKinsey* argument untouched. The McKinsey* argument turns on the following pair of assumptions. First, that if an externalist theory of content is true, it can be known a priori. Second, that the dependency of thoughts about water on the existence of water can be known a priori to follow from an externalist theory of content. According to the McKinsey* argument, combining these assumptions with the claim that we have a priori knowledge of our thoughts about water has an unpalatable consequence. Together they imply that we can have a priori knowledge of the existence of water. Suppose that Davidson and Burge are right. The belief expressed by (10) is infallible, and its content has to match the content of the belief expressed by (9). Nothing follows about the consequences of being able to have a priori knowledge of the belief expressed by (9), or the implications of ETC. At most, Davidson and Burge have shown that some necessary conditions for having a priori knowledge of the contents of one's thoughts can be satisfied compatibly with ETC. As the McKinsey* argument purports to demonstrate, it may turn out that, given ETC, another necessary condition for having a priori knowledge of the contents of one's thoughts cannot be satisfied. It is time to take stock. Externalism about content threatens to severely restrict, or even undermine altogether, first-person authority. Davidson and Burge respond to this threat by proposing accounts of first-person authority that it seems apt to describe as deflationary. It is tempting to say that, on their view, the knowledge yielded by privileged access is less sub176
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stantial than one might have thought. They would concede that the following is an implication of externalism. In the case of many propositional attitudes, in one sense, we cannot know which ones we have without conducting an empirical investigation. However, that does not preclude our having first-person authority over those propositional attitudes. It does not, principally because one type of error is excluded when it comes to present-tense first-personal self ascriptions of propositional attitudes. A propositional attitude that one has cannot masquerade as having a content it does not possess. There is no room for facsimile-based error in the case of present-tense first-personal self ascriptions of propositional attitudes. Burge and Davidson have no adequate rejoinder to Boghossian's argument or the McKinsey* argument. The next item on the agenda is to see whether those arguments can be met.
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10 Externalism andfirst-personauthority We have considered three arguments in chapter eight purporting to show that the thesis of content externalism, ETC, rules out first-person authority in the case of many beliefs. Davidson and Burge have adequately replied to the third: the argument from counterfeit error. However, what they have to say about first-person authority does not provide the basis for a reply to either Boghossians argument or the McKinsey* argument. Moreover, Davidson and Burge s accounts of first-person authority are inadequate. In the next chapter I will examine an ingenious account of first-person authority defended by Crispin Wright. In this one I will consider how Boghossian s argument and the McKinsey* argument can best be met. BOGHOSSIAN S ARGUMENT
Boghossian s argument goes like this. Someone is shunted back and forth between Earth and Twin Earth. On Earth she uses 'Water is tasteless' to express one belief. On Twin Earth she uses the same sentence to express a different belief. Subsequently, she is told that the shunting between Earth and Twin Earth has taken place. She is not told whether she was on Earth or Twin Earth during the previous day. Call this situation the switching situation. Boghossian contends that an individual in the switching situation lacks what he calls introspective knowledge about what she believes. Clearly, if his argument succeeds, it shows that someone in the switching situation does not know a priori that she believes that water is tasteless. Two questions need to be addressed. Does Boghossian s argument succeed? If it does, what follows about our having a priori knowledge of our propositional attitudes? Call the belief that an individual expresses on Earth using the sentence 'Water is tasteless' the water belief. Call the belief that an individual expresses on Twin Earth using the same sentence the twater belief. Boghossian takes himself to have established this: 178
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Externalism andfirst-personauthority (a) An individual in the switching situation does not know which of these beliefs she has: the water belief or the twater belief. At first sight, it follows from (a) that: (b) An individual in the switching situation does not know that she believes that water is tasteless. Suppose that Boghossian has established (a), and that (b) follows from (a). Earlier, I characterized a priori knowability thus. S is able to know a priori that p provided that either (1) or (2) below is true: (1) S is able to deduce p solely from things that she is able to know a priori. (2) S having the concepts associated with p, together with p being true, suffices for S being able to know that p. The most natural way to take (2) is as follows. Necessarily, if p is true, and S has all of the concepts associated with p, then S is able to know that p. In this sense, if Boghossian is right about what an individual knows in the switching situation, we lack a priori knowledge of our beliefs. Suppose Mary is in the switching situation. Consider a period when Mary is on Earth, and believes that water is tasteless. It is true that Mary believes that water is tasteless. In addition, whether she knows it or not, she has the concepts of water, belief, and tastelessness. Nevertheless, Mary is not able to know that she believes that water is tasteless, unless she is able to establish that she is on Earth rather than Twin Earth. So it is not a necessary truth that if she believes that water is tasteless, and has the concepts associated with the proposition that she has that belief, Mary is able to know that she has it. Since that is not a necessary truth, no one, actual or possible, is able to know a priori that she believes that water is tasteless. One response is to revise the characterization of a priori knowability along the following lines. S is able to know a priori that p if and only if either S is able to deduce p solely from what she is able to know a priori, or p being true, and S having all of the concepts associated with p, are, in the circumstances prevailing in the actual world, sufficient for S being able to know that p. Suppose some such characterization of a priori knowability is embraced. In that case, an objection due to Ted Warfield can be brought against Boghossian s argument.1
In Warfield 1992.
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Warfield points out that the most that Boghossian's argument shows is this. In the switching situation an individual does not know a priori that she believes water is tasteless. Nothing follows about anyone actually knowing a priori that she believes water is tasteless. After all, no one is actually in the switching situation. Boghossian's argument fails unless he assumes the following: (K) (S knows a priori that: (S knows that p) entails q, and Not (S knows a priori that q)) entails Not (S knows a priori that p). Grant that the following is known a priori. Anyone who knows a priori that she believes water is tasteless is not in the switching situation. Also grant that no one can know a priori that she is not in the switching situation. It follows from (K) that no one knows a priori that she believes water is tasteless. We have seen reason to reject (K) in the previous chapter. Moreover, (K) is not available to Boghossian. I know a priori that if I am a fabled brain in a vat, I do not know that there is a word processor in front of me. Boghossian holds, along with many others, that I need not know that I am not a brain in a vat in order to know that there is a word processor in front of me. The possibility that I am a brain in a vat is not one that I need to exclude to know that there is a word processor in front of me. In that sense, it is not a relevant alternative to my knowing that there is a word processor in front of me. Unfortunately, so far as the position defended here is concerned, Boghossian's argument remains intact. The account of first-person authority I have defended in the last section has this implication. It is a necessary truth that if someone consciously believes that p, and has all of the concepts associated with the proposition that she believes p, then she is able to know that she believes p. The possibility of there being someone in the switching situation who consciously believes that water is tasteless, has all of the relevant concepts, but, without further empirical investigation, does not know that she believes water is tasteless, defeats that claim. According to (a) someone in the switching situation does not know which of these beliefs she has: the water belief or the twater belief. According to (b) an individual in the switching situation does not know that she believes that water is tasteless. Does the individual in the switching situation fail to know that she believes water is tasteless? She does, if (a) is true, and (a) implies (b). I am not inclined to dispute (a). It seems to me that the individual in the switching situation does not know whether 180
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she has the water thought or the twater thought. I am also not inclined to dispute that the individual in the switching situation knows that she believes water is tasteless only if she knows which belief she uses 'Water is tasteless' to express. However, it does not follow that (b) is true. It does not follow that the individual in the switching situation does not know that she believes water is tasteless. Consider the following example. I am looking at a table. Do I know which object is in front of me? Without specifying the relevant contrast that question is unanswerable. I know which object is in front of me insofar as I know that it is a table rather than a chair. I may not know which object is in front of me insofar as I may not know that it is a table from the next room as opposed to a table from somewhere else. Does the individual in the switching case know what belief she uses 'Water is tasteless' to express? Again, it all depends on which contrast is relevant. She does not know which belief she uses 'Water is tasteless' to express insofar as she does not know whether she uses that sentence to express the water belief rather than the twater belief. She does know which belief she uses 'Water is tasteless' to express insofar as she knows that she uses it to express the belief that water is tasteless rather than the belief that grass is purple. Which of these contrasts is relevant when it comes to having knowledge of the contents of one's thoughts? Arguably the second. What is obvious is this. Someone in the switching situation who does not know whether she entertains the thought that water is tasteless, as opposed to the thought that grass is purple or two plus two equals four, does not know that she believes water is tasteless. What is far less obvious is that someone who entertains the water thought, but does not know that she entertains the water as opposed to the twater thought, does not know that she believes water is tasteless. We should be careful to distinguish this reply to Boghossian from the one that goes: entertaining the thought that twater is wet is not a relevant alternative to entertaining the thought that water is wet since no one is actually in the switching situation. Compare: (W) I am entertaining the thought that water is wet rather than the thought that twater is wet. with: 181
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(W*) I am entertaining the thought that twater is wet rather than the thought that water is wet. According to the relevant alternatives approach, in the switching situation, even if (W) is true, I am not able to know a priori that it is because, in that situation, (W*) is a relevant alternative to (W). Nevertheless, in the actual situation, I can know a priori that (W) because, in that situation, (W*) is not a relevant alternative to (W). I agree that in the switching situation I cannot know (W) a priori. However, I am also prepared to concede that I cannot actually know (W) a priori. I am prepared to concede that I cannot actually know (W) a priori because I cannot know (W) a priori in the switching situation. Despite that, I can know a priori, in both the actual world and the switching situation, that I think that water is wet. The point is this. So far as the relevant alternatives approach goes, I must be able to know (W) a priori in order to know a priori that I think that water is wet. According to me, I do not need to know (W) a priori in order to know that I think that water is wet.2
THE MCKINSEY* ARGUMENT
The McKinsey* argument remains to be considered. Here is how it goes. Someone could know a priori that she thinks she lives in a watery world. ETC is both true and could be known a priori. In addition, the following could be known a priori. If ETC is true then necessarily whoever thinks she lives in a watery world does so. From these premises we are constrained to draw the unacceptable conclusion that there could be someone who knows a priori she lives in a watery world. 2
My reply to Boghossian is similar to one given by Kevin Falvey and Joseph Owens in Falvey and Owens 1994. Falvey and Owens distinguish between what they call introspective knowledge of content and introspective knowledge of comparative content. Introspective knowledge of content yields introspective knowledge that water is wet. Introspective knowledge of comparative content yields introspective knowledge of (W). Falvey and Owens deny that introspective knowledge of content must go together with introspective knowledge of comparative content. They also hold that the Davidson-Burge response to the argument from counterfeit error provides the basis of a response to Boghossian's. According to Falvey and Owens, I do not need to know that (W), even in the switching situation, in order to know that I think that water is wet precisely because I will hold a true belief about what I think irrespective of whether I am on Earth or its twin.
