Mississippi Philosophical Association
4/12/03
______________________________________
I.
Introduction
A.
First-Person
Authority and the Temptation to Dualism
1.
Our
knowledge of our own minds seems to be radically different from (and better
than) our knowledge of the external world.
2.
It
is tempting to infer that the objects/facts known must be radically different.
B.
The
Manifest Image, the Scientific Image, and Philosophy
1.
A
significant function of philosophy is to adjudicate between the manifest and
scientific images of persons.
a.
Priming
the manifest image
b.
Explanatory
Models
c.
Naturalistic
Interpretations
2.
First-Person
Authority is a central tenet of the manifest image of persons.
3.
If
the manifest image of persons is to be reconciled with the emerging scientific
image, then we need a model for first-person authority that can be easily given
a naturalistic interpretation.
C.
Thesis:
A broad perceptual model of introspection is both naturalistically
interpretable and adequate to account for first-person-authority.
II.
Introspection, Privileged Access, and First-Person Authority
A.
Introspection
=df That faculty by means of which we are aware of the contents of our
own occurrent thoughts.
1.
Thoughts
=df propositional attitude states (as opposed to qualitative states)
2.
Occurrent
=df active and available
3.
Active
=df not a merely standing state, but one that is presently engaged in
some cognitive operation
4.
Available
=df not repressed or suppressed or anything of the sort
B.
Privileged
Access =df Introspection affords us a kind of direct and non-empirical
access to the contents of our own thoughts that is denied others.
1.
Direct
=df non-inferential, and unmediated by any intervening psychological
state
2.
Non-empirical
=df does not rely on any more empirical investigation of one’s behavior
or environment than is necessary to entertain the relevant thought
3.
Introspection
yields higher-order judgments of the form ‘I am thinking that P’.
C.
First-Person
Authority: The privileged introspective judgments (PIJs) we make about the
contents of our own thoughts are on a qualitatively better epistemic footing
than the ordinary perceptual judgments (OPJs) we make about the external world.
1.
Reliability:
PIJs are more reliable than OPJs
2.
Basing
Asymmetry: We can justify OPJs on the basis of PIJs but not vice versa
3.
Immunity
to Epistemic Defect: It seems that OPJs are subject to certain epistemic
defects to which PIJs are immune.
D.
Traditional
Ways of Accounting for First-Person Authority
1.
Omniscience (Immunity to Ignorance)
Necessarily: If S is thinking that P, then S is
aware that she is thinking that P.
2.
Infallibility (Immunity to Error)
Necessarily: If S believes that she is thinking that
P, then she is thinking that P.
3.
Indubitability (Immunity to Doubt)
Necessarily: If S believes she is thinking that P,
then there are no sufficient grounds for her to doubt that she is thinking that
P.
4.
Incorrigibility (Immunity to Correction)
Necessarily: If S sincerely asserts that she is
thinking that P, then no one else has sufficient grounds for doubting that S is
thinking that P.
E.
Contemporary
Constitutive Models of Introspection
1.
Shoemaker
and Self-Intimation
Necessarily: If S is rational with normal cognitive and conceptual capacities and S has an occurrent thought that P, then S believes that she is thinking that P.
2.
Burge
and Immunity to Brute Error
Necessarily: If S is suffering from no rational or cognitive defect and S (introspectively) believes that she is thinking that P, then S is thinking that P.
III.
The Broad Perceptual Model
A.
Higher-Order
Belief Theory of Awareness: Our awareness of occurrent thought contents is
constituted by higher-order beliefs about them.
B.
Contingent
Causal Connection: In the absence of any causal malfunction or interference,
occurrent thoughts cause higher-order beliefs about their contents.
C.
Teleo-Functional
Content Determination: The mechanisms responsible for the causal production of
introspective judgments have the teleological function of providing information
about the presence of certain types of thoughts. And the function of the relevant belief producing mechanism
determines the content of the higher-order introspective belief.
D.
Reliabilism:
Introspective judgments are warranted in virtue of the reliability of the
mechanism responsible for their causal production by occurrent thoughts.
E.
Worries:
1.
On
this model, occurrent thought contents are not transparent and PIJs are neither
infallible, nor indubitable, nor incorrigible.
2.
How
can an account of introspection that explicitly models PIJs on OPJs possibly
account for first-person authority?
3.
Reliability
does not seem to be sufficient for warrant.
IV.
Immunity to Subjective Irrationality
A.
Bon
Jour Cases: OPJs are not immune to subjective irrationality
B.
Necessary
Conditions for Subjective Irrationality
1.
S
must be aware of the evidence against her belief that P.
2.
The
counter-evidence to S’s belief that P must be sufficiently
compelling—compelling enough to make S distrust the source of her belief that
P.
C.
Main
Argument
P1: It is subjectively
irrational for S to maintain her privileged introspective judgment (at time t)
that she is thinking that P only if there is some counter-evidence C such that
there is a cogent argument at t from S’s awareness of C to the conclusion that
S should not trust her introspective judgments at t.
P2: There cannot be any
cogent argument at t from S’s awareness of C to the conclusion that S should
not trust her introspective judgments at t.
For, any such argument will be self-defeating.
C: So it cannot be
subjectively irrational for S to maintain her privileged introspective judgment
that she is thinking that P.
D.
Alternative
Version of the Argument
P1: It is subjectively
irrational for S to maintain some privileged introspective judgment at time t1
that she is thinking that P, call that judgment J, only if she recognizes at t1
that the source of J is untrustworthy.
P2: It is not possible
for S to recognize at t that the source of J is untrustworthy.
2a: Recognizing at t that the source of J is
untrustworthy requires that S’s P-relevant introspective faculty be both
trustworthy and untrustworthy at t.
2b: It is not
possible for S’s P-relevant introspective faculty to be both trustworthy and
untrustworthy at t.
C: So it is not
possible for it to be subjectively irrational for S to maintain any privileged
introspective judgment.
V.
Conclusion
A.
OPJs
are subject to a certain epistemic defect to which PIJs are immune.
B.
Immunity to Subjective Irrationality
Necessarily: If S believes that P, then S is not
aware that there is compelling counter-evidence to P.
C.
PIJs
are immune to subjective irrationality even on a broad perceptual model of
introspection.
D.
Immunity
to subjective irrationality can ground a satisfactory account of first-person
authority.