Content Externalism

Faria's recent publication aims to show that "if anti-individualism is correct, then the obscurity of validity is more widespread than we need to assume for present purposes." In rejecting "a variety of exculpating moves, designed to shield the rationality of the possibly unlucky reasoner," Faria suggests that content externalism can drastically affect our self-understanding as rational beings. I am afraid I have to disagree. Faria overintellectualizes reasoning, always performed from the firstperson perspective and is subject to reflexive control by the reasoner. To be sure, content externalism shows that sound reasoning is contingent on the broad environment and therefore does not depend exclusively on the logical abilities of the living being but is a matter of logical luck. Nonetheless, content externalism is no threat to rationality. My diagnosis: By adopting Wittgenstein's strategy of "bringing words back home," Faria overlooks the achievements of cognitive science: in its simplest form, "transitive inference," rationality pervades the animal kingdom.

Externalism is often characterized as the doctrine that the contents of our mental states are determined at least in part by the external environment. But why should externalists stop with psychological contents? Why can't the forms of those mental states be sensitive to environmental conditions as well? There is, of course, a standard supposition that even if the contents of our mental states are externally fixed, the forms of our mental states supervene directly on our physical microstructure, but what basis is there for this supposition? More to the point, why should thoroughgoing externalists accept the supposition? Still more, why can't the externalist take the further step and argue that the logical form of our utterances are also sensitive to external conditions? In this paper I explore the possibility of being an externalist about logical form in this sense, and I'll argue that the position needs to be taken seriously, and indeed, that it offers some interesting perspectives on at least one longstanding philosophical puzzle.  I will conclude, however, with some potential troubles for the position.

Wittgenstein has anticipated important recent developments in the philosophy of psychology in psychology and in cognitive science itself. Mis rejection of epistemic intermediaries makes him a precursor of Gibsonian theory. His model of concept formation has important links with contemporary work on categorisation and stereotypes.

Boghossian contends that anti-individualism undermines the validity of even the most basic inferences. In a recent paper, Faria rejects these "exculpatory moves designed to protect the rationality of the possibly unlucky reasoner." He argues that if anti-individualism is accurate, then "the obscurity of validity is more widespread than we need to assume for present purposes and drastically impairs our self-understanding as rational beings." I must respectfully disagree with his view. Faria supports anti-individualism concerning content but maintains individualism regarding reasoning. My point is that even if we reject the exculpatory moves designed to protect rationality and accept the possibility of a logical breakdown in slow-switching cases, this breakdown cannot be generalized. Anti-individualism, as a metaphysical stance, implies what I refer to as an "ecological view of reason." If we frequently succumb to simple equivocation and "univocation" fallacies, we have ample reason to doubt not only that the meaning or content is relatively opaque to the individual but also that we can understand and accurately distinguish the patterns of these basic reasonings.

The paper argues in favour of the Searlean internalist way of construing the content of thoughts and communicative acts . As interpreted by the author, it reflects the participation of external factors in the determination of content (stressed by externalists like Burge, Putnam, Kripke and Davidson) but it does so in a way which enables to approach the thinking and communicating individual as a real subject of his acts . The crucial move is to incorporate the individual’s reliance on the relevant parameters of his physical or social environment into the construal of the content itself . Then the external factors can be treated as exploited by the individual himself in the articulation of his acts, rather than as intervening into the content through the gaps marked by indexicals, proper names, natural kind terms or concepts borrowed from the communal repertoire . In particular with respect to the last factor the author proposes a maxim of interpretation which he labels as The princip...

Since the demolition of the traditional analysis of knowledge as justified true belief by Gettier's famous 1963 article, there have been apparent and endless debates between internalists and externalists over the construal or conditions for epistemic justification of beliefs with no widely accepted solution. In this paper, it is argued that justifying factors for epistemic status of one's beliefs are externally characterized with reference to the disposition of objects and property of the world. Hence, externalist theory of justification is more tenable.

This paper examines the relationship between the KK principle and the epistemological theses of externalism and internalism. In particular we examine arguments from Okasha (Analysis 73(1):80–86, 2013) and Greco (J Philos 111(4):169–197, 2014) which deny that we can derive the denial of the KK principle from externalism.