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Externalism andfirst-personauthority Here are the premises of the McKinsey* argument that are open to question: (3) ETC->0 ( 3x ) (X knows a priori that ETC) (5) ETC—*D (x) (x thinks x lives in a watery world—*x lives in a watery world) (6) 0 (3x) (x knows a priori that (5)) The argument begins with two assumptions. First, that someone could know a priori that she thinks she lives in a watery world. Second, that ETC is true. From the second assumption, together with (3), we conclude that someone could know ETC a priori. (5) articulates what is commonly regarded as an implication of externalist theories of content. According to (5), if ETC is true, it is necessary for anyone who entertains thoughts about water to live in a world that sometime contains water. (6) says that (5) can be known a priori. It follows from ETC and (3) that it is possible for someone to know ETC a priori. ETC is the antecedent of (5). If it is possible for someone to know both ETC and (5) a priori, it is possible for someone to know the consequent of (5) a priori. The consequent of (5) says that necessarily anyone who thinks she lives in a watery world lives in a watery world. We are assuming that it is possible for someone to know a priori that she thinks she lives in a watery world. Hence, it follows from that assumption, together with ETC, that it is possible for someone to know a priori that she lives in a watery world. It is not possible for anyone to know a priori that she lives in a watery world. So, ETC implies that it is not possible for anyone to know a priori that she thinks she lives in a watery world. We lack the type of first-person authority over our beliefs defended here. Premiss (5) says that if ETC is true then necessarily whoever thinks she lives in a watery world does so. Anthony Brueckner, replying to McKinsey's original version of the McKinsey* argument, objects to premise (5).3 Brueckner points out that Tyler Burge, a prominent defender of ETC, does not accept (5). The reason is this. One can think about a non-existent natural kind by indulging in some sophisticated theorizing. For example, in a world where hydrogen and oxygen exist, but do not bond together, one could conjecture about the stuff that would be formed by two hydrogen atoms bonding with one oxygen. If one conjectured that 3
In Brueckner 1992.
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such stuff would behave like water then one would arguably have the concept of water, and a capacity to entertain thoughts about water.4 In order to accommodate this point, (5) should be replaced with: (5') ETC—>D (x) (x thinks x lives in a watery world—>(no one has theorized about water—>x lives in a watery world)). Premiss (6) says that it is possible for someone to know a priori that (5) is true. If the McKinsey* argument is to remain valid (6) should be replaced with: (6') 0 (3x) (x knows a priori that (5')). Premiss (7) says that the following could be known a priori. Necessarily whoever thinks she lives in a watery world does so. (7) should be replaced with: (7') y* (3x) (x knows a priori that • (y) (y thinks y lives in a watery world—* (no one has theorized about water—»y lives in a watery world))), and the conclusion of the McKinsey* argument with: (8') (} (3x) (x knows a priori that (no one has theorized about water—»x lives in a watery world)). The revised McKinsey* argument gives no credence to the possibility of someone having a priori knowledge of the existence of water. In order for it to do so, one would have to be able to know a priori that no one has theorized about water. Nevertheless, if (8') is true then one could be in a position that it is very counterintuitive to suppose that anyone could be in. By (8') one could combine one's a priori knowledge with one's a posteriori knowledge that no one has theorized about water to deduce that water exists. (8') is, perhaps, slightly less counterintuitive than (8). However, (8') is sufficiently counterintuitive to be rejected. If we reject (8') then we have 4
In this case theorizing about something non-existent proceeds by envisaging the unrealized product of combining existing things. This case is similar to the following. One succeeds in talking and thinking about someone who does not yet exist by referring to her as the product of a separately existing sperm and egg. Perhaps one need not tie down one's thought and talk about the non-existent in this way to what already exists. Perhaps one could entertain water thoughts in a world where matter is non-atomic. Someone in such a world could speculate about matter being atomic, and go on to speculate about how it would behave if certain hypothetical atoms were combined in certain ways.
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to reject one of the McKinsey* argument's premises. Premiss (3) says that if ETC is true, there could be someone who knows a priori that it is. Suppose we are not going to reject (3). In addition, suppose we wish to retain (5') and (6'). In that case, we, once again, have to choose between ETC and first-person authority. Premiss (5') says that ETC implies the following. Necessarily if someone in a world free of water theorizers thinks she lives in a watery world, she does live in a watery world. Provisionally grant that (5') is true. What of (6')? Premiss (6') says that it is possible for someone to know (5') a priori. (6') is initially plausible since (5') seems to just articulate an entailment of a philosophical thesis. Despite this, we should not concede (6') even if we are prepared to concede (5'). Consider the following quick argument against ETC. No reputable scientist believes that phlogiston exists. However, the expression 'phlogiston' seems to function in the same way as 'heat' or 'water'. 'Phlogiston' seems to function as a term putatively picking out a natural kind. For example, if, to our great surprise, phlogiston turns out to exist, we could make a scientific discovery about its real essence. Hence, ETC implies: (10) (x) (x thinks that phlogiston was believed in by eighteenth-century chemists—* (no one has theorized about phlogiston—^phlogiston exists)). You know a priori that you think phlogiston was believed in by eighteenth-century chemists. So, if you could know a priori that ETC is true, you could know a priori that if no one has theorized about phlogiston then phlogiston exists. That is absurd. Better to disavow ETC, or the thesis that we have first-person authority over what we think. No one should be persuaded by this argument.5 Where does it go wrong? It goes wrong in assuming that someone could know a priori that 5
Certainly, no one should find this argument persuasive as an argument against an externalist theory of content. Suppose you are tempted to find it persuasive as an argument against first-person authority. If so, consider the following variation on the argument. You know, whether a priori or not, that you think phlogiston was theorized about by eighteenthcentury chemists. So, if you could know that ETC is true, you could know that if no one has theorized about phlogiston, phlogiston exists. It is absurd to suppose that one could know a priori that if no one has theorized about phlogiston then phlogiston exists simply by knowing a priori what one thinks, and knowing a priori that ETC is true. It is only marginally less absurd to suggest that one can know that if no one has theorized about phlogiston then phlogiston exists solely on the basis of knowing ETC and knowing what one thinks.
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ETC implies (10). ETC implies (10) only if 'phlogiston' designates a natural kind. For the moment, assume that ETC implies (10) if'phlogiston' designates a natural kind. Whether that assumption is warranted is something we will need to investigate later. Consider the following proposal. According to what I will call the semantic variation thesis how the expression 'phlogiston' functions depends, in part, on whether phlogiston exists as a natural kind. If phlogiston exists as a natural kind then the term 'phlogiston' rigidly designates a natural kind. On the other hand, if phlogiston does not exist then 'phlogiston' functions differently. For example, if phlogiston does not exist, 'phlogiston' is a synonym for a non-rigid definite description such as 'the stuff thought by some eighteenth-century chemists to have negative weight'. (10) says that it follows from someone thinking that phlogiston was believed in by eighteenth-century chemists that, if no one has theorized about phlogiston, phlogiston exists. Let S be the sentence used above to express (10). Now consider the following pair of propositions. P t is the proposition expressed by S if'phlogiston' rigidly designates a natural kind. P2 is the proposition expressed by S if 'phlogiston' is synonymous with a non-rigid definite description. Does ETC imply (10)? In order to answer that question, one needs to know which proposition S expresses. One needs to know whether (10) is P t or P2. I have provisionally granted that if (10) is Pj then ETC implies (10). On the other hand, if (10) is P2 then ETC does not imply (10). For example, if 'phlogiston' means the stuff thought by some eighteenth-century chemists to have negative weight, (10) is equivalent to the proposition that: (10*) (x) (x thinks that phlogiston was believed in by eighteenth-century chemists—* (no one has theorized about the stuff thought by eighteenth-century chemists to have negative weight—> the stuff thought by eighteenth-century chemists to have negative weight exists)). Naturally (10*) does not follow from ETC. Even if an externalist theory of content is true, the following will not be necessary. If someone entertains a thought about phlogiston, and nobody has theorized about the stuff thought by eighteenth-century chemists to have negative weight, then that stuff exists. Suppose the semantic variation thesis is supplemented with the following claim. Since the semantic function of'phlogiston' depends, in part, on the existence of phlogiston as a natural kind, determining the semantic 186
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function of 'phlogiston' requires empirical investigation. However, one needs to determine the semantic function of 'phlogiston' in order to tell whether (10) is identical with something implied by ETC. Hence, no one can know a priori that ETC implies (10). Even if ETC can be known a priori, there is no reason to think that (10) can.6 Premiss (5') says this follows from ETC. Necessarily someone who lives in a world without water theorizers who thinks that she lives in a watery world is right. Premiss (6') says that (5') can be known a priori. What goes for phlogiston goes for water. Is (6') true? (5') is true only if'water' designates a natural kind. According to the previous argument, we can only tell whether 'water' designates a natural kind by conducting an empirical investigation. If water does not exist then 'water' is a synonym for a nonrigid definite description, and (5') is false. No one can know a priori whether water exists as a natural kind. So, (6') is false. Deploying the semantic variation thesis against the McKinsey* argument may be objected to on the following grounds. Premiss (6') is said to be false because no one can know a priori whether the concept she associates with her use of the term 'water' is a concept of a natural kind. Consequently, no one can know a priori what thought she is entertaining when she entertains a thought about water. We do not, after all, have a priori knowledge of our consciously held beliefs. Recall the discussion of Boghossian's argument in the previous section. Someone who cannot know a priori whether she entertains the water or the twater thought can, nevertheless, know a priori that she thinks water is wet. She can do so because she can contrast the thought about water she knows she is entertaining with a relevant range of alternative thoughts she knows she is not entertaining. From the point of view of knowing what she is thinking about water, the twater thought does not belong to the range of relevant alternatives. Likewise, the semantic variation thesis does 6
An advocate of the McKinsey argument is badly positioned to insist that one can know a priori how a putative natural kind term functions. The McKinsey* argument depends on the validity of the following argument scheme: X knows a priori that (p, and (p~*q) X knows a priori that q Suppose, as an advocate of the McKinsey* argument would insist is possible, I know ETC a priori. According to an advocate of the McKinsey* argument I also know this a priori. ETC implies that if 'water' is a natural kind term, water exists. So, I know a priori that if water is a natural kind term, water exists. Now, suppose I know a priori that 'water' is a natural kind term. It follows that I know a priori that water exists. I know a priori that water exists whether or not I have a priori knowledge of my thoughts.
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not preclude someone from knowing a priori that she thinks water is wet. I have argued that combining the semantic variation thesis with ETC has the following consequence. For some pair of propositions, no one who entertains the thought that water is wet is in a position to know a priori which one she uses 'Water is wet' to express. It does not follow that no one is able to know a priori that water is wet. For that to follow, the proposition that would be expressed by 'Water is wet', if water did not exist, must belong to the range of relevant alternatives to the proposition that water is wet. Suppose the semantic variation thesis is false. Even so, there is no reason to endorse (6'). I will argue for the following. ETC is supported by some famous thought experiments of which, perhaps, the best known is Putnam's Twin Earth thought experiment. Those thought experiments only support versions of ETC that do not imply (6'). Consider a typical thought experiment which prompts externalist intuitions about content. We envisage a world like ours in which Albertine's concept of water is derived from direct or indirect contact with water. We are then asked whether Albertine could entertain thoughts about water in a waterless world. It is plausible to answer, not unless Albertine has theorized in sufficient detail about water. What does this thought experiment tell us? It tells us that an individual who has derived her concept of water from interacting with water could not have had the concept of water, and, so, entertained thoughts about water in a world free of both water and water theorizers. In other words, it tells us that this is true: (12) If Albertine has acquired the concept of water from interacting with water then the following conditional is necessarily true. If Albertine thinks she lives in a watery world, and no one has theorized about water, Albertine lives in a watery world. (12) tells us that if Albertine has acquired her concept of water from interacting with the stuff, it is impossible for Albertine to entertain thoughts about water, unless she lives in a world containing either water or water theorizers. (12) does not tell us that it is impossible for Albertine to entertain thoughts about water, unless she lives in a world containing either water or water theorizers. Comparing the following situations will help to clarify the point. In both situations, so far as Albertine is concerned, it is an open question whether water exists anywhere at any time. For all Albertine knows there 188
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is some water somewhere at some time. For all she knows, there is no water anywhere at any time. For example, in each situation Albertine is constrained to take seriously the possibility that she has been permanently envatted in a world without water.7 In the first situation, without knowing it, Albertine sees what is in fact a body of water. She decides to use 'water' as a synonym for the non-rigid description 'the liquid that is odourless, colourless, tasteless, etc.'. Albertine considers what would follow from the antecedent of (12) being satisfied. She considers what would follow from her acquiring the concept of water from interacting with water. In particular, she asks herself this question. Given that I live in a watery world, could I entertain the thought that I do if water had never existed? Clearly, in this first situation, Albertine should answer yes. Whether or not water exists, Albertine could have entertained a thought equivalent to the thought that there is an odourless, colourless, tasteless, etc. liquid in a world without water. In the first situation (12) is false. In this situation Albertine's concept of water is not governed by (12). (12) says that this follows from Albertine acquiring her concept of water from interacting with water. It is impossible in a world without either water or water theorizers for Albertine to acquire the concept of water. Now, consider Albertine in the second situation. In the second situation Albertine uses 'water' so that (12) is true. Albertine contemplates the following pair of epistemic possibilities. She contemplates the epistemic possibility that water exists. She also contemplates the epistemic possibility that it does not. She asks herself the following question. If I have derived my concept of water from interacting with water, could I have entertained thoughts about water in a world in which there is no water? Clearly, in the second situation, in contrast to the first, Albertine should answer no. Albertine's concept of water is governed by (12). She is supposing the antecedent of (12) is satisfied. So, the consequent of (12) is true. Given that Albertine has acquired her concept of water from interacting with water, it is impossible for her to entertain thoughts about water in a waterless world. 7
You might ask: how can Albertine take seriously the possibility that she is permanently envatted in a waterless world? If ETC is true, Albertine cannot entertain any thoughts about water in a waterless world. So, if Albertine is inhabiting a waterless world, she cannot take seriously the possibility that she is. Hence, Albertine cannot take seriously the possibility that she is inhabiting a waterless world. If you are moved to raise this objection, read on.
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Albertine next proceeds to ask the following question. If, as is epistemically possible, there is no water, could I entertain thoughts about water? It is consistent with (12) that she should give an affirmative answer. Albertine is supposing that the antecedent of (12) is false. So, she is not precluded from supposing that its consequent is false. (12) does not preclude Albertine from supposing that she could entertain thoughts about water in a waterless world. I have argued that the thought experiments standardly invoked to confirm ETC support nothing stronger than (12). When presented with those thought experiments, we are invited to conclude the following. Someone who has acquired a natural kind concept C from interacting with a natural kind K could not have had C unless that natural kind existed. Suppose we endorse this conclusion. We are not forced to conclude no one could have C unless K exists. If that is right, we are not entitled to (5'). (5') says that if ETC is true, this is true. Necessarily someone in a world free of water theorizers who thinks she lives in a watery world does so. (5') should be replaced with: (5*) ETC—*D(x) (x has acquired the concept of water from interacting with water—* • (x thinks x lives in a watery world—> (no one has theorized about water—»x lives in a watery world))) (6') says that (5') can be known a priori. (6') should be replaced with: (6*) 0 (3x) (x knows a priori that (5*)), (7') says that this could be known a priori. Necessarily whoever, in a world without water theorizers, thinks she lives in a watery world does live in a watery world. (7') should be replaced with: (7*) v* (3x) (x knows a priori that (y) (y has acquired the concept of water from interacting with water—>(y thinks y lives in a watery world—* (no one has theorized about water—>y lives in a watery world)))). Of course it would be fallacious to infer (8'), () (3x) (x knows a priori that x lives in a watery world), from (1), () (3x) (x thinks x lives in a watery world), and (7*). All that can be deduced from (1) and (7*) is: (8*) v* (3x) (x knows a priori that (x has acquired the concept of water from interacting with water-* (no one has theorized about water—»x lives in a watery world))). 190
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(8*), unlike (8'), is innocuous. All would agree that the following can be known a priori. If someone has acquired the concept of water from interacting with water, and no one has theorized about water, then water exists. It is no objection to the conjunction of (1) with ETC that together they imply (8*). I conclude that the McKinsey* argument fails to demonstrate any conflict between ETC and first-person authority. Before proceeding, a further observation needs to be made. There is a problem with replacing (5') with (5*). Phlogiston does not exist, but it might have. In the actual world Wa, without anyone theorizing about it in sufficient detail, Albertine entertains a thought about non-existent phlogiston. Let Wl be a world in which Albertine derives her concept of phlogiston from interacting with it. Surely, it is true in Wa that there is such a world as W l . On the other hand, it is not true in Wl that there is such a world as Wa. Wl is accessible, possible relative to, Wa, but Wa is not accessible to W l . (5') says that (ETC) has the following implication. Necessarily someone in a world without water theorizers who thinks she lives in a watery world is right. According to (6'), (5') could be known a priori. It seems that the objection I have raised to (6') commits me to denying that the accessibility relation is symmetrical. Hence, I seem committed to no stronger modal logic than S4. One reply to this objection is suggested by some comments of Saul Kripke s.8 The objection depends on the assumption that if phlogiston does not exist, it could have. Kripke maintains that if fictional creatures such as unicorns do not exist, they could not exist. What goes for a unicorn goes for phlogiston. If the fictional substance phlogiston does not exist, it could not exist. Davidson and Burge offer deflationary accounts of first-person authority in order to reply to the argument from counterfeit error. In the last chapter I will discuss a quite different deflationary account of first-person authority. 8
In Kripke 1980.
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11 Psychological properties as secondary I look through my window and acquire this information. There is a tree outside. I have just increased what many philosophers would describe as my knowledge of the external world. When I consider what I have just come to know, the following appears evident. The existence of a tree outside my window does not, in any philosophically interesting sense, depend on my propensity to believe in its existence. It does not even depend on a collective propensity to believe in its existence. In this sense I have become informed about a state of affairs that obtains independently of whatever I, or anyone else, think about it. Arguably, the situation is different with colours. The tree outside the window is brown. The fact that there is a tree outside my window is not in any way constituted by my believing that there is one there. In contrast, Crispin Wright argues that the fact that the tree is brown is constituted by an individual believing, in suitable circumstances, that it is a fact.1 Of course, this is one way to capture the thought that colour is a secondary property. Standardly that thought is articulated in something like the following way. An object having a certain colour amounts to no more than its having the propensity to induce in normal observers, in the right circumstances, a characteristic sensation. In consequence, it is sometimes said, the concept of colour is response dependent. Something falls under a response-dependent concept in virtue of eliciting an appropriate response in an appropriately situated observer. The concept of colour is not a psychological concept.2 Nor are other concepts that are standardly viewed as response-dependent. Wright's novel suggestion is to treat certain psychological concepts, such as the concept 1 2
Crispin Wright defends this view in Wright 1988. What I mean by a psychological concept is one that applies to something only if it is in psychological states. Coloured objects do not have to be in psychological states.
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of intention or belief, as themselves response-dependent.3 He contends that we can better understand our having privileged access to our propositional attitudes if they fall under response-dependent concepts. EXTENSION-DETERMINING AND EXTENSION-REFLECTING
Response-dependent concepts are employed in making, to use Wright s terminology, extension-determining rather than extension-reflecting judg-
ments. A judgment is extension-reflecting if, when true, it answers to an independently obtaining state of affairs. There is a gap between making an extension-reflecting judgment, and making a true judgment. On the other hand, a judgment is extension-determining if making it in cognitively ideal circumstances ensures its truth. In order to capture what makes a judgment extension-determining Wright initially offers what he calls the provisional equation. (PE) X is in circumstances C—>(p«-*X judges that p) For example, if colour judgments are extension-determining, and I am placed in circumstances ideal for making such judgments, then the object in front of me is red if and only if I judge that it is. Two comments need to be made about (PE). First, if it is to serve its purpose, it must, to use Wright's phrase, be an a priori truth. That is, we can know a priori that (PE) is true. Unless (PE) is a priori true, it might just happen to be the case that best judgments about shape are invariably correct. That would not make judgments of shape extension-determining. Second, it is essential to include a reference to appropriate circumstances in the antecedent of C. Otherwise judgments ascribing the best candidates for being secondary properties will fail to be extension-determining. In unfavourable circumstances something sweet could easily be judged to be bitter. As Wright recognizes, the need for the antecedent of any instance of (PE) to specify appropriate circumstances creates a problem. Some restriction must be placed on the types of circumstances that can be mentioned by an instance of (PE). Failure to introduce such a restriction would trivialize (PE) in the following sense. Any judgment would be extensiondetermining. Consider my judgment that the moon is smaller than the 3
Wright develops this suggestion in Wright 1989a. He also discusses first-person authority in Wright 1987 and Wright 1989b.
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Earth. The following is a priori true. In the circumstance in which I correctly judge that the moon is smaller than the Earth, the moon is smaller than the Earth if and only if I judge that it is. What restriction should be placed on the types of circumstance that can feature in admissible instances of (PE)? Wright proposes the following. We say that the judgment that p is extension-determining just in case the following is a priori true. In suitable circumstances, judging that p amounts to judging truly that p. Moreover, circumstances are suitable only if they satisfy the following condition. Their obtaining is not affected by the truth values ofjudgments of the type to which the judgment that p belongs. Here is how this restriction works in the case of shape. Judgments of shape are not extension-determining. Moreover, in specifying the circumstances in which a judgment of shape is ideally made one would need to include this. The object whose shape is being judged does not undergo a change of shape as it is viewed from different angles. So, a specification of the circumstances ideal for making judgments of shape would imply the truth of certain judgments of that kind thus violating Wright s restriction. Wright holds that first-person ascriptions of propositional attitudes are extension-determining rather than extension-reflecting. When I come to believe truly that I have a certain belief I am not detecting an independently obtaining state of affairs. Instead, the fact that I have a certain lower-order belief is constituted by my propensity to form one of a higher order about it. (PE) is the following schema: X is in circumstances C—*(p*-*X judges that p). Wright denies that (PE) adequately spells out the sense in which judgments about one s own propositional attitudes are extension-determining. Here is why. In the case of my believing that Tasmania is an island the relevant instance of (PE) is:4 (1) AG is in circumstances— —*(AG believes that Tasmania is an island<->AG believes that AG believes that Tasmania is an island). How should we fill the gap in (1)? How should we specify the circumstances to be mentioned in the antecedent of (1)? As Wright acknowledges, in specifying those circumstances we would need to say that AG is not subject to self-deception about which beliefs he holds. We would need Wright focuses on the case of intention in elaborating his account of first-person authority. Nevertheless, he clearly intends it to be general in scope. For that reason, I will assume that it is applied uniformly to all propositional attitudes including belief.
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to say that AG is not subject to certain biasing influences in forming beliefs about having beliefs. Which influences? Wright observes that it is difficult to characterize the relevant biasing influences beyond saying that they are biasing. That is, they are influences that inhibit the formation of a true belief about which first-order belief one holds. Writing about knowledge of one's own intentions he remarks:5 So we seem to be perilously close to writing in a condition to the effect that the subject befreeof any condition which might somehow impede his ability to reliably certify his own intentions. The problem with writing such a condition into the antecedent of (1) is that it would have the effect of trivializing (1). In circumstances where I am free of any influences that would impede my forming the true secondorder belief mentioned on the right-hand side of (1), including, presumably, failing to have the belief that Tasmania is an island, I will believe that Tasmania is an island if and only if I believe that I have that belief. Wright does not mention a further problem with taking (PE) to indicate how judgments about one's own propositional attitudes are, in general, extension-determining. Again, consider the case of belief rather than intention. (1) says that, in the appropriate circumstances, AG believes that Tasmania is an island if and only if AG has the second-order belief that he believes that Tasmania is an island. Suppose that infillingout the antecedent of (1) we say that self-deception must not be operative. What promotes selfdeception? Among other things, the presence of certain beliefs. If I believe that a strong desire will be satisfied by my holding a certain belief, that will be conducive to my deceiving myself into thinking that I do hold that belief. So, in articulating a no self-deception condition, we need to say that certain biasing beliefs should be absent. However, that violates Wright's restriction. (1) becomes: in circumstances in which, among other things, certain beliefs about beliefs are not held, I believe that Tasmania is an island if and only if I believe that I hold that belief. Hence the obtaining of the circumstances mentioned in the antecedent of (1) would settle the truth value of judgments of the same type as the one mentioned on the far right of (1). WRIGHT'S FINAL ACCOUNT
In the light of the problem posed by the need for a no self-deception condition Wright argues for a modification of (PE). His argument goes 5
Wright 1989a, p. 251.
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like this. Consider (1). Suppose that Cl is the no-self-deception condition. 'AG is in circumstances C^ says that AG is not subject to any self-deceptive influences. In addition, suppose that C 2 are all the circumstances featuring in the antecedent of (1) that are non-trivially specifiable. So, (1) can be rewritten as: (2) (AG is in circumstances Cj and AG is in circumstances C2)—>(AG believes that Tasmania is an island^AG believes that AG believes that Tasmania is an island) Next Wright observes that the no-self-deception condition is positivepresumptive. By this he means that, in the absence of counterevidence, one is a priori justified in believing that it is satisfied. In the absence of evidence to the contrary an individual is a priori justified in believing that AG is not subject to self-deception. So, without evidence to the contrary, one is a priori justified in believing: (3) AG is in circumstances C r The next step depends on the validity of the following inference: (AP) X is a priori justified in believing X [(p&q)—*r] is a priori justified in believing X p is a priori justified in believing (q—*r) Suppose (AP) is valid. If so, it follows from our being a priori justified, in the absence of counterevidence, in believing (2), and a priori justified, in the absence of counterevidence, in believing (3), that we are a priori justified, in the absence of counterevidence, in believing: (4) AG is in circumstances C2—>(AG believes that Tasmania is an island*-* AG believes that AG believes that Tasmania is an island) What best explains the a priori justifiability of (4)? If (4) were a priori true, in circumstances C 2 AG believing that he believes that Tasmania is an island would suffice for AG to believe that Tasmania is an island. AG believing that he believes that Tasmania is an island would be extension-determining. However, (4) is not a priori true. I may, in circumstances C 2 , incorrectly have the second-order belief mentioned in (4) if the no self-deception condition is unfulfilled. Nevertheless, Wright maintains, my believing in circumstances C 2 that I believe Tasmania is an island can, in Wright's words, 'play a defeasible extension determining role, with defeat conditional on the emergence of evidence that one or 196
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more of the background, positive-presumptive, conditions are not in fact met'. 6 Again, commenting on the case of intention Wright summarizes his position thus: 7 What determines the distribution of truth-values among ascriptions of intention to a subject who has the conceptual resources to understand those ascriptions and is attentive to them are, in the first instance, nothing but the details of the subject's self-conception in relevant respects. If the assignment of truth values, so effected, generates behavioural singularities - the subject's behaviour clashes with his/her self-conception, or seems to call for the inclusion of ingredients which he/she is unwilling to include then the self-deception proviso, broadly interpreted as above, may be invoked, and the subject's opinion, or lack of it, may be overridden. But that is not because something is shown, by the discordant behaviour, about the character of some independently constituted system of intentions which the subjects opinions at best reflect. When possession of a certain intention is an aspect of a self-conception that coheres well enough both internally and with the subject's behaviour, there is nothing else that makes it true that the intention is indeed possessed.
