First Person Authority

ABSTRACT: This paper examines Moran’s argument for the special authority of the first-person, which revolves around the Self/Other asymmetry and grounds dichotomies such as the practical vs. theoretical, activity vs. passivity, and justificatory vs. explanatory reasons. These dichotomies qualify the self-reflective person as an agent, interested in justifying her actions from a deliberative stance. The Other is pictured as a spectator interested in explaining action from a theoretical stance. The self-reflective knower has authority over her own mental states, while the Spectator does not. I highlight the implications of this construal for a theory of action, and call attention onto some other interesting normative relations between the self-reflective agent and the Other that escape both the first-person and the third-person approach. My contention is that the authority of self-reflection (and of reason) is best understood as a relation of mutual recognition be-tween self and other...

I am planning a history of the notion of philosophical nonsense and naturally difficult historical and exegetical questions have come up.  Charles Pigden has argued that the notion goes back at least as far as Hobbes and that Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant (on some interpretations) and pragmatists such as William James, as well as numerous Twentieth-Century philosophers make use of it.  In this ‘paper’ I put forward for general discussion such questions as whether Hobbes was the first 'nonsensicalist', whether Kant was a 'nonsensicalist' at all, which philosophers if any have considered contradictions to be meaningless and whether Wittgenstein thought that his concept of criterion could legitimately be used verificationistically.  I shall continue to add further questions as they occur to me.

This dissertation concerns the philosophy of the first-person. It consists of three principal philosophical studies, each concerning a set of concepts that, when taken together, form a skeletal though unified account of the first-person. The first part concerns the various uses of the first-person singular (‘I’) as well as first-person immunity to error through misidentification. The second part concerns the various uses of the first-person plural (‘we’). I argue that (i) there are several distinct uses of the first-person plural pronoun, (ii) that each of these uses can be articulated inferentially, and (iii) that one use of the first-person plural—what I call the “generic use”—is conceptually basic. In the third part, I argue that the first-person plural pronoun is, at least on some of its uses, the grammatical mark of a certain form of self-conscious understanding, and it is this kind of self-conscious understanding that underwrites the possibility of speaking a language. I end by outlining some structural relations between the various uses of the first-person singular and the first-person plural. According to the account offered here, the first-person singular and the first-person plural form a non-additive unitary structure. Correctly understood, an account of the first-person must include both the first-person singular and the first-person plural.

How do philosophical accusations of talking nonsense relate to the layperson’s notions of meaning and meaningfulness?  If one were to explain carefully what philosophical nonsense was supposed to be, would one be greeted with incredulity?  How do people react to being accused to talking nonsense themselves?  Is anything analogous to an illusion of meaning recognised in everyday life?  In dream-reports perhaps?  Or in the utterances of schizophrenics or those under the influence of drugs?  Or in certain jokes and hoaxes?  Are contradictions felt to be meaningless?  I argue that, though it is clear that experimental philosophy could shed some light on these questions, their subject matter creates special difficulties.  First, it is more difficult than usual to formulate questions and produce ‘vignettes’ that do not subtly encourage certain responses at the expense of others.  Second, the fact that philosophical nonsense is a metaphilosophical concept ensures that its investigation is going to be more indirect than would be that of knowledge or intention, for example.

Nous montrons tout d’abord les difficultés qu’il y a à lire la séquence des Recherches la plus fameuse (§243-411) comme l’exposé d’un argument réductible à l’unité et formalisable. Au lieu de comprendre ces remarques à la lumière de l’impossibilité d’une définition ostensive privée, nous nous proposons de mettre en évidence la toile de fond de cette critique : le refus de réifier les représentations en images privées auxquelles le locuteur seul aurait un accès direct et de les confondre avec les significations de ce qu’elles représentent. Pour porter atteinte au privilège des représentations, Wittgenstein fait d’une part jouer l’expression contre la référence (le lien entre l’impression et l’expression n’est pas arbitraire et contingent, mais à la fois naturel et conceptuel). Il prend également pour cible la représentation de l’espace visuel sur le modèle physicaliste d’un espace plan sur lesquels les sense data se projetteraient. Nous revenons dans un second temps sur l’interprétation strawsonienne de cette séquence, celle d’une théorie du non-propriétaire (Individuals, III) et sur la singularité de la référence en première personne.