At first blush, mental content externalism and justification internalism seem incompatible. If some of the content of my mental states supervenes on factors external to me, the content of these mental states might be unavailable to me. If the factors relevant to the justification of my beliefs are the relations between the contents of my beliefs, and I do not have access to these contents, then these beliefs cannot be justified internally. I propose to reconcile mental content externalism with justification internalism by taking the factors relevant to the justification of a belief to be the relations between how one would express one's beliefs, not between the contents of those beliefs. Though mental content externalism may somewhat restrict an agent's self knowledge, it could not restrict an agent from knowing how he would express his beliefs, and therefore would not hinder his access to the relevant justificatory factors.

It is common to find philosophers attempting to resolve long-standing philosophical debates by regarding them as verbal disputes. Looking at those debates which are commonly regarded as verbal disputes we can detect two kinds of verbal disputes: (STDC) cases in which disputing parties apply the Same Term or phrase to Different Concepts; (DTSC) cases in which disputing parties apply Different Terms or phrases to the Same Concept. While cases of (STDC) or (DTSC) may be verbal disputes, I will argue that (STDC) and (DTSC) are neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for a verbal dispute. I will explore the identity of a verbal dispute, the conditions for its occurrence, and methods for detecting it. I develop a condition for verbal disputes which I call the Principle of Equal Power: (PEP) For any dispute to be a verbal dispute requires that the linguistic frameworks of the disputing parties have equal powers to express the parties‘ undisputed beliefs – albeit expressed in different ...

An argument that the cognitive content a subject associates with a term differs from the term’s Burgean social content, is presented and defended. It is shown that the same argumentative strategy can be used to argue that cognitive content is holistic. The ramifications of this holistic conclusion for both first-personal knowledge and scientific knowledge of meaning are discussed.

At this moment it does indeed seem to me that it is with eyes awake that I am looking at this paper, that this head which I move is not asleep, that it is deliberately and of set purpose that I extend my hand and perceive it.... But in thinking over this I remind myself that on many occasions I have been deceived by similar illusions, and in dwelling on this reflection I see so manifestly that there are no certain indications by which we may clearly distinguish wakefulness from sleep that I am lost in astonishment. And my astonishment is such that it ...

'Time, Thought, and Vulnerability' presents the results of a combined examination of the prospects for temporalism in the philosophy of time and those for anti-individualism in the philosophy of mind. At the heart of the project is an account of the conditions on which circumstances which lie beyond the ken (to say nothing of the control) of a reasoner may jeopardize the validity of inferences whose correctness is supposed to be evaluable on a purely 'a priori' basis. The discussion involves a principled assessment of the ongoing debate about the transparency of mental content and the accessibility of the logical form of inferences. A comparison with the debate about the vicissitudes of preservative memory allegedly plaguing a temporalist semantics is articulated through an examination of a couple of arguments put forward by Mark Richard and Paul Boghossian against, respectively, temporalism and anti-individualism. Finally, the inquiry is dissociated from those two dialectical frameworks (temporalism versus eternalism; individualism versus anti-individualism) in favor of a direct discussion of the postulate of transparency of logical form.

Research questions in mainstream epistemology often take for granted a cognitive internalist picture of the mind. Perhaps this is unsurprising, given the seemingly safe presumptions that (i) knowledge entails belief (viz., the entailment thesis); and that (ii) the kind of belief that knowledge entails supervenes exclusively on brainbound cognition. It will be argued here that (contra orthodoxy) the most plausible version of the entailment thesis holds just that knowledge entails dispositional belief. However, regardless of whether occurrent belief supervenes only as the cognitive internalist permits, we should reject the idea that dispositional belief supervenes only in cognitive internalist-friendly ways. These observations, taken together, reveal two things: first, that a cognitive internalist picture of the mind is much more dispensable in epistemology than has been assumed; and second, that pursuing questions in extended epistemology needn't involve any radical departure from the commitments of more traditional epistemological projects.

Russell's theory of memory as acquaintance with the past seems to square uneasily with his definition of acquaintance as the converse of the relation of presentation of an object to a subject. We show how the two views can be made to cohere under a suitable construal of 'presentation', which has the additional appeal of bringing Russell's theory of memory closer to contemporary views on direct reference and object-dependent thinking than is usually acknowledged. The drawback is that memory as acquaintance with the past falls short of fulfilling Russell's requirement that knowledge by acquaintance be discriminating knowledge - a shortcoming shared by contemporary externalist accounts of knowledge from memory.