He adds that if the conditions in which one is a priori justified in ascribing intentions are regularly met:'. . . there is every promise of a straightforward kind of explanation of the authority which avowals of intention, qua avowals, typically carry.'8
FURTHER ISSUES
There are a number of issues to be considered when evaluating Wright's account of first-person authority. (4) says this. AG is in circumstances C2 only if the following is true. AG believes that Tasmania is an island just in case AG self attributes that belief. First, is Wright's argument for the a priori justifiability of claims like (4) successful? Second, if it is, is the best explanation of the a priori justifiability of such claims that self ascriptions of propositional attitudes are defeasibly extension-determining? Third, if self ascriptions of propositional attitudes are defeasibly extension-determining, does that yield a convincing account of first-person authority? Finally, is it possible for self ascriptions of propositional attitudes to be generally extension-determining? Could concepts of propositional attitudes be in general response-dependent? 6
Wright 1989a, p. 252.
7
Wright ibid., p. 253.
8
Ibid., p. 253.
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Richard Holton raises an issue that is prior to any of the above.9 It concerns the proper formulation of Wrights argument for the a priori justifiability of (4). Wrights explanation of the positive-presumptiveness of the no self-deception condition is this:10 Positive-presumptiveness ensures that, in all circumstances in which one has no countervailing evidence, one is a priori justified in holding that the no self-deception condition is satisfied, its trivial specification notwithstanding.
This passage is ambiguous. It could be taken to imply: (i) X has no countervailing evidence—>X is a priori justified in believing that the no self-deception condition is satisfied, or it could be taken to only imply that: (ii) X is a priori justified in believing that: (X has no countervailing evidence—*X is justified in believing that the no self-deception condition is satisfied). Suppose: (iii) X has no countervailing evidence. Wright maintains that if (iii) is true then X is a priori justified in believing that the no self-deception condition is satisfied. However, as Holton points out, it does not follow from (ii) and (iii) that X is a priori justified in believing that the no self-deception condition is satisfied.11 (2) says that AG is in both circumstances C t and C 2 only if this is so. AG believes that Tasmania is an island if and only if AG believes he has that belief. (3) says that AG is in circumstances C r Finally (4) says this holds in circumstances C2. AG believes Tasmania is an island if and only if AG self attributes the belief that Tasmania is an island. In the case of (2), even if AG lacks counterevidence to the satisfaction of the no self-deception condition, (ii) does not entitle us to conclude that AG is a priori justified in believing (3), and, on that basis, infer that AG is a priori justified in believing (4). In the light of this objection Wright may simply resort to (i). One is not only a priori justified in believing, in the absence of counterevidence, that the no self-deception condition is satisfied, but, in addition, in the absence 9 11
10 He raises it in an ancestor to his 1993 paper. Wright 1989, p. 253. In case there are any doubts about this consider the following example. I am a priori justified in believing that if Crispin Wright has written about first-person authority, he has written about first-person authority. It does not follow that if Crispin Wright has written about first-person authority, I am a priori justified in believing that he has.
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of counterevidence, one is a priori justified in believing that the no selfdeception condition is satisfied. There is a problem with (i) that we have encountered in another context. Suppose (i) articulates the sense in which the no self-deception condition is positive-presumptive. Wright would not allow that any condition whatever is positive-presumptive, (i) says that if there is no reason to disbelieve that the no self-deception condition is satisfied then, without having to rely on further evidence, one is justified in believing that it is satisfied. For any condition C, one reason to refrain from believing that C is satisfied is that one has no reason to believe that C is satisfied. Hence, for any condition C, if one really has no reason to refrain from believing that C is satisfied, one will automatically have reason to believe that it is satisfied.12 So, if (i) does articulate the sense in which the no self-deception condition is positive-presumptive then any condition will be positive-presumptive. Wrights argument for the a priori justifiability, in the absence of counterevidence, of (4) depends on the validity of (AP) which is: (AP) X is a priori justified in believing [(p&q)—>r] X is a priori justified in believing p X is a priori justified in believing (q—>r) Is (AP) valid? It is if this is valid: (AP') X is a priori justified in believing [p—*(q—*r)] X is a priori justified in believing p X is a priori justified in believing (q—*r) Of course, (AP') is valid only if the following epistemic closure principle is true: (EP) pC is <^ priori justified in believing (p~>q)]~*[(X is a priori justified in believing p)—>(X is a priori justified in believing q)] I offer no objection to (EP). I simply note that epistemic closure principles like (EP) have been called into question. In consequence, one cannot assume that (AP)'s validity is incontestable. 12
We might try excluding from the scope of counterevidence to the no self-deception condition the fact that one has no reason to believe it is satisfied. However natural that proposal might seem, it would have the effect of undermining (i). Suppose I lack any counterevidence, in the restricted sense, to the no self-deception condition being satisfied. I may still fail to be justified in believing that it is satisfied because I have reason to believe that I have no reason to believe that it is.
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IS WRIGHT S ACCOUNT ADEQUATE?
So much for Wright's argument for the a priori justifiability of (4). Suppose that argument is sound. If (4) is a priori justifiable what bearing does that have on our first-person authority over, in this case, our beliefs? Wright endorses the following claims. First, that the best explanation for the a priori justifiability of (4) is that first-person present-tense self ascriptions of propositional attitudes are defeasibly extension-determining. Second, that if first-person present-tense self ascriptions of propositional attitudes are defeasibly extension-determining, then we have first-person authority over our propositional attitudes. Let us examine these claims. The first of these claims is very dubious. Wright is understandably adamant that judgments of shape are not, in any sense, extension-determining. (2) says that AG is in circumstances Cj and C2 only if this is so. AG believes Tasmania is an island if and only if AG believes he has that belief. (3) says that AG is in circumstances C r Consider the following counterparts to (2) and (3): (5) (X is in circumstances C and object O has not changed its shape when viewed from different angles by X)—*(O is square<-*X judges O to be square) (6) O has not changed its shape when viewed from different angles by X. The a priori truth of (5) would not establish that shape judgments are extension-determining. This is because including (6) in the antecedent of (5) violates Wright s restriction. Nevertheless, it seems to me, there is as good a case for considering (6) to be positive-presumptive as there is for considering (3) to be. If I have no evidence that an object has changed its shape, do I require evidence in order to be justified in believing that it has maintained a constant shape? It seems not. Suppose (6) is positive-presumptive. In that case, following Wright's strategy, we may delete (6) from the antecedent of (5) to obtain an a priori justifiable counterpart to (4). However, that does not show that shape judgments are defeasibly extension-determining. Why then should the a priori justifiability of (4) show that self ascriptions of propositional attitudes are even defeasibly extension-determining? One difficulty with Wright's view is that it is not clear what the phrase 'defeasibly extension-determining' means. He says:13 13
Wright 1989a, p. 252.
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The key thought of the variant approach will be that the matter will be nicely explained if the concept of intention works in such a way that Jones' opinions, formed under the restricted set of C conditions, play a defeasible extension-determining role, with defeat conditional on the emergence of evidence that one or more of the background positive-presumptive conditions are not in fact met.
What this says is that if I lack evidence that I do not intend to <J), and I form the belief that I do intend to <> | in otherwise cognitively ideal circumstances, then it follows that I intend to c(>. Suppose, apart from the possibility I am self-deceived, I am in cognitively ideal circumstances, believe that I intend to <J), and lack evidence that I do not intend to <|). Why should it follow that I intend to (()? My lacking evidence against a belief that I hold is relevant to its justifiability. What is the relevance of my lacking evidence against one of my beliefs to the truth of that belief? Richard Holton suggests an answer to this question on Wright's behalf.14 Say that Wright embraces analytic functionalism as an account of the mind. In that case, it would be open to him to maintain that the functionalist definition of intention includes this clause. If an individual believes she intends to perform a certain action, and has no evidence that suggests otherwise, then she intends to do what she believes she intends to do. Even if Wright adopts functionalism, it would be unwise for him to invoke any such clause to bridge the gap in his account. The problem is this. Even if I am self-deceived, I may well lack evidence that I am. In order to more effectively deceive myself I may adroitly repress such evidence. Hence, this appears to be possible. I have no evidence that I am self-deceived. Moreover, I believe that I intend to 4> in circumstances that, apart from being self-deceived, are cognitively ideal for assessing my intentions. I do not intend to <J). We cannot say that, even setting aside my being self-deceived, my circumstances are less than cognitively ideal if I repress evidence suggesting I do not intend to 4>. After all, it is my self-deception that leads to the repression of that evidence. (4) says that AG is in circumstances C2 only if the following is true. AG believes Tasmania is an island just in case AG believes he has that belief. So far I have been criticizing Wright's view that claims such as (4) are a priori justifiable, and that the best explanation for their a priori justifiability is that certain second-order judgments about propositional attitudes are extension-determining. Suppose this view is conceded. Suppose it is con14
Holton 1993.