This paper looks at philosophical accusations of talking nonsense from the perspective of argumentation theory.  An accusation of this sort, when seriously meant, amounts to the claim that someone believes there is something she means by her utterance when in fact she means nothing whatsoever by it.  Such accusations may indeed be peculiar to philosophy.  They also involve the claim that there can be ILLUSIONS OF ARGUMENTATION, both inter- and intra-personal.  The problem of how one could possibly diagnose such illusions is raised and I suggest that, if there is a way, it will require a therapeutic rather than a polemical approach.  This suggestion is of course made by Wittgenstein and some of his followers but, in my view, it has remained undeveloped.  It often takes the form of a comparison with psychoanalysis.  I note that the more like psychoanalysis it becomes, the less like traditional argumentation, philosophical or otherwise, it will be.

This book is an introduction in a double sense. It is intended to introduce beginners in philosophy to the idea of philosophical nonsense and the problems it raises. But it is also addressed to professional philosophers, most of whom seem virtually unaware of the issue.

Certain philosophers, here called ‘nonsensicalists’, believe that much philosophy (philosophical questions as well as assertions) is simply nonsense in the strict sense of being meaningless. They proceed as though it were an established fact that there is such a thing as philosophical nonsense and the notion were quite unproblematic. By contrast, many other philosophers proceed as though either they had never heard of it or it were quite obvious that there is no such thing.

There can be little doubt that what the nonsensicalists are saying is of great importance – if they are right. But there are at least eight questions that must be addressed before anyone is in a position to start hunting down philosophical nonsense and they have all been woefully neglected.

The idea of philosophical nonsense goes back to Thomas Hobbes at least and yet its history remains largely unresearched.

In view of the neglect of the problems raised by the notion of philosophical nonsense, even by professional philosophers, it is not unduly optimistic to suggest that it is a topic to which relative newcomers to the subject might make a contribution.

Ludwig Wittgenstein thought that good philosophy unties the knots in our thinking that bad philosophy has put there and must make movements as complicated as the knots it unties. Is the notion of philosophical nonsense an essential aid to this – as Wittgenstein himself thought – or just another knot?

Spontanément, le monde me paraît centré sur moi et sur le moment présent. Spontanément, ma vie et ce qui arrive présentement me paraissent aussi jouir d’une forme de privilège : je leur accorde naturellement une certaine importance et toujours plus d’importance qu’à ce qui arrive à des gens très éloignés, ou à une époque très distante. Spontanément enfin, le monde m’apparaît chargé de qualités sensibles : la pomme verte que je déguste me semble intrinsèquement verte, intrinsèquement délicieuse.

Je suis cependant capable de m’élever au-dessus de ce point de vue subjectif pour considérer le monde plus objectivement. Du point de vue objectif — on parle parfois du point de vue de Sirius, de l’éternité, de l’univers ou même du point de vue de nulle part — le moment présent et moi-même n’avons rien qui nous distingue fondamentalement des autres personnes et des autres moments. A fortiori, nous ne jouissons d’aucun privilège et nous pouvons apparaître totalement dénués d’importance. Du point de vue objectif, de la même manière, les qualités sensibles peuvent sembler irréelles ou au mieux, simplement subjectives : la couleur et la valeur gustative de la pomme ne seraient jamais dans celle-ci, mais au mieux dans l’esprit de celui qui les contemple.

Très souvent en conflit, les points de vue subjectifs et objectifs ont donné lieu à des conceptions philosophiques apparemment antagonistes aussi bien en métaphysique, qu’en philosophie de l’esprit, en épistémologie ou en philosophie morale. Même si elle a rarement fait l’objet d’une étude approfondie (il n’existe pas plus de quatre monographies consacrées exclusivement, ou presque exclusivement à ce sujet : Nagel (1993) and Moore (2000), auxquelles on peut à la limite ajouter McGinn (1983) and Williams (2011)), l’opposition entre les deux points de vue traverse ainsi presque tous les champs de la philosophie contemporaine, qu’elle soit analytique ou continentale.

Lorsque les points de vue subjectifs et objectifs sont incompatibles quel parti doit-on choisir? On pourrait sans plus de procès répondre « le point de vue objectif », et on serait en effet en bonne compagnie. C’est vraisemblablement le choix de la science moderne et des principales éthiques défendues actuellement, qu’elles soient utilitaristes (cf. Sidgwick (1907) et Lazari-Radek and Singer (2014)) ou kantiennes (cf. cependant Moore (2000) pour quelques nuances). C’est même le choix de la théologie catholique! Le Comminotorum de Vincent de Lerins rappelle ainsi qu’« Il faut veiller avec le plus grand soin à tenir pour vrai ce qui a été cru partout, toujours et par tous », c’est-à-dire ce qui ne dépend pas d’un point de vue subjectif particulier.

Comme nous l’avons vu avec l’exemple des qualités sensibles, favoriser le point de vue objectif risque cependant de nous éloigner considérablement du sens commun et de nous obliger à nier l’existence de choses en lesquelles nous semblons croire fermement. Certains philosophes ont aussi défendu l’idée qu’en minimisant l’importance ou la réalité de tout ce qui compte pour nous, le point de vue objectif menaçait de nous « déshumaniser » (Nagel 1993 ; Williams 2011 , 2000). Plus fondamentalement, on peut se demander s’il existe des raisons principielles de préférer le point de vue objectif au point de vue subjectif sur une question donnée et si leur conflit apparent ne peut pas, dans certains cas au moins, être « dépassé ».

Après une de brèves remarques historiques (section 1), nous chercherons à définir la notion de points de vue subjectifs et objectifs (section 2), puis à déterminer leurs valeurs respectives (sections 3 et 4) et les problèmes résultant de leur conflit lorsque celui-ci ne peut pas être dépassé (section 5). Nous nous demanderons enfin si l’idéal d’une conception absolument objective et exhaustive du monde, ou simplement celui d’une conception (non exhaustive) absolument objective, peuvent être atteints (sections 6-7).

PRACTICAL INTENTIONALITY, REASONS AND CAUSES
DISSERTATION ABSTRACT

What is an intentional action? How do intentionality, rationality and having a reason to act
relate? The debate between reasons and causes is badly put: the real question is not whether
the relationship between intention and action is causal or not, but whether what makes an
action intentional is a natural fact or a form of description (Anscombe). Acting intentionally
does require possession of the description under which the action is intentional, so intentional
action is best approached by reasons.
Having an intention is not willing: the intention is not the start of action but a first-personal
action-thought or “practical knowledge.” The antinomy between reasons and causes really
stems from the asymmetry of psychological verbs (Wittgenstein). For action verbs too are
psychological verbs, even though they relate to happenings that take place outside our bodies.
Causal explanations of action are typically third-personal, whereas reasons are always firstpersonal.
Confusions between theses two standpoints lead to tremendous errors about practical
rationality.
The distinction between reasons and causes really becomes insightful when applied to moral
psychology: it sheds light on the relationship between reason and motivation. Practical
reasoning leads to action, and therefore motivates; but it is also defeasible (or non-monotonic).
If reasons for action are never complete, why act on them? Various forms of skepticism are
envisioned. I conclude that practical reasoning is a genuine form of inference, but that it is a
material, not a formal one, in which will and intelligence melt (Aristotle). In the end, I
advocate an expressivist account of practical reasoning.

There are passages in Wittgenstein where he compares his method to psychotherapy and one or two where he seems to suggest that the ‘patient’ has the last word on his ‘illness’ and ‘cure’.  This paper tries to take these seriously, especially in connexion with the idea that victims of philosophical confusion talk nonsense.

Philosophical accusations of talking nonsense made in a polemical spirit are bound to fail, since the only way one can effectively criticise another’s utterance is by attaching some meaning to it.  But if the other acknowledges the possibility that his puzzlement arises from his having been taken in by nonsense, then perhaps a co-operative investigation of this suggestion might be fruitful.  Indeed self-diagnosis ought in principle to be possible.  Ought it not to have happened at least once in the history of philosophy if philosophical nonsense has ever been exposed? 

But there are difficulties.  For example:
a) We must ask whether or not philosophical nonsense, when exposed as such, is supposed to lose all appearance of meaningfulness.  Either answer is problematic.
b) The acknowledged similarity of the methodology under investigation to that of psychoanalysis exposes it to many of the familiar objections to the methodology of psychoanalysis, especially those that draw attention to the misleading influence of suggestion by an authority-figure.
c) The proposal that relentless cross-questioning of a suspected nonsense-talker will eventually lead her to ‘dry up’ (if she really is talking nonsense) seems to involve a version of the so-called Socratic Fallacy.

This paper starts from Tractatus, 6.53, and ask how one could show someone ‘that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions’.  Once one has fully mastered the ‘austere’ conception of nonsense – that nonsense has neither meaning, form, content, nor logic – the difficulties of the enterprise become evident.  It is not clear how one could be in a position to conclude much about an utterance without first finding a meaning in it.  Suggestions made by Guy Robinson, Edward Witherspoon and Hans-Johann Glock are considered but it is concluded that the last, best hope for nonsensicalism lies in a therapeutic approach.  I end with a plea for someone who is sympathetic to this aspect of Wittgenstein’s philosophy to make a serious attempt to work out the details.

I originally entitled this paper ‘Why are there no uncontroversial examples of philosophical nonsense?’, but since this seemed apt to provoke rather superficial responses, I decided to re-title it.  In it I ponder the fact that, not only are there no uncontroversial examples of philosophical nonsense, there are no uncontroversial examples of what one might call ‘analogue philosophical nonsense’.  These would be non-philosophical cases of someone’s believing he means something when in reality he means nothing.  (Someone’s saying, ‘It’s 5 o’clock on the sun’ is sometimes offered as an example.)  I ask what conditions such cases would need to satisfy.  What would count as a compellingly clear case of an illusion of meaning?  Why has no one described one?

В центре данной работы стоят взаимоотношения власти и народа в их институциональном оформлении, а именно проблематика соотношения власти правителя, действующей общественной нормы и ее носителей. На широком конкретно-историческом материале, включающем традиционные и модернизирующиеся общества, прослеживаются такие аспекты данной проблематики, как характер представлений о непогрешимости или, напротив, несовершенстве правителя и политической системы, возможности правителя по отношению к действующим социальным нормам, возможности критики в адрес правителя и принудительных общественных санкций в его адрес, понятия о легитимности правителя и ее источниках, концепция высших целей существования института верховной власти и др. Используемый конкретно-исторический материал обобщается на основе формализованного выделения ключевых параметров, характеризующих данные феномены с установлением корреляций между ними, что позволяет осуществить типологизацию социумов с точки зрения исследуемой тематики.

It has been claimed in the literature that collective intentionality and group attitudes presuppose some “sense of ‘us’” among the participants (other labels sometimes used are “sense of community,” “communal awareness,” “shared point of view,” or “we-perspective”). While this seems plausible enough on an intuitive level, little attention has been paid so far to the question of what the nature and role of this mysterious “sense of ‘us’” might be. This paper states (and argues for) the following five claims: (1) it is neither the case that the sense in question has the community (or “us”) in its content or as its object nor does the attitude in question presuppose a preexistent community (or “us”) as its subject. (2) The “sense of ‘us’” is plural pre-reflective self-awareness. (3) Plural pre-reflective self-awareness plays the same role in the constitution of a common mind that singular pre-reflective self-awareness plays in the individual mind. (4) The most important conceptions of plural subjects, collective persons, or group agents in the current literature fail to recognize the nature and role of plural self-awareness, and therefore fall short in important respects. (5) In spite of the striking similarities between the plural and the singular mind, there are important differences to consider. The authority of the singular first person point of view has no equivalent in the plural case.