In this article, I present an analysis of the epistemic value of the students' conceptions, as employed in the current constructivist research. I focus on the conceptions about natural kinds. Since natural kind terms are a crucial part of the discourse of the natural sciences, my conclusions are particularly relevant in science education. To perform my analysis, I use a thought experiment, adapted from Hilary Putnam's famous Twin-Earth examples. I conclude that, to avoid some strong ontoepistemic implications, an externalist view of the learner's thought must be adopted. In my approach, students' conceptions are re-interpreted in terms of Hilary Putnam's stereotypes, conventional representations of a natural kind that guarantee a semantic competence in a specific linguistic environment. As a conclusion, I argue that the role of students' conceptions is not epistemic but pragmatic. They should not be understood as a partial or provisional representation of how a natural kind really is but as linguistic tools that permit the learner to engage in classroom discourse. Finally, I present a preliminary application of my ideas to the study of the usage of tautologies in science education.

Данная статья посвящена проблеме совместимости экстернализма в отношении содержания ментальных состояний агента и его знания об этом содержании. Анализ основных аргументов антикомпатибилистов, утверждающих эту несовместимость, а также возражения им со стороны тех, кто данную несовместимость не признает, позволяет сделать вывод о том, что позиция антикомпатибилистов основывается на допущении перехода от онтологического вопроса к вопросу эпистемическому. Защищается идея о том, что подобный переход для сторонников компатибилизма является необоснованным в связи с непринятием ими картезианской интроспективной модели знания агента о содержании своих ментальных состояний. [The paper aims to examine the compatibility problem between externalism about mental content and self-knowledge. First, I explore the main anti-compatibilist arguments and objections to them and conclude that anti-compatibilist views imply the shift from the ontological issue to the epistemic one. Second, I argue that compatibilists, in its turn, regardthis shift as unjustified. The reason for that is that they do not accept the Cartesian introspective model of self-knowledge.]

The generality problem is widely considered to be a devastating objection to reliabilist theories of justification. My goal in this paper is to argue that a version of the generality problem applies to all plausible theories of justification. Assume that any plausible theory must allow for the possibility of reflective justification - S's belief, B, is justified on the basis of S's knowledge that she arrived at B as a result of a highly (but not perfectly) reliable way of reasoning, R. The generality problem applies to all cases of reflective justification: Given that B is the product of a process-token that is an instance of indefinitely many belief-forming process-types (or BFPTs), why is the reliability of R, rather than the reliability of one of the indefinitely many other BFPTs, relevant to B's justificatory status? This form of the generality problem is restricted because it applies only to cases of reflective justification. But unless it is solved, the generality problem haunts all plausible theories of justification, not just reliabilist ones.

In the burgeoning philosophical literature on conceptual engineering improving our concepts is typically portrayed as the hallmark activity of the field. However, Herman Cappelen has challenged the idea that we can know how and why conceptual changes occur well enough to actively intervene in revising our concepts; the mechanisms of conceptual change are typically inscrutable to us. If the ‘inscrutability challenge’ is correct, the practical aspect of conceptual engineering may seem to be undermined, but I argue that endorsing such pessimism would be a mistake. Even if the inscrutability challenge is correct, conceptual engineers often have good reasons to try to preserve existing concepts. I examine several cases where concept preservation is important and draw lessons about this activity for conceptual engineers.

This companion is aimed at specialists and non-specialists in the philosophy of mind and features 13 commissioned research articles on core topics by leading figures in the field. My contribution is on internalism and externalism in the philosophy of mind.

The extended mind thesis claims that some mental states and cognitive processes extend onto the environment. Items external to the organism or exploratory actions may constitute in part mental states and cognitive processes. In Clark and Chalmers’ original paper, ‘The Extended Mind’, this thesis receives support from the parity principle and from the active externalism. In their paper, more emphasis is given to the parity principle, which is presented as neutral regarding the nature of cognition. It would be advantageous to maintain that extended mental states and processes do not require a reform of our pre-theoretical view of cognition. In the present paper, I submit that we should give more emphasis on the active externalism, which, I argue, is not neutral regarding the nature of cognition. Cognition is viewed as successful adaptation to a specific task. Although this move may seem at first disadvantageous, it is necessary for the correct understanding and justification of Otto case as an example of extended mental state. Additionally, the parity principle cannot handle Weiskopf’s criticism that information registered in Otto’s notebook is not responsive to reasons. In order to address this criticism, we need to appeal to active externalism and its corresponding view of cognition.

