Externalism, Self-Knowledge, and Skepticism
Written by an international team of leading scholars, this collection of thirteen new essays explores the implications of semantic externalism for self-knowledge and skepticism, bringing recent developments in the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, and epistemology to bear on the issue. Structured in three parts, the collection looks at self-knowledge, content transparency, and then metasemantics and the nature of mental content. The chapters examine a wide range of topics in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language, including 2D semantics, transparency views of self-knowledge, and theories of linguis-tic understanding, as well as epistemological debates on contextualism, contrastivism, pragmatic encroachment, anti-luminosity arguments, and testimony. The scope of the volume will appeal to graduate students and researchers in epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, cognitive science, psychology, and linguistics.
Sanford C. Goldberg is Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Northwestern University. His publications include Anti-Individualism (Cambridge, 2007), Relying on Others: An Essay in Epistemology (2010), and Assertion: On the Philosophical Significance of Assertoric Speech (2015).
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Externalism, Self-Knowledge,
and Skepticism
New Essays
Edited bySanford C. Goldberg
Northwestern UniversityUniversity Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.
It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107063501 © Cambridge University Press 2015
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2015
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Externalism, self-knowledge, and skepticism : new essays / edited by Sanford C. Goldberg, Northwestern University.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-107-06350-1
1. Reference (Philosophy) 2. Externalism (Philosophy of mind) 3. Self-knowledge, Theory of. I. Goldberg, Sanford, 1967– editor. B105.R25E98 2015
1210.68–dc23
2015014008 ISBN 978-1-107-06350-1 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
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This book is dedicated, with deep affection, to the
memory of Tony Brueckner
– friend, colleague,
teacher, and all-around mensch, who taught so many
of us about these topics and so much more.
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Contents
List of contributors ix
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction
s a n f o r d c . g o l d b e r g 1
Part 1 Foundations of Self-Knowledge 17
1 Luminosity and the KK thesis
r o b e r t s t a l n a k e r 19 2 Some questions about Burge’s “self-verifying judgments”
t o n y b r u e c k n e r 41 3 Self-knowledge: the reality of privileged access
c r i s p i n w r i g h t 49 4 Contrastive self-knowledge and the McKinsey paradox
s a r a h s a w y e r 75
Part 2 Content Transparency 95
5 Further thoughts on the transparency of mental content p a u l b o g h o s s i a n 97 6 Counting concepts: response to Paul Boghossian
m a r k s a i n s b u r y a n d m i c h a e l t y e 113 7 Internalism, externalism, and accessibilism
b r i e g e r t l e r 119 8 The insignificance of transparency
å sa wikforss 142
10 Anti-individualism, comprehension, and self-knowledge s a n f o r d c . g o l d b e r g 184
Part 3 Metasemantics and the Nature of Mental Content 195 11 Externalism, self-knowledge, and memory
j o r d i f e r n a n d e z 197 12 Externalism, metainternalism, and self-knowledge
j u s s i h a u k i o j a 214 13 Externalism, metasemantic contextualism, and
self-knowledge
h e n r y j a c k m a n 228
Bibliography 248
Index 260
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Contributors
p a u l b o g h o s s i a n is Silver Professor of Philosophy at New York University. He is the author of Content and Justification: Philosophical Papers (2008) and Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism (2006).
t o n y b r u e c k n e rpassed away in 2014. He was Professor of Philosophy at the University of California-Santa Barbara, and was the author of Essays on Skepticism (2012) and co-author of Debating Self-Knowledge (with Gary Ebbs, Cambridge, 2012).
g a r y e b b sis Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Indiana University. He is the co-author of Debating Self-Knowledge (with Tony Brueckner, Cambridge, 2012), and is the author of Truth and Words (2009) and Rule-Following and Realism (1997).
j o r d i f e r n a n d e z is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Adelaide. He is the author of Transparent Minds: A Study of Self-Knowledge (2012) and is co-editor of Delusion and Self-Deception: Affective Influences on Belief-Formation (with Tim Bayne, 2009). b r i e g e r t l e r is Commonwealth Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Virginia. She is the author of Self-Knowledge (2011), the editor of Privileged Access: Philosophical Accounts of Self-Knowledge (2003), and co-editor of Arguing about the Mind (with Lawrence Shapiro, 2007).
s a n f o r d c . g o l d b e r g is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Northwestern University. He is the author of Anti-Individualism: Mind and Language, Knowledge and Justification (Cambridge, 2007), Relying on Others: An Essay in Epistemology (2010), and Assertion: On the Philosophical Significance of Assertoric Speech (2015).
j u s s i h a u k i o j a is Professor of Philosophy at Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He is the editor of Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Language (2015) and has published
h e n r y j a c k m a n is Associate Professor of Philosophy at York University. He is the author of many articles in the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, epistemology, and pragmatism.
m a r k s a i n s b u r yis Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of many books, most recently Seven Puzzles of Thought and How to Solve Them: An Originalist Theory of Concepts (with Michael Tye, 2012), Fiction and Fictionalism (2009), and Reference Without Referents (2005).
s a r a h s a w y e r is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Sussex. She is the author of many articles in the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, metaphysics, and epistemology.
r o b e r t s t a l n a k e r is Professor of Philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of many books, including Our Knowledge of the Internal World (2008), Ways a World Might Be: Metaphysical and Anti-Metaphysical Essays (2003), and Context and Content: Essays on Intentionality in Speech and Thought (1999).
m i c h a e l t y e is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Seven Puzzles of Thought and How to Solve Them: An Originalist Theory of Concepts (with Mark Sainsbury, 2012), Consciousness and Persons: Unity and Identity (2003), and Color, Consciousness, and Content (2000).
å sa wikforss is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Stockholm. She is the author of many articles in the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, and epistemology.
c r i s p i n w r i g h tis Professor of Philosophy at New York University and Professor of Philosophical Research, University of Stirling. He is the author of many books, including Saving the Differences (2003), Rails to Infinity (2001), and The Reason’s Proper Study (with Bob Hale, 2001).
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Acknowledgements
I have thought about these topics with a great number of people over many years. My own thinking has been helped enormously by them. They include Kent Bach, Dorit Bar-On, Paul Boghossian, Larry Bonjour, Jessica Brown, Tony Brueckner, Tyler Burge, Earl Conee, Fabrizio Cariani, Dave Chalmers, Gary Ebbs, Ray Elugardo, Kati Farkas, Rich Feldman, Carrie Figdor, Bryan Frances, Richard Fumerton, Mikkel Gerken, Brie Gertler, John Gibbons, Michael Glanzberg, Katrin Glüer, Peter Graham, Thomas Grundmann, John Hawthorne, Henry Jackman, Jesper Kallestrup, Igal Kvart, Jennifer Lackey, Peter Ludlow, Matt McGrath, Sidney Morgenbesser, Peter Pagin, Nikolaj Pederson, Ted Poston, Duncan Pritchard, Hilary Putnam, Baron Reed, Sarah Sawyer, Laura Schroeter, Barry Smith, David Sosa, Ernie Sosa, Rob Stainton, Tim Sundell, Åsa Wikforss, Timothy Williamson, and Crispin Wright.
I would like to thank my home university, Northwestern, as well as the University of Edinburgh, where I was a Professorial Fellow from 2013 to 2015, for their generous support over the duration of this project.
