Abstract
This paper has two parts. In the first part I want to look at an argument of Donald Davidson against the view I call Subjectivism. It is the view that the special knowledge which we have of our own minds derives from the specific nature of the ideas that make up the contents of our minds. The argument against Subjectivism denies that an epistemological privilege must be grounded in the ontological nature of certain entities. In the second part of the paper I want to show how Davidson’s argument leads beyond this ontological concern. It requires, in the end, that we get clear about what it means to share mental states with other persons, in particular what it means to share beliefs.
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Notes
See “Knowing One’s Own Mind” in Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, pp. 441–458, 1987; “Der Mythos des Subjektiven”, in M. Benedikt and R. Burger (eds.), Bewußtsein, Sprache and Kunst, pp. 45–54, Wien, 1988; “What is Present to the Mind?” and “The Conditions of Thought”, both in J. Brandi and W. Gombocz (eds.), The Mind of Donald Davidson, pp. 3–18 and 193–200, Amsterdam, 1989. A discussion of subjectivist arguments can also be found in “Actions, Reasons and Causes”, 1963; “Hume’s Cognitive Theory of Pride”, 1976; and in “First-person Authority”, 1984. The first two papers are reprinted in Essays on Actions and Events, pp. 3–19 and 277–290, Oxford, 1980, the last one was published in Dialectica 38, pp. 101–111.
Knowing One’s Own Mind”, p. 455.
Husserl already argued against the ‘intentional objects’ postulated by Twardowski; see his “Intentionale Gegenstände”, 1894, reprinted in Husserliana XXII, pp. 304–338. Another precursor is Arthur Prior’s classic treatise Objects of Thought, Oxford, 1971.
Knowing One’s Own Mind”, p. 455. Elsewhere Davidson describes the ‘Third Dogma of Empiricism’ as the view “that the subjective is the foundation of objective empirical knowledge”, by which he means the view that sensation “plays an epistemological role in determining the content [of our beliefs]”. “Der Mythos des Subjektiven”, p. 50.
See also “What is Present to the Mind?”, pp. 4f.
Frege made this supposition, though with the restriction that only a superhuman mind can grasp thoughts in a direct way. See his Nachgelassene Schriften, p. 288 by H. Hermes et al. (eds.), Hamburg, 1983.
See “The meaning of ‘meaning’ “in his Philosophical Papers, Vol. 2, Cambridge, 1975, pp. 223–227.
The artificial term “twater” is used here as a new English expression denoting the liquid that fills rivers, lakes and oceans on Twin Earth. According to linguistic externalism the use of this term presupposes that some English speakers already had contact with the liquid thus referred to. We can satisfy this presupposition without substantially changing the example by assuming that twater is a liquid that also occurs on earth. In fact, we could tell the same story by assuming that vodka fills the rivers on Twin Earth. It is however difficult to imagine that neither I nor my twin are unable to tell the difference between water and vodka. This is why Putnam invented an artificial liquid called ‘twater’ which, by assumption, is indistinguishable for the layman from water.
The term “Tanube” is intended to be a proper name of the Twin river on Twin Earth which is just like the Danube except that it contains twater. It is problematic, however, how this term can function as a proper name given that I am causally isolated from its intended bearer. I must ignore this problem here as well as the question whether the term “polluted” can be correctly applied to a river that contains no water.
Davidson presents this argument as a challenge to the externalism of Putnam, Woodfield, and others. See “Knowing One’s Own Mind”, pp. 451ff.
Knowing One’s Own Mind”, p. 451. (I have adjusted here the third-person “they” to the first-person “we” in order to make the quotation fit the present example.)
Knowing One’s Own Mind”, p. 441.
I am grateful to Richard Mendelsohn for having convinced me on this point.
According to Davidson the privilege suffices for a theory of language, a theory of thought and a theory of knowledge. He admits, however, that “essentially personal, subjective ‘objects of consciousness may be needed in a theory of perception, which, he adds, “presently turns out to be only remotely related to epistemology”. “Der Mythos des Subjektiven”, p. 49.
I thank Kevin Falvey and Klaus Puhl for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.
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Brandl, J. (1994). Sharing Beliefs and the Myth of the Subjective. In: Preyer, G., Siebelt, F., Ulfig, A. (eds) Language, Mind and Epistemology. Synthese Library, vol 241. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2041-0_16
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