This paper is forthcoming in a special issue of Inquiry edited by Henry Jackman.

Paradigm cases of conceptual engineering involve topic preservation through semantic change. The challenge (known as Strawson's challenge) is to explain how this is possible. In previous work, I have responded to the challenge by advocating an externalist metasemantic framework that distinguishes the linguistic meaning of a term from the concept the term expresses. In this paper I argue that the topics of interest to conceptual engineers are underpinned by objective properties and that in conceptual engineering we aim for truth. I then go on to argue against proposals by Herman Cappelen and by Derek Ball.

The paper is set to show that the Theory of Epistemic Justification is a big problem in Epistemology and Externalism is said to be a way out of this problem various scholar have defended this position.
      In this paper, I examine problems that are associated with the externalist theories of epistemic justification. The paper concludes that there are various objections that portrayed externalism as a defective theory of epistemic justification

The attack on content-externalism on the grounds that it is incompatible with content-transparency has been much debated over the decades. The first line of argumentation claims that content-externalism undermines the a priori authoritative self-knowledge or the authority of the first-person. According to content-externalism, the content of mental states is determined, in part, by the non-intentional relations that the subject has with her/his environment. Given this, the content of the subject's mental state could change without her/his knowledge under the assumption that the subject undergoes undetectable environmental changes, say, from Earth to Twin-Earth and vice-versa. Thus, if content-externalism is right, one can never authoritatively know a priori whether one is now thinking about water or twater. According to Burge, however, content-externalism is not a threat to cogito-like thoughts, that is, second-order contemporaneous thoughts about one's first-order thoughts. Without the need for any empirical enquiry or any epistemic self-justification, the introspective second-order thought "Inherits," so to speak, the content of the first-order thought by embedding it. If some Earthian's first-order thought "water quenches thirst" refers to H 2 O rather than to XYZ, his introspective second-order thought "I know that I am thinking that water quenches thirst" also refers to H 2 O (instead of XYZ) because the first-order thought is embedded in the introspective second-order thought. Abstract In this paper I take side on externalist incompatibilism. However, I intend to radicalize the position. First, based on my criticism of Burge's anaphoric proposal, I argue that there is no reasoning-transparency: the reasoner is blind to the reasoning he is performing. Second, assuming a global form of content-externalism, I argue that "in the head" are only logical and formal abilities. That is what I call "bite the bullet and swallow it too." K E Y W O R D S content-externalism, content-transparency, dangerous reasonings,

Content externalism implies first, that there is a distinction between concepts and conceptions, and second, that there is a distinction between thoughts and states of mind. In this paper, I argue for a novel theory of self-knowledge: the partial-representation theory of self-knowledge, according to which the self-ascription of a thought is authoritative when it is based on a conscious, occurrent thought in virtue of which it partially represents an underlying state of mind.

This paper addresses the question whether introspection plus externalism about mental content warrant an a priori refutation of external-world skepticism and ontological solipsism. The suggestion is that if thought content is partly determined by affairs in the environment and if we can have non-empirical knowledge of our current thought contents, we can, just by reflection, know about the world around us – we can know that our environment is populated with content-determining entities. After examining this type of transcendental argument and discussing various objections found in the literature, I argue that the notion of privileged self-knowledge underlying this argument presupposes that we can learn, via introspection, that our so-called thoughts are propositional attitudes rather than contentless states. If, however, externalism is correct and thought content consists in the systematic dependency of internal states on relational properties, we cannot know non-empirically whether or not we have propositional attitudes. Self-knowledge (a propos-itional attitude) is consistent with us lacking the ability to rule out, via introspection, the possibility that we don't have any propositional attitudes. Self-knowledge provides us with knowledge of what is in our minds, but not that we have minds. Hence, the combination of externalism with the doctrine of privileged self-knowledge does not allow for an a priori refutation of skepticism and is therefore unproblematic.