| UNIT I. | THE CASE FOR EXTERNALISM |
Main reading. Hilary Putnam, ‘Meaning and reference’; Tyler Burge, ‘Individualism and the Mental’; Kripke, Naming and Necessity (selections). |
Discussion of the classic arguments for the conclusion that the contents of both an agent’s mental states and the words of her language are partly constituted by facts external to that agent. |
| UNIT II. | THE NATURE OF BELIEF |
Main reading. David Lewis, something on functionalism; Robert Stalnaker, Inquiry (selections); Christopher Peacocke, A Study of Concepts (selections). |
Supplementary reading. Owens, ‘The failure of Lewis’s functionalism.’ |
Introduction to the orthodox functionalist view of belief and other mental states; discussion of some arguments in favor of a broadly functionalist approach. We will consider how functionalists can accommodate different varieties of externalism. |
| UNIT III. | THE INTUITIVE PUZZLE ABOUT EXTERNALISM AND SELF-KNOWLEDGE, AND A STANDARD RESPONSE |
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Main reading. Burge, 'Individualism and Self-Knowledge' |
How can we know facts about our own beliefs and other mental states if those states are partly constituted by facts external to us of which we are not aware? We will consider one standard response to this question, and its limitations: the view that beliefs about our own mental states are ‘constitutively self-verifying.’ |
| UNIT IV. | PARADOXES OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE |
Main reading. Boghossian, ‘What the externalist can know a priori’; Boghosssian, ‘Content and Self-Knowledge’. |
Supplementary reading. Ludlow, ‘Externalism, Self-Knowledge, and the Prevalence of Slow-Switching’. |
We will discuss and evaluate the two main arguments for incompatibilism: the view that privileged access to one’s own thoughts and externalism about mental content are incompatible. We will pay particular attention to the trichotomy some of these authors have in mind: that judgements about one’s own mental states are based either on observation, on inference, or on nothing. We will consider what the last option might come to. |
| UNIT IV 1/2 |
DIGRESSION INTO VIEWS OF NARROW CONTENT |
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Main reading. Loar, `Social & Psychological Content; Stalnaker, `Narrow Content' and `What's in the head'. |
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Supplementary reading. `Williamson, `Primeness' (from Knowledge and Its Limits) |
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Some prominent views of what narrow content might be, and some of the leading arguments for skepticism about narrow content. |
| UNIT V. | SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND INNER OBSERVATION |
Main reading. Shoemaker, ‘Self-Knowledge and “Inner Sense”.’ |
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Shoemaker’s close study of the prospects of introspection-based models of self-knowledge, and his functionalist alternative. |
| UNIT VI. | `ANTI-REALISM' ABOUT MENTAL STATES, AND WITTGENSTEINIAN VIEWS OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE |
Main reading. Wright, ‘Wittgenstein’s later philosophy of mind: sensation, privacy, and intention’ and ‘Self-knowledge: the Wittgensteinian legacy.’ |
Supplementary reading. Wright, ‘Wittgenstein’s rule-following considerations and the central problem of theoretical linguistics’ and McDowell, ‘Intentionality and interiority in Wittgenstein.’ |
Wright’s view that considerations drawn from Wittgenstein’s later philosophy show that mental states are, in some sense, not independent of our thinking about them; the ways in which this might illuminate self-knowledge. |
| UNIT VII. | SELF-KNOWLEDGE, ATTENTION, AND CONSCIOUSNESS |
Main reading. Peacocke, ‘Conscious attitudes, attention, and self-knowledge’; Martin, ‘An eye directed outwards.’ |
Peacocke’s attempt to give an account of self-knowledge which evades the trichotomy mentioned above: that self-knowledge must be based either on ‘inner sense’, on inference, or on nothing at all; Martin’s reply. |
| UNIT VIII. | SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND KNOWLEDGE OF LANGUAGE |
Main reading. Smith, ‘On knowing one’s own language.’ |
Supplementary reading. Higginbotham, ‘On knowing one’s own language’; Richard, ‘Semantic competence and disquotational knowledge’. |
We will ask whether self-knowledge has an essential linguistic component, and whether knowledge of one’s own mental states can be explained by knowledge of facts about one’s own language. |
| UNIT IX. | SELF-KNOWLEDGE, ACTION, AND INTENTION |
Main reading. Elizabeth Anscombe, Intention |