Beyond the Limits of Disagreement: Sense and Self-Reference A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts Luke T. Elmore August 2019 © 2019 Luke T Elmore. All Rights Reserved. 2 This thesis titled Beyond the Limits of Disagreement: Sense and Self-Reference by LUKE T. ELMORE has been approved for the Department of Philosophy and the College of Arts and Sciences by Yoichi Ishida Assistant Professor of Philosophy Florenz Plassmann Dean, College of Arts and Sciences 3 ABSTRACT Elmore, Luke T., M.A., August 2019, Philosophy Beyond the Limits of Disagreement: Sense and Self-Reference Director of Thesis: Yoichi Ishida In this thesis I develop the skeptical problem of sense and show that two attempts to address this problem either self-defeat or are self-referentially inconsistent. The skeptical problem of sense is developed by reconstructing and analyzing the disagreement over mental content between Paul Churchland and Lynne Baker. The first response to the skeptical problem of sense is developed from Donald Davidson’s attack on the scheme-content distinction. The second response is developed from Robert Fogelin and Danièle Moyal-Sharrock’s Wittgensteinian theories of disagreement. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract ............................................................................................................................... 3 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 5 2. Mental Content: A Deep Disagreement .......................................................................... 7 2.1 Eliminativism versus Realism About Mental Content .............................................. 7 2.2 The Disagreement Over Mental Content ................................................................ 11 2.3 An Asymmetry ........................................................................................................ 13 2.4 The Skeptical Problem of Sense.............................................................................. 14 3. Davidson’s Problem ...................................................................................................... 16 3.1 The Unintelligibility of Scheme and Content ......................................................... 16 3.2 Davidson’s Self-Referential Reductio ..................................................................... 18 3.3 The Persistence of the Skeptical Problem ............................................................... 20 4. Hinges and the Game of Doubt ..................................................................................... 22 4.1 Pseudo-Propositions and Nonsense ......................................................................... 22 4.2 The Hinge-Theory ................................................................................................... 24 4.3 Looking Beyond the Game of Doubt ...................................................................... 27 5. Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 31 References ......................................................................................................................... 33 5 1. INTRODUCTION When we encounter someone with a radically different worldview than our own, his view may seem so fundamentally dissimilar that we think of the other as stupid or mad. Despite this, our disagreement with the other appears to be regulated by a shared network of discursive norms. Thus, if we make an assertion, we will try to justify it to the satisfaction of our peer without assuming him mad. And we expect the same courtesy from the other. But sometimes our disagreement runs aground to a degree that we become unsure whether our disagreement can meet discursive norms at all. In this thesis, I aim to explore a case of deep disagreement that may not be able to meet discursive norms. The case is the debate over mental content between Paul Churchland and Lynne Baker, which is so intractable that the parties disagree about what is even going on. As I show in Section 2, this case illustrates a more general problem: If an interlocutor can see things so differently that she rejects the way we understand what is going on in our conversation, how do or could we reconcile her rejection of our understanding with our assumption that she is a rational interlocutor who makes meaningful assertions? I will call this the skeptical problem of sense because the problem generates skepticism about whether our deep disagreement with someone involves meaningful assertions at all. This problem is illustrated by the Churchland/Baker disagreement where Baker questions whether Churchland is actually asserting anything. In Sections 3 and 4, I present two theories about deep disagreements that may avoid the skeptical problem, but I argue that each theory faces a problem of being either self- 6 defeating or self-referentially inconsistent in a sense to be explained. Thus, the skeptical problem persists. 7 2. MENTAL CONTENT: A DEEP DISAGREEMENT Let us begin with Churchland’s and Baker’s disagreement about mental content. My aim is not to resolve this dispute; rather, it is to use it as an example to develop the central problem of the paper. 2.1 Eliminativism versus Realism About Mental Content In his paper, “Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes,” Paul Churchland defends eliminative materialism, according to which ascriptions of mental content (beliefs, meanings, etc.) are unnecessary to explain human behavior. Thus, eliminative materialism recommends that we discard ascriptions of mental content. By contrast, the realist about mental content holds that such ascriptions are indispensable, and Churchland considers an interesting charge that may be advanced by the realist. According to Churchland, this charge: proceeds by pointing out that the statement of eliminative materialism is just a meaningless string of marks or noises, unless that string is the expression of a certain belief and a certain intention to communicate, and a knowledge of the grammar of the language, and so forth. (1981, 89; original emphasis) The charge is that to state eliminative materialism, the eliminative materialist must presuppose beliefs, meaning, and other mental states. Without this presupposition, eliminative materialism is meaningless. Churchland regards the charge as taking for granted a “certain theory of meaning, one that presupposes the integrity of [folk psychology]” (1981, 89). With this assumed theory of meaning, the content realist can 8 point out that, were the eliminative materialist right, any statement whatsoever would be “a meaningless string of marks or noises” (1981, 89). This is because the eliminative materialist rejects folk psychology in stating his theory, entailing that he also rejects the content realist’s theory of meaning. Since the content realist holds that making any meaningful statement implies a tacit acceptance of her theory, by rejecting folk psychology, the eliminative materialist will end up rejecting what must be assumed in order to mean anything. Churchland charges that the anti-eliminativist argument is question-begging and illustrates this with a dialogue. In this dialogue a vitalist is made to critique his anti- vitalist interlocuter (1981, 89). The vitalist’s argument has a familiar character, where he contends that the anti-vitalist’s position is inexpressible. After all, if no one has vital spirit, then “the [anti-vitalist] does not have vital spirit and must be dead” (1981, 89), entailing that “his [anti-vitalist] statement is a meaningless string of noises” (1981, 90). Churchland finds that the “question-begging nature of this argument does not . require elaboration” (1981, 90). In response to the hypothetical exchange, the content realist Lynne Baker identifies a disanalogy. Baker contends that the pro-vitalist argument runs amok in construing the anti-vitalist as dead. This is because “if antivitalism is true, then the lack of a vital spirit is irrelevant to death; if it is false, then the antivitalist, who mistakenly denies vitalism, has a vital spirit and is not dead” (1987, 139). This error “has no echo” in the disagreement between the eliminativist materialist and content realist, as the realist argument assumes “that eliminative materialism is true” and merely “challenges the 9 eliminative materialist to show how there can be assertion without belief or other states with content” (1987, 139). For Baker, any assertion of eliminative materialism “lapses into pragmatic incoherence because the thesis undermines the concept of assertibility” (1987, 138). All the eliminativist would need to do is to offer an account of assertion without mental states. But Baker says: “the argument against eliminative materialism makes the minimal assumption that language can be meaningful only if it is possible that someone mean something” (1987, 140). As such “only to a minimal extent is a particular theory of meaning assumed; issues that divide [semantic] theorists . are wholly irrelevant to the argument” (1987, 139). Thus, while Baker is open to revising her views should an eliminativist succeed in formulating a non-folk theory of expression, it is not clear she would ever concede that an attempted eliminative theory has hit its mark. This reluctance is emphