Abstract
In this paper, I will argue that two kinds of first-person-oriented content are distinguished in more ways than usually thought and I propose an account that will shed new light on the distinction. The first kind consists of contents of attitudes de se (in a broad sense); the second kind consists of contents that give rise to intuitions of relative truth. I will present new data concerning the two kinds of first-person-oriented content, together with a novel account of propositional content in general, namely based on the notion of an attitudinal object. That notion solves two major problems with Lewis’s account of contents of attitudes de se and clarifies the difference between contents of attitudes de se and contents that give rise to intuitions of relative truth. I will propose an analysis of contents of the second kind in terms of what I call first-person-based genericity, a form of genericity most explicitly expressed by sentences with generic one. I show how the overall account explains the particular semantic properties of sentences giving rise to intuitions of relative truth that distinguish them from sentences with expressions interpreted de se. I will start by introducing Lewis’s account of attitudes de se and the problems that go along with that account. Introducing the notion of an attitudinal object, I will extend the account by an account of the truth conditions of the content of attitudes de se. I then discuss the second kind of first-person-oriented content, which is associated with intuitions of relative truth, and give an account of such contents on the basis of an analysis of generic one. Again making use of attitudinal objects, I will make clear what exactly distinguishes those contents from first-person-oriented contents of the first sort.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Chierchia G. et al (1990) Anaphora and attitudes de se. In: Bartsch R. (eds) Language in action. Foris, Dordrecht, pp 1–31
Egan A. (2007) Epistemic modals, relativism, and assertion. Philosophical Studies 133: 1–22
Egan A., Hawthorne J., Weatherson B. (2005) Epistemic modals in context. In: Preyer G., Peter P. (eds) Contextualism in philosophy. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 131–169
Fine K. (1982) Acts, events, and things. In: Leinfellner W. et al (eds) Sprache und ontologie Proceedings of the eighth Wittgensetin symposion. Hoelder-Pichler-Tempsky, Vienna, pp 97–105
Gordon R. M. (1986) Folkpsychology as simulation. Mind and Language 1: 158–171
Gordon R. M. (1995) The simulation theory: Objections and misconceptions. Mind and Language 7: 11–34
Gordon R.M. (1995) Simulation without introspection or inference from me to you. In: Davies M., Stone T. (eds) Mental simulation: Evaluations and applications. MIT Press, Cambridge, pp 53–67
King J. (2007) The nature and structure of content. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Koelbel M. (2002) Truth without objectivity. Routledge, London
Koelbel M. (2003) Faultless disagreement. Aristotelian Society 104: 53–73
Krifka M., Pelletier F., Carlson G., ter Meulen A., Chierchia G., Link G. (1995) Genericity. An introduction. In: Carlson G., Pelletier F. (eds) The generic book. Chicago University Press, Chicago, pp 1–124
Lasersohn P. (2005) Context dependence, disagreement, and predicates of personal taste. Linguistics and Philosophy 28(6): 643–686
Lasersohn, P. (2007). Relative truth, speaker commitment, and control of implicit arguments. In Proceedings of NELS 37 (and to appear in Synthese).
Lewis D. (1979) Attitudes de dicto and de se. The Philosophical Review 88: 513–543
Lewis D. (1980) Index, content, and context. In: Kanger S., Ohman O. (eds) Philosophy and grammar. Reidel, Dordrecht, pp 79–100
MacFarlane J. (2005a) Making sense of relative truth. Aristotelian Society 105: 321–339
MacFarlane J. (2005b) The assessment sensitivity of knowledge attributions. In: Szabo Gendler T., Hawthorne J. (eds) Oxford studies in epistemology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 197–233
MacFarlane J. (2007) Relativism and disagreement. Philosophical Studies 132: 17–31
Moltmann F. (2003a) Propositional attitudes without propositions. Synthese 135: 70–118
Moltmann F. (2003b) Nominalizing quantifiers. Journal of Philosophical Logic 35(5): 445–481
Moltmann F. (2006) Generic one, arbitrary PRO, and the first person. Natural Language Semantics 14: 257–281
Moltmann, F. (to appear a). Relative truth and the first person. Philosophical Studies.
Moltmann, F. (to appear b). Generalizing detached self-reference and the semantics of generic one. Mind and Language.
Russell, B. (1913). Theory of knowledge. Reprinted in 1993 by Routledge, London.
Stalnaker R. (1981) Indexical belief. Synthese 49: 129–151
Stalnaker R. (1984) Inquiry. MIT Press, Cambridge
Stephenson T. (2007) Judge dependence, epistemic models, and predicates of personal taste. Linguistics and Philosophy 30(4): 487–525
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Moltmann, F. Two kinds of first-person-oriented content. Synthese 184, 157–177 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-010-9730-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-010-9730-6