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ceded that the second-order belief mentioned in (4) is extension-determining. What bearing will that have on our first-person authority over our beliefs? Wright holds that colour judgments are extension-determining. The fact that an object has a certain colour amounts to the fact that it would be judged to have that colour in cognitively ideal circumstances. Nevertheless, no one would hold that we have first-person authority over the colours of objects. Moreover, one who adopts Wrights view of colours is not committed to allowing that we do have first-person authority over an object's colour. Why not? Wrights view of colours would imply that we have first-person authority over colours if it had the two following implications. First, that we have first-person authority over circumstances that are cognitively ideal for making colour judgments. Second, we have first-person authority over the truth of colour judgments. Of course, Wright's view of colours has neither of these implications. It is obviously consistent with that view that we enjoy no special authority as to whether we are placed in ideal circumstances for detecting colours. It is also obviously consistent with Wright's view that we have no special authority about its truth. If the extension-determining character of colour judgments need not go together with our having first-person authority over colours, why should the extension-determining character of first-person self ascriptions of propositional attitudes go together with our having first-person authority over our propositional attitudes? In reply Wright may fall back on a reliabilist conception of knowledge. Suppose first-person self ascriptions of propositional attitudes are defeasibly extension-determining. In that case, we have an a priori guarantee that they are, for the most part, true. Hence, on a reliabilist conception of knowledge, we have an a priori guarantee that first-person self ascriptions of propositional attitudes yield knowledge. There are three problems with this suggestion. First, it is far from clear that if first-person self ascriptions of propositional attitudes are defeasibly extension-determining, we would have an a priori guarantee that they are for the most part true. In order to have such a guarantee, we would need an a priori guarantee that factors such as self-deception do not occur too frequently. Second, the alleged defeasibly extension-determining character of the target judgments is in danger of doing no work. What matters is that making a first-person self ascription of a propositional attitude is reliably correlated with making a true judgment. It does not matter why that reliable correlation holds. In particular, it does not matter if it holds 202
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because first-person self ascriptions are extension-determining, or for some other reason. Finally, a point noted elsewhere, what needs to be invoked is an especially crude version of a reliabilist conception of knowledge. Suppose that first-person self ascriptions are extension-determining. What follows? Only that they are for the most part true. We are entitled to infer from this that first-person self ascriptions amount to knowledge only if this is so. It is sufficient for a belief to qualify as knowledge that beliefs of the same type are, for the most part, true. An account which implies that this is a sufficient condition for knowledge has little appeal. At this point Wright may remind us that, according to him, an undefeated first-person self ascription is a priori justified. If I, for example, ascribe a belief to myself then, without evidence to the contrary, I am automatically justified in doing so. Consequently, he can be seen as giving an account of first-person authority. Earlier I raised the problem that it is true of any belief that one is justified in holding it if there is no reason to refrain from doing so. Set that problem to one side. Another one remains. Asserting that undefeated firstperson self ascriptions are a priori justified pinpoints what is to be explained rather than providing an explanation of it. We appear to enjoy justified beliefs about our own propositional attitudes that are not evidentially based. Why is that so? It is no answer to reply because we are defeasibly a priori justified in holding such beliefs. One question remains. Could first-person self ascriptions be, in general, extension-determining? Could concepts of propositional attitudes be, in general, response-dependent? Consider taste. For Wright there is nothing more to the fact that a lump of sugar is sweet than this. Someone in the right circumstances would believe that it is sweet. Likewise, there is nothing more to the fact that I have a certain intention than this. In the right circumstances I would believe that I have it. While he focuses on the case of intention, Wright clearly aims to provide a general account of firstperson authority. He intends to provide an account that will apply to any propositional attitude including belief. So, let us consider how his account applies to my belief that the Dodo is extinct. In Wright s view, there is no more to the fact that I believe the Dodo is extinct than this. In the right circumstances a certain fact would obtain. Which fact? It is just the fact that I believe that I believe that the Dodo is extinct. Moreover, there is no more to that fact obtaining than this. In the right circumstances a further fact would obtain. Which fact? It is just the 203
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fact that I have a second-order belief to the effect that I believe that the Dodo is extinct. In turn, that fact amounts to no more than this. In the right circumstances I would have a third-order belief to the effect that I have the second-order belief in question. A regress obviously ensues.15 Is it harmful? It is not easy to say. Believing something amounts to a certain conditional being true in the appropriate circumstances. For the antecedent of that conditional to be true is for another conditional to be true in appropriate circumstances. For the antecedent of that conditional to be true is for yet another conditional to be true in appropriate circumstances. At no stage do we arrive at a conditional with a categorical antecedent. Does this show that beliefs must fall outside the scope of Wright s view? If it does, Wright has failed to provide a general account of our first-person authority over our propositional attitudes. I have argued that, even if it coherently applies to beliefs, Wright's account of first-person authority is unconvincing. It is far from clear that our concepts of propositional attitudes are response-dependent. It is equally unclear whether their response-dependence would ensure that we have first-person authority over what falls under them. Here and in chapter nine I have explored accounts of first-person authority that seem aptly described as deflationary. Davidson, Burge, and Wright are all offering deflationary accounts of first-person authority in this sense. Each one attempts to show that acquiring knowledge of our own propositional attitudes is not as cognitively demanding as acquiring knowledge of the things outside us. Davidson and Burge attempt to show this in a quite different way from Wright. According to Wright when I come to know that I have a certain propositional attitude I am not accessing an independently obtaining state of affairs. Davidson and Burge's view is consistent with holding that, in coming to have such knowledge, I am accessing an independently obtaining state of affairs. For example, it is open to them to maintain that my believing that the Dodo is extinct does not just amount to my believing, in cognitively ideal circumstances, that I have that belief. What makes Davidson and Burge's view of first-person authority deflationary is this. I come to hold a belief I would express by means of the sentence 'I believe the Dodo is 15
Richard Holton and Paul Boghossian both note that a regress threatens if Wright's view is applied to belief. Holton notes this in Holton 1993, and Boghossian in Boghossian 1989a.
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extinct'. When I come to hold that belief I am bound to be right irrespective of whether I believe the Dodo is extinct, or am in a state that simulates holding that belief. In this sense, when I ascribe a propositional attitude to myself, what propositional attitude I have makes no difference to my being right.
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Bibliography Alston, W. P. 1971. Varieties of Privileged Access. American Philosophical Quarterly, 8: 223-41. 1976. Self Warrant: A Neglected Form of Privileged Access. American Philosophical Quarterly, 13: 257—72.
Anscombe, G. E. M. 1957. Intention. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Armstrong, D. M. 1963. Is Introspective Knowledge Incorrigible? Philosophical Review, 62: 417-32. 1968. A Materialist Theory of the Mind. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Ayer, A. J. 1940. The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge. London: MacMillan. 1963. Privacy. Concept of a Person, and Other Essays. London: MacMillan. Baker, L. R. 1987. Saving Belief Princeton: Princeton University Press. Baldwin, T. 1990. G. E. Moore. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Bilgrami, A. 1991. Belief and Meaning. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Boghossian, P. 1989a. Content and Self Knowledge. Philosophical Topics, No. 1: 5-26. 1989b. The Rule Following Considerations. Mind, 93: 507-49. 1990. The Status of Content. The Philosophical Review, 99: 157-184. Brandon, R. 1976. Truth and Assertability. Thefournal of Philosophy, 73: 137-49. Brueckner, A. L. 1986. Brains in a Vat. Thefournal of Philosophy, 83: 148-67. 1992. What an Anti-Individualist Knows A Priori. Analysis, 52: 111-18. Burge, T. 1988. Individualism and Self Knowledge, fournal of Philosophy, 85: 649-63. Churchland, P. M. 1984. Matter and Consciousness. Bradford: Bradford MIT Press. Collins, A. 1987. The Nature of Mental Things. Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press. Craig, E. 1990. Davidson and the Sceptic: The Thumbnail Version. Analysis, 50: 213-14. Davidson, D. 1984. First Person Authority. Dialectica, 38: 101-11. 1986. Knowing One's Own Mind. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association, 60(3): 441-58. 1988. Reply to Burge. fournal of Philosophy, 664-5. 1989. What is Present to the Mind. The Mind of Donald Davidson, ed. J. Bradl. Amsterdam: Rodopi: 3—18. Devitt, M. 1990. Transcendentalism About Content. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 71:247-63. Edgley, R. 1969. Reason in Theory and Practice. London: Hutchinson.
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Bibliography Evans, G. 1982. The Varieties of Reference, ed. J. McDowell. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Falvey, K. and Owens, J. 1994. Externalism, Self-Knowledge, and Skepticism. The Philosophical Review, 103: 107-37. Fodor, J. and Le Pore, E. 1991. Holism: A Shopper's Guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gallois, A. N. 1992. Putnam, Brains in Vats, and Arguments for Scepticism. Mind, 101: 273-86. Greenwood, J. D. 1991. Self Knowledge: Looking in the Wrong Direction. Behaviour and Philosophy, 19: 35—47.
Grice, P. 1957. Meaning. Philosophical Review, Vol. 66: 377-88. Hampshire, S. and Hart, H. L. A. 1958. Decision, Intention and Certainty. Mind, 67: 1-12. Heil, J. 1987. Are We Brains in a Vat? Top Philosopher Says 'No'. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 17: 427-36. 1992. The Nature of True Minds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Holton, R. 1993. Intention Detecting. Philosophical Quarterly, 53: 298-318. Jackson, F. 1973. Is There a Good Argument Against the Incorrigibility Thesis? Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 51: 51—62.