We seem to have private privileged access to our own minds through introspection, but what exactly does this involve? Do we somehow literally perceive our own minds, as the common idea of a 'mind's eye' suggests, or are there other processes at work in our ability to know our own minds? Rethinking Introspection offers a new pluralist framework for understanding the nature, scope, and limits of introspection. The book argues that, contrary to common misconceptions, introspection does not consist of a single mechanism but rather a diverse range of mental states and cognitive processes with a broad spectrum of epistemic properties. Building upon this revised conception of introspection, the book illustrates and analyzes the variety of ways in which we introspectively grasp the contents of our own minds, from the immediate phenomenal knowledge generated by conscious experience to the self-deceptive possibilities enabled by certain kinds of inner speech.

I suggest that, although the nonsensicalist challenge (obviously) matters, it has, at least in its Wittgensteinian form, been widely ignored.  On the other hand, those who still adhere to nonsensicalism (mainly Wittgensteinians) have been equally remiss in their failure to examine its presuppositions.

Sass, like R. D. Laing before him, wants to make sense of schizophrenic discourse.  In 'Paradoxes of delusion – Wittgenstein, Schreber and the schizophrenic mind' he uses Wittgenstein’s later work, particularly the Blue Book, to this end.  Read criticises Sass for not taking Wittgenstein’s nonsensicalism seriously enough and suggests that some schizophrenic utterances cannot be understood at all.  I argue that Sass’s position is more consistent than Read’s, though it is probably true that Sass is the less thoroughgoing Wittgensteinian.  Read’s way of arguing his case exhibits all the difficulties that those who employ the notion of philosophical nonsense are apt to get themselves into.  The denigratory vocabulary he uses to characterise schizophrenic discourse – ‘confused’, ‘inchoate’, ‘incoherent’, ‘empty’, ‘without content’ – is itself confused and confusing, but, more importantly, his talk of ‘transitional remarks’ and his admission that he is himself ‘trafficking in nonsense’ suggest that he is falling into the very error of which he accuses Sass.

Descartes was certain that he was thinking and he was accordingly certain that he existed. Like Descartes, we seem to be more certain of our thoughts and our existence than of anything else. What is less clear is the reason why we are thus certain. Philosophers throughout history have provided different interpretations of the cogito, disagreeing both on the kind of thoughts it characterizes and on the reasons for its cogency. According to what we may call the empiricist interpretation of the cogito, I can only claim to be certain of having experiences, and this certainty, as well as that of my own existence, stems from their phenomenal and subjective character. According to rationalist interpretations, on the other hand, I am certain of having some self-reflexive propositional attitudes, and this certainty derives from their rational features. Psychiatric patients suffering from acute forms of depersonalization or of the Cotard syndrome often doubt that they think and exist, and might even believe that they don't. I argue that their study allows us to favor the empiricist interpretation of the cogito.

I am planning a history of the notion of philosophical nonsense and naturally difficult historical and exegetical questions have come up.  Charles Pigden has argued that the notion goes back at least as far as Hobbes and that Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant (on some interpretations) and pragmatists such as William James, as well as numerous Twentieth-Century philosophers make use of it.  In this ‘paper’ I put forward for general discussion such questions as whether Hobbes was the first 'nonsensicalist', whether Kant was a 'nonsensicalist' at all, which philosophers if any have considered contradictions to be meaningless and whether Wittgenstein thought that his concept of criterion could legitimately be used verificationistically.  I shall continue to add further questions as they occur to me.

According to one of the most influential views in the philosophy of self-knowledge each person enjoys some special cognitive access to his or her own current mental states and episodes. This view faces two fundamental tasks. First, it must elucidate the general conceptual structure of apparent asymmetries between beliefs about one's own mind and beliefs about other minds. Second, it must demarcate the mental territory for which first-person-special-access claims can plausibly be maintained. Traditional candidates include sensations, experiences (of various kinds), thoughts, beliefs, desires, and also affective states such as emotions. I reconstruct five prominent privileged access claims that have traditionally been maintained for emotions and discuss logical relations among them. I then argue that none of these claims stands up to scrutiny. The truth is that we often suffer from affective ignorance, and that third-person ascriptions of emotional states should often be credited with more rather than less authority than corresponding self-ascriptions. I conclude by considering, and rejecting, five potential objections to my argument.

要使我们涉及他人的行为具有道德上的恰当性， 我们就必须理解我们特定行为之特定对象的独特性。理解是解释学的一个核心课题，而当代解释学的一个重要教条就是，在理解一个对象时，我们不仅不可能，而且没必要像我们的理解对象对自身的理解那样来理解他们，因为我们对我们的理解对象的理解可以比他们的自我理解更好。如果这样，我们在从事涉及他人的行为时，就无需考虑他们的自我理解，而只要依据我们对他们的理解，不管这样的理解与他们的自我理解是否相同。这在我看来是不正确的。因此我以宗教理解
为例子，运用当代分析哲学家戴维森的“第一人称的权威”概念来说明：一方面，为什么我们对他者的理解必须以他者的自我理解为权威；另一方面，我们对他者的理解怎么可能达到他者的自我理解的程度。

Our ordinary talk reflects a deep tension in the way that we think about love.  On the one hand, we regard love as an especially important expression of our agency. Yet, on the other hand, we also think of love as something that happens to us, in the face of which we are passive and can be powerless. While it’s hard to see how to hold these two ways of thinking of love together, in this paper I argue that we must find some way of doing so.  I argue that we must think of love as a contentful attitude attributable to its agent, an expression of our selves.  But familiar ways of understanding agency sort love into the category of things that happen to us, rather than that of things that we do: You cannot love at will, nor is love an attitude to which you could reason.
I conclude that questions about the relationship of our agency to what we love are not superficial, but stem from deep tensions about the relationship between love and reasons.  A resolution to these difficulties would provide important insight not only into the character of love, but also the nature of agency, and its relationship to values, reasoning and reasons.

Ai Weiwei's film Lao Ma Ti Hua (aka Disturbing the Peace, 2009) is one of the most influential activist documentaries that emerged during the aftermath of Sichuan earthquake in 2009. The film relates to Ai's ‘Public Citizen Investigation Project’, which gathers many volunteers to explore the substandard ‘tofu construction’ of school buildings that took thousands of children's lives when they collapsed in the earthquake. In August 2009, Ai's group went to Chengdu court to support another independent investigator, writer, and environmentalist Tan Zuoren who was prosecuted for subversion of state power. The night before the trial, Ai was beaten by secret security agents and the group was stopped from going to the court. The film subsequently records the group searching for an official explanation from the authorities. Whilst acknowledging the power of the film in constructing a collective political subjectivity, and the discursive effect through screenings and discussions raised, this paper focuses on the very action of proactive, activist documentation of one's witness to engage with fellow participants as well as viewer followers through digital camera. Under the theoretical framework of participatory culture, I propose the term camera activism to understand the camera-enabled individual participation into activism as a form of socio-political intervention. The paper also analyses some of Ai's problematic actions as a charismatic celebrity, which sometimes overshadow and obscure the complexity of resistance by Chinese individuals within China, thereby neglecting full recognition of the complex collective forces which support Ai. Nevertheless, ‘camera activism’ demonstrated in the making of Lao Ma Ti Hua reflects, and has the potential to reshape, the political landscape in twenty-first century China. The cinematic highlight of ‘I’, confronting and eye-witnessing what happens through the utilization of digital technologies positions ‘camera activism’ as an important part of China's iGeneration cinema culture

Since the demise of logical positivism accusations of talking nonsense in philosophy have mainly been made by Wittgensteinians.  But some of these latter are as free with words like 'nonsense', 'senseless' and 'meaningless' as any logical positivist.  One such is Rupert Read, who is prepared to write off the whole of metaphysics as nonsense.  Condemnations of this sort have in recent years largely been ignored by other philosophers, which is surprising in view of their apparent importance.  It is equally surprising that the evident problems with accusations of talking nonsense have been largely ignored by those who are still prepared to make them.

Although Husserl is known for having developed a substantial theory of subjectivity across his transcendental phenomenology, he explicitly and purposefully left aside the question of the subject in his early groundwork, the Logical Investigations. This article investigates the reasons for this philosophical decision and claims that the theory of indexical meanings developed in the first and sixth Logical Investigations provides a sophisticated analysis of the first-person pronoun that legitimates Husserl’s choice: in the absence of a fully-fledged concept of subjectivity in Husserl’s early works, the theory of “occasional expressions” addresses the question of the subject by examining the phenomenological conditions of one’s ability to meaningfully make use of the pronoun “I”. The article argues against Derrida’s reading of the first Logical Investigation that the expression of the first-person is somehow insensitive to the prospect of intuitive presencing and epistemic fulfilment.

This paper analyzes the problem of self-knowledge through two opposite postures: cartesian dualism and logical conductism. Is self-knowledge infallible, as Descartes thought? Or, rather, self-knowledge is only possible on third person's perspective? The goal is to show that the problem of self-knowledge only can be solved from the outside of an epistemological perspective.

This dissertation attempts to explain the nature and limits of first-person authority—the thesis that our first-person ascriptions about what mental states we are in are more likely to be true, compared to the ascriptions that others make about our mental states. My central claim is that the limits of first-person authority are the limits of introspection. After offering a general theory-neutral account of what it takes for a process to be introspective I address the question: ‘What mental states can be introspected?’  In so doing I first argue against sceptical accounts of self-knowledge which claim that we cannot introspect our propositional attitudes. I then defend a positive account of introspection for propositional attitudes, a view of self-knowledge called the Transparency Method.

In recent decades it has been considered that a sound formulation of
self-knowledge should be consistent with the thesis of externalism.
Michael McKinsey has strongly emphasized that the conjunction of
both views is inconsistent. In this paper I argue that the objections
presented by McKinsey do not importantly aff ect the Davidsonian
account of fi rst-person authority in conjunction with externalism;
besides, I point out that if there couldn’t be a à la Davidson reconstruction
of fi rst-person authority from McKinsey’s point of view, it
would be in virtue of methodological, semantic, epistemic and ontological
diff erences between both thinkers, and not because this
reconstruction is in itself incompatible with externalism.

According to some, such as Peter Carruthers (2009, 2010, 2011, 2015), the confabulation data (experimental data showing subjects making false psychological self-ascriptions) undermine the view that we can know our propositional attitudes by introspection. He believes that these data favour his Interpretive Sensory-Access (ISA) theory-the view that self-knowledge of our propositional attitudes always involves self-interpretation of our sensations, behaviour, or situational cues. This paper will review some of the confabulation data and conclude that the presence and pattern of these data do not substantiate the claim that we cannot introspect our propositional attitudes. As a consequence of this discussion, I conclude that the ISA theory is not well supported by the empirical data.

After taking into consideration the most relevant criticisms questioning the capacity of the thinking "I" to grasp itself in a transparent and undistorting way, I will ask what remains of first-person authority with regard to one's own identity. I argue that first-person authority is not to be abandoned, but rather reformulated in terms of public commitments that nobody else can take up in my place. After recovering the original meaning of Heidegger's claim "one is what one does," I turn to Arendt's performative disclosure of the "who" through political initiative and suggest reading the requirement of public exposure as a model allowing for a better understanding of self-identification. In order to discern more clearly the shape of this new paradigm of self-identification, I draw on Ricoeur's notion of self-attestation, Crowell's analysis of our "being-answerable" and Larmore's account of avowals in which we give ourselves a publicly binding shape. In synthetizing and prolonging the considerations of the abovementioned authors about the performative disclosure of the self, I demonstrate that one's identity-in the sense of ipseity-is both constituted and manifested by the commitments that the self endorses and for which it is held accountable in front of others.

Cook’s paper ‘Wittgenstein on privacy’, though published over fifty years ago, is still one of the most impressive attempts to take seriously what philosophical nonsense would have to be.  Cook argues that someone who says, ‘It is not even logically possible to feel another’s pain’ is experiencing ‘a queer sort of illusion, produced by seeing one pattern of grammar on analogy with another and quite different pattern of grammar’.  I argue that he has identified a genuine philosophical illusion, indeed a grammatical illusion, that is quite close to what nonsensicalists are postulating – but I am not sure that it is IDENTICAL with it.