Abstract
In my reply to Boyle, Rosenthal, and Tumulty, I revisit my view of avowals’ security as a matter of a special immunity to error, their character as intentional expressive acts that employ self-ascriptive vehicles (without being grounded in self-beliefs), Moore’s paradox, the idea of expressing as contrasting with reporting and its connection to showing one’s mental state, and the ‘performance equivalence’ between avowals and other expressive acts.
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Notes
I discuss what I regard as the limitations of constitutivist views in my (2009).
I speak of a presumption, because like Rosenthal, I think that even by the standards of commonsense, it’s defeasible; I speak of it being quasi-apriori because, like Boyle and Tumulty, I think that it amounts to more than an inductively grounded expectation that is merely responsive to contingent reliability.
As mentioned in my Précis (this volume), there are additional desiderata to be met by an account of avowals’ security, chief among them are the following two, which I take my commentators to welcome: avoiding commitment to Cartesian Dualism, and making room for the idea that our avowals often enough represent self-knowledge (that is, avoiding commitment to a deflationary view of basic self-knowledge).
At least when these are not understood as avowals of perceptual experiences, or sensations.
For some discussion of the notion of brute error, see Burge (1996).
Boyle’s commentary holds me—uncharitably, I think—to the initial characterization, and places undue emphasis on an early passing reference to avowals’ being ‘much more certain’ than other pronouncements (SMM, p.10). I believe that the refined characterization discussed below captures at least some aspects of the characterization Boyle himself favors.
In the case of proprioceptive reports, the source of their immunity to error through misidentification has to do with our possessing special mechanisms for obtaining information concerning certain of our own bodily states. (See Evans (1982: Ch. 7). Materialist introspectionist accounts explain avowals’ security on the model of the reliability of proprioceptive reports. If I’m right that avowals’ security comprises additional ascriptive immunity to error, this would explain why such accounts seem unsatisfactory to so many.
Indeed, its being misguided is of a piece with Boyle’s own insistence that self-knowledge is ‘a relation to which the categories of certainty and doubt are only marginally relevant’.
This does not mean, however, that questions of knowledge, and even epistemic entitlement, cannot be raised in connection with avowals. (These are my topic in Ch. IX of SMM.) As indicated earlier (fn #3), the neo-expressivist account is compatible with a non-deflationary view of basic self-knowledge.
It is correspondingly misleading in this context to use (as does Rosenthal) ‘describe’ interchangeably with ‘report’.
This does put Moore-sentences on an equal footing with other expressive conflicts, contra Rosenthal (end sec. IV). I may fan myself while saying ‘It’s not hot here’, without expressive conflict, if I base the claim that it’s not hot here on, e.g., a thermostat reading, as opposed to verbally expressing my sensation (as Rosenthal points out, the fanning may not be an expressive act, either; I may have ‘some compelling reason to fan myself’ that has nothing to do with my feeling hot. But the same applies in Moore cases).
Here I find much more agreement between Rosenthal and myself than he appears to, and must confess to being puzzled by his strong objection to my use of the notion of a-expression to explain the phenomenon in question. I return to a-expression and to the significance of ‘performance equivalence’ below. And I later return to higher-order thoughts.
Tumulty takes these to boil down to characterizing ‘expressive acts as: not epistemically based in self-judgments’. This seems to me uncharitably boiled down, given that the negative characterizations are embedded in a detailed discussion of their epistemic significance (specifically, how they connect with avowals’ immunity to error).
Aspects of the account of expressing as showing draw on Green (2007). But see my discussion below.
Rosenthal takes issue with my reading of Sellars notion of ‘expression in the action sense’ (he also thinks I misconstrue Sellars’ notion of s-expression). Here is not the place to take on matters of subtle interpretation. For present purposes, we can accept that Sellars’ notion is different, and proceed by assessing my notion of a-expression on its own merits.
Contrast this with the way Rosenthal would presumably have it: ‘I gave a hug because I believed I was happy to see you and wanted to you to know that (and believed giving a hug would let you know that)’. Though this could correctly describe the situation, I submit that it doesn’t correctly capture the typical situation involving expressive behavior.
Rosenthal objects to my ‘appeal to reasons to determine which state a speech act expresses’—but I make no such general appeal. We don’t always cite the mental state expressed `as our reason for performing the act which expresses it. Suppose ‘It’s raining’ typically serves to (a-)express my belief that it’s raining; yet if you ask me ‘Why did you say that?’ I may well answer: ‘Well, because it’s raining!’ rather than ‘Because I think that’s the case’. This sort of example, however, provides no support for the reasons-as-belief-desire-pairs view advocated by Rosenthal.
See Evans (1982: 231f.). And see SMM, p. 120 and p. 225.
Indeed, on the face of it, it seems closer to what I earlier referred to as s-expression, which is a relation between sentences (or sentence-like items) and propositions.
Of course, I may have a reason for selecting just these words, or words as opposed to gestures (this seems much less plausible in the case of thought-avowals). The point, however, is that I need not, and if I don’t this does not render my act ‘alienated’ or an instance of ‘blind blurting out’. Note that even when intentional selection is involved, one’s subsequent act may be intentional without being backed up by a ‘dedicated’ reason. I stand in front of a revolving hot-dog rack. I pick a hot dog. I have performed an intentional act. Must I have a reason for picking that one as opposed to the one next to it, lest my act be deemed an irrational, turrets-like happening? (the example is due to Ram Neta. Thanks to Matt Priselac for reminding me of it in the present context).
See esp. SMM Ch. VII & VIII.
See SMM Ch. X and Bar-On (2009). Some of my misgivings are related to Rosenthal’s own reasons for avoiding building higher-order thoughts into mentality. Indeed, early on in his comments, Boyle himself succinctly articulates some of the difficulties that face the constitutivist approach, asking ‘how can we understand my justification for taking myself to bear a certain property if my bearing it must involve my knowing myself to bear it? Indeed if my bearing a certain property involves my knowing myself to bear it, what is it that I am supposed to know?’.
Unless, of course, we build this reasonableness, too, into the nature of the mental state—defining mental states as states whose presence necessitates not only belief in their presence but also the reasonableness of that belief.
Thanks to Matt Priselac for a helpful discussion of the argument’s outline.
Although I think Tumulty puts too much weight on the idea of characteristic component. As I caution in SMM, the analogy with a tree limb being a characteristic component of the tree is just a partial analogy. It should not be taken to imply that expressive behavior literally stands in the part-whole relation to the mental state it expresses. Proper discussion of this issue, however, will take us too far afield.
See Bar-On [review of Green, forthcoming].
Thanks to Matthew Boyle, Mitchell Green, Ram Neta, Keith Simmons, and especially Matthew Priselac for helpful discussions in connection with this reply.
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Bar-On, D. Avowals: Expression, Security, and Knowledge: Reply to Matthew Boyle, David Rosenthal, and Maura Tumulty. Acta Anal 25, 47–63 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-009-0080-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-009-0080-2