Kavka, G. 1983. The Toxin Puzzle. Analysis, 43: 33-6. Kripke, S. 1980. Naming and Necessity. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Lewis, D. 1983. Extrinsic Properties. Philosophical Studies, 44: 197-200. McDowell, J. 1986. Singular Thought and the Extent of Inner Space. Subject Thought and Context, ed. Philip Pettit and John McDowell. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 137-68. Maclntyre, J. 1984. Putnam's Brains. Analysis, 44: 49-61. McKinsey, M. 1991. Anti-Individualism and Privileged Access. Analysis, 51: 9-16. Moore, G. E. 1951. Russell's Theory of Descriptions. The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell: Library of Living Philosophers, ed. P. A. Schilpp: 175-225. New York: Tudor. Nagel, T. 1974. What is it Like to be a Bat? The Philosophical Review, 83: 435-81. 1986. The View From Nowhere. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nelson, T. O. 1992. Metacognition: Core Readings. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Nisbett, R. E. and Ross, L. 1980. Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Nisbett, R. E. and Wilson, T. D. 1977. Telling More Than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes. Psychological Review, 84: 231—59. Nozick, R. 1981. Philosophical Explanations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Peacocke, C. 1992. A Study in Concepts. Bradford: Bradford MIT Press. Pettit, P. and Smith, M. 1990. Backgrounding Desire. The Philosophical Review, 99: 565-92. Priest, G. 1987. In Contradiction:A Study in the Transconsistent. Dordrecht: Nijhoff. Putnam, H. 1975. The Meaning of Meaning. Language, Mind and Reality: Philosophical Papers, vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 215-71. 1981. Reason, Truth and History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 207
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Bibliography Rorty, R. 1970. Incorrigibility as the Mark of the Mental. TheJournal of Philosophy, 67: 399-424.
Ryle, G. 1949. The Concept of Mind. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin. Searle, J. R. 1991. Consciousness, Unconsciousness and Intentionality. Philosophical Issues, 1: Consciousness: 45-66. Shoemaker, S. 1988. On Knowing One's Own Mind. Philosophical Perspectives, 2, Epistemology: 183-209. 1990. First Person Access. Philosophical Perspectives, 4, Action Theory and Philosophy of Mind: 188-214. 1994a. Self Knowledge and 'Inner Sense', Lecture 1: The Object Perception Model. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 54: 249-69. 1994b. Self Knowledge and 'Inner Sense', Lecture 2: The Broad Perceptual Model. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 54: 271—90. Smith, M. 1987. The Humean Theory of Motivation. Mind, 96: 36-61. Sorensen, R. A. 1988. Blindspots. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stephens, J. and Russow, L. M. 1985. Brains in Vats and the Internalist Perspective. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 63: 205—12. Stich, S. 1992. What is A Theory of Mental Representation? Mind, 101: 243-61. Urmson,J. O. 1952. Parenthetical Verbs. Mind, 61: 480-96. Velleman, D. 1989. Practical Reflection. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Warfield, T. 1992. Privileged Self Knowledge and Externalism are Compatible. Analysis, 52: 232-7. Wright, C. 1987. On Making Up One's Mind: Wittgenstein on Intention. Proceedings of the 11th International Wittgenstein Symposium, ed. P. Weingartner & G. Schurz. Vienna: Holder-Pichler-Tempsky: 391-404. 1988. Moral Values, Projection and Secondary Qualities. Proceedings of the Aristotelean Society, Supplementary Proceedings, 62: 1—26. 1989a. Wittgenstein's Rule Following Considerations and the Central Project of Theoretical Linguistics. Reflections of Chomsky, ed. A. George. Oxford: Basil Blackwell: 233-64. 1989b. Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy of Mind: Sensation, Privacy and Intention. The Journal of Philosophy, 86: 622-34.
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Index a priori justified, 196-9, 200, 201, 203 knowledge, 4, 31: characterized, 16, 179—80, commonsensical theories, 36—7, senses of, 16 true, 196, 200, 202 see also content externalism agnosticism, 28, 78-9, 81, 84-8, 90-1, 106-10, 117-20, 141-2, 144, 151 Alston, W P., 21n9, 22nl2, 25nl5, 26-7, 29-30, 31nl Anscombe, G. E. M., 3 anti-individualism, see content externalism Armstrong, D. M , 17n4, 21nlO Ayer, A. J.,32n2, 96-102 Bach, K., 65n3, 119nl4, 121nl6 Baker, R., I l n l 7 Baldwin, T., 6nl4 behavioural evidence, 20-1, 65 psychological experiments, 2, 33—7 verbalizations, 33, 37—41 belief, non-observationally self-attributed, 1-11 and concept possession, 56—60, 133-4 and non-conscious beliefs, 39, 47, 48-51, 120-6, self-deception, 55, 56-7, 104-5, 121-4, 194-7, 198-9, 201 and psychological causes, 33—7 as mental state, 114 basic account, 5-8, 45-51, 54, 56, 63, 75, 80, 103, 107, 108, 150-2,and Ayer's view of perception, 96—102, extended, 8-9, 133-4, to other propositional attitudes, 127-52, to past beliefs, 88-96, to present beliefs, 85—8, 95—6, objections and responses, 8, 51-7, 58-9, 61-3, 83, 103-26,
110-25, relation to extended account, 139-47, 150-2 consciously held, 47, 55-60, 74, 80, 104, 120—6, and epistemic privilege, 124—6, obsessive-compulsive, 51, 61-2, 124-5, 149-50 context of belief, 48-9, 135-6 contrasted with desire, 53—4, 133—47 passim
justification, 8-9, 51, and consciously held beliefs, 124-6, and lack of justification, 52, 61, 110, 111-12, being justified v. having reasons for, 103-4, cognitive v. strategic reasons, 103-6, 108, 109, 127-8, explanatory v. justificatory reasons, 60, objective v. subjective, 111-12, rational beliefs, 74, 80, 110-11, reasons for disbelieving, 28-9, 133, self warrant, 25-30, 31, subjective, 49-51, 112, 121-3 non-phenomenological, 17-21, 129 not subject to the will, 133—4 Peacocke's account, 55-60, 63nl7 perspective-saturated and perspectivefree descriptions, 101-2 speech acts, 121, cautious assertion, 54, 112-13, formation of attitude, 54-5, 114, self attribution, 112-15 see also agnosticism; content externalism; doxastic schema; recollection; selfblindness Bilgrami, A., 156n2 Boghossian, P., Ilnl7, 32n4, 38, 40nl5, 155, 156-7, 175-7, 178-82, 187 Brandon, R., 53n9 Brueckner, A., 10nl6, 183 Burge, T., 9-10, 155-6, 160, 161, 170-5, 176, 177, 178, 182n2, 183, 191, 204
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Index Cartesianism, 2 causal relations, 26, 33-7, 92, 172 functionalism, 36, 79, 120, 201-3 character traits, 17-18 Churchland, Patricia, I l n l 7 Churchland, Paul, Ilnl7 ColHns,A., 114 compulsion, 51, 61-2, 124-5, 132, 149-50 concepts and a priori knowledge, 179 concept acquisition, 188—91 concept possession, 56—60, 133-4, 188-91 distinctive set of concepts, 16—18 passim
identity, 162 network of beliefs, 48-9, 136 theory of concepts, 55-60 see also content externalism content externalism, 2, 9-11, 155, 176-7 and empirical investigation, 160, 177, 187 and location of thoughts, 162—3 arguments against first-person authority, Boghossian, 155, 156-7, 175-7, relevant alternatives, 180-2, 187, switching situation, 156-7, 170-1, 175-7, 178-82, transmission principle, 157, 175, counterfeit error, 156, 161, 166-70, 172, 175-6, 177, 178, 182n2, McKinsey, 157-60, 175-7, 178, 182-91, concept acquisition, 188—91, semantic variation thesis, 186—90, thought experiments, 188-90 Burge's account, 155-6, 160, 161, 183, and facsimile-based error, 172, 175, 178, 182n2, 191, basic selfknowledge, 170—5, content match across thought levels, 173-4, 176, deflationary view of self-knowledge, 9-10, 176-7, 191, 204-5, infallibility, 4, 172, 175, 176, knowledge requirement argument, 170-1, selfverification, 172-5 Davidson's account, 155-6, 161, 177, and facsimile-based error, 166—70, 175, 178, 182n2, 191, and Fregean view, 163—5, content match across thought levels, 166-8, 175-6, interpretation, 165—6, non-evidential self-knowledge, 20-1, 41, 162, self-
knowledge as trivial, 9-10, 162, 176-7, 191, 204-5 Wright's account, 10, extensiondetermining and extension-reflecting judgements, 193-6, 197-9, 200-2, intentions, 195, 197, 201, 203, no self-deception condition, 194-7, 198-9, 201, positive presumptive condition, 196-7, 198, 199, 200, psychological properties as secondary, 192—205, response dependence, 17, 192-3, 197, 203-4 counterfeit error, 156, 161, 166-70, 172, 175-6, 177, 178, 182n2 Craig, E., 10nl6 D'Agostino, E, 114n8 Davidson, D , 9-10, 20-1, 41, 140n6, 155-6, 161, 162-70, 172, 174n20, 175-8 passim, 182n2, 191, 204 Dennett, D , 140n6 Descartes, R., 2, 25, 170nl3 desire, 65—6 and doxastic schema, 53—4, 140 and reasons, 128-30, 133-46, 149-50 and self-blindness, 142-5, 152 contrasted with belief, 53-4, 133-47 passim
non-phenomenologically attributed, 129-30 phenomenologically attributed, 128—31 reasons for desiring, 128—30, 133—46, 149-50 Devitt, M., I l n l 7 dispositional states, 17—18, 61 doxastic schema and indistinguishable questions, 5—7, 9, 46, 50, 63, 75, 108, 140-4 passim, 151 first-person constraint, 108—9 invalid for desire, 53—4, 140 Moore inferences, 45-7 passim, 49, 50, 56,74 Moore's Paradox, 6nl4, 45-6, 47, 51, 66-7, 68 nature of inference, 46-7, 52-3, 62, 64, 80,83, 110-11 objection from eliminativism, 51—2, 62-3 role of evidence, 7, 49-51, 110-11, 151 scope, 54 see also self-blindness Dunn, R, 51n8, 128nl, 145n8
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Index Edgley, R., 6nl3 eliminativism, 22-3, 51-2, 58-9, 62-3 emotions, 17, 18 epistemic asymmetry, 1, 5-7, 16, 31, 162, 165-6 sceptical positions, 10-11, 33—41 ETC see content externalism Evans, G., 45, 55 external world alternative descriptions, 96—102 scepticism, 10-11, brain in a vat, 19, 180, 189 see also self-blindness externalism, 22—3, 112 reliabilism, 22-3, 202-3 see also content externalism facts and indexicals, 108 and propositions, 87—8, 120 indeterminate, 87-8, 94, 109, 120 tensed, 95 see also external world Falvey, K., 182n2 fictions, 75, 80, 185-7, 191, 203-5 first-person authority as cognitive v. trivial achievement, 9—10, 160, 162, 171, 176-7, 191, 204-5 as mark of the mental, 2 defined, 1, 15 distinguished from privileged access, 15-16, 31-2, 33 philosophical accounts, 3—4, 15, 21—30, 32, Burge, 9-10, 155-6, 160, 161, 170-5, 176, 177, 178, 183, Davidson, 9-10, 20-1, 41, 155-6, 161, 162-70, 172, 175-8 passim, Peacocke, 55-60, Shoemaker, S., 64-75, Wright, 10, 17, 192-205 problem of, 15—30 psychological objects of, 17-21 related issues, 10-11 sceptical positions, 31-41, Boghossian, 155, 156-7, 175-82, 187, counterfeit error, 156, 161, 166-78, 182n2, McKinsey, 157-60, 175-8, 182-91, psychological experiments, 2, 33—7, Ryle, 33, 37-41 see also belief, non-observationally self attributed; content externalism; epistemic asymmetry; indubitability and incorrigibility; infallibility;
privileged access; propositional attitudes, non-observationally selfattributed; self-intimation; self warrant FodorJ., 48n5 Forrest, P., 118nl3 Frege, G., 163-5 Freud, S., 24nl4 functionalism, 36, 79, 120, 201-3 Greenwood, J., 36n6 Grice, P., 40nl5 Hampshire, S., 55nl0, 112-15 Hart, H. L. A., 55nl0, 112-15 Heil,J.,3n4, 10nl6 Hinkfuss, L, 117nll Holton, R., 198, 201 Hume, D., 137 indubitability and incorrigibility, 24-5, 27, 31 infallibility, 4, 31, 35-6, 172, 175, 176 and externalism, 22-3 and internalism, 22, 23 intention, 25, 40, 114, 129, 145-7, 195, 197, 201, 203 introspection, 21, 64—5 and silent soliloquy, 39—41 anti-introspective views, 33—7 Jackson, F.,21nll, 46 justification attitude- v. object-focused reasons, 128-30, 147-8 being justified v. having reasons for, 103-4 cognitive v. strategic reasons, 103—6, 108, 109, 127-8 explanatory v. justificatory reasons, 60 internalism, 22, 23, 112 objective v subjective, 111-12 reasons for acting, 111 see also belief, non-observationally selfattributed; propositional attitudes, non-observationally self-attributed Kavka, G., 128n2 Kripke, S., 11, 191 language see sense data; speech acts; meaning
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Index Le Pore, E., 48n5 Lewis, D., 155nl McDowell, J., 162n5 MacIntyre,J., 10nl6 McKinsey, M., 157-60, 175-7, 178, 182-91 meaning and eliminativism, 11 Ayer's views, 97-102 Fregean view, 163-5 interpretation, 165—6 private language, 11 semantic variation thesis, 186-7 Milgram, E., 48n6, 50n7 moods, 17, 18 Moore, G. E., 6nl4, 45-7, 49, 50, 51, 56, 66—8 passim, 74
Nagel, T., 10nl6, 18 Nelson, T. O., 37n7 Nisbett, R., 33, 33-7 Nolan, D., 117nll, 126nl7 non-conscious states, 2, 24, 35 and psychological causes, 34-7 non-conscious beliefs, 39, 47, 48—51, 120-6, self-deception, 55, 56-7, 104-5, 121-4, 194-7, 198-9, 201 non-observational knowledge see belief, non-observationally self attributed; propositional attitudes, nonobservationally self attributed Nozick, R., 160 O'Leary-Hawthorne, J., 155nl Owens, J., 182n2 Peacocke, C , 45, 55-60, 63nl7 perception and introspection, 21, 40-1, 64—5 colour judgments, 192-3, 202 perceptual knowledge, 171 taste, 203 see also sense data Pettit, P., 138n5 phenomenology, distinctive, 17-21, 62, 129,131 and introspective evidence, 21, 40-1, 64-5 and sensations, 17-21, 131 phenomenological criterion, 19—21, 41
phenomenologically attributed propositional attitudes, 62, 128-30 phlogiston, 185-7, 191 possibility, 118 possible worlds, 25 psychological v. conceptual impossibility, 106-7, 117 Priest, G., 55nl0, 84nl, 120nl5 privileged access, 26, 60, 120-6 distinguished from first-person authority, 15-16, 31-2, 33 epistemically privileged, 124—6 sceptical positions, 31-41 propositional attitudes, non-observationally self-attributed, 3, 8-9, 20-1, 32, 127-52, 155 and a priori knowledge, 16—17, 31, 36 and distinctive phenomenology, 18—21, 41, 129 entertaining a thought, 4, 131-2, 134, 142-4, 147-9, 163-5, 181-2, 183, 188 extended account, 8-9, 133-4 not based on evidence, 20-1, 41, 162 not subject to the will, held for reasons, 8-9, 128, 133-4, 139-47 passim, 150-2, and background attitudes, 135-40, 146-7, and knowledge of attitude type, 133—40 passim, 146—7, 148, and reason-based accounts, 139-40, phenomenologically attributed, 129-30, 131-2 subject to the will, 147-50, choosing to entertain a thought, 148—9, obsessiveness, 132, 149, reasons, 128, 147-8 taxonomy, 127-30, attitude- v. objectfocused reasons, 128-30, 147-8, phenomenological v. nonphenomenological attribution, 128-30, subject to the will v. not subject to the will, 127-30, 131-2 see also belief, non-observationally selfattributed; content externalism; desire; intention psychological experiments, 2, 33—7 psychological states and consciousness, 11, 17, 114 behavioural evidence, 20—1, psychological experiments, 2, 33-7, verbalizations and silent soliloquy, 33, 37-41
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Index causal relations, 34—7 distinctive phenomenology, 17-21, 62, 128—31 passim, phenomenological criterion, 19-21, 41 distinctive set of concepts, 16-18 passim functionalism, 36, 79, 120, 201-3 taxonomies, 17-21, 127-30 see also content externalism; propositional attitudes, nonobservationally self-attributed; sensations and experiences Putnam, H., 2n4, 10nl6, 188 Quine, W., 16 reasons see justification recollection, 88-96, 95-7 and change of mind, 34-5, 76-7, 88-95, 115-16 antecedently formed beliefs, 114—15 Boghossian's transmission principle, 157, 175 grounded misrecollection, 92—3 past beliefs, 88-95 radical misrecollection, 92 relation of past to present, 95—6 role of evidence, 114-15 transmission principle, 95 reliabilism, 22-3, 202-3 Rorty, R., 2 Ross, L., 33n5 Russow, L. M., 10nl6 Ryle, G., 4, 33, 37-40 SearleJ., 17n2 self-blindness and agnostic beliefs, 78-9, 81, 84-8, 90-1, 106-10, 117-20, 141-2, 144, 151 and Ayer's view of perception, 98, 100-2 and desire, 142-5, 152 and entertaining thoughts, 142—3 and past beliefs, 88-95 and present beliefs, 85-8 evidence principle, 66, 71-3 passim non-doxastic world, 8, factually unstable, 76-7, 81, 84, 88-94, 108, 110, 119, 141, 151, inconsistent, 78-9, 84,
94-5, 108, 110, 119-20, 141, 151, indeterminate, 77-8, 80-3, 84-8, 94, 108-10 passim, 119-20, 141, 144, 151 perspective-free descriptions, 101-2 possibility of, 75-80 rationally deficient, 101—2 Shoemaker's arguments, 64—75, 103nl self-deception, 55, 56-7, 104-5, 121-4, 194-7, 198-9, 201 self-intimation, 23-4, 31, 34-5, 36, 60 self-knowledge see first-person authority self warrant, 25-30, 31 'counterevidence', 27-8 normative characterization, 26-7, 29-30 'reasons for disbelieving', 28—9 'sufficient condition', 26—7 sensations and experiences distinctive phenomenology, 17-21, 131, phenomenological criterion, 19—21 distinguished from character traits, 17-18 see also sense data sense data alternative description view, 97-102, alternative fact interpretation, 98-102, alternative language interpretation, 99-102, appearance-saturated and appearance-free descriptions, 99—100, compared with basic account, 98, 100-2 Ayer's views, 96-102 classical, 96-7 compared with propositions, 163-5 Shoemaker, S., 64-75, 103nl Smith, M , Illn2, 138n5 Sorensen, R. A., 76nl4 speech acts, 54-5, 112-15, 121 Stephens, J., 10nl6 Stich, S., 48n4 UrmsonJ. O., 54, 113 Velleman, D., 114n6 Warfield, E., 179-80 Wilson, T., 33-7 Wittgenstein, L., 11 Wright, C , 10, 17, 178, 192-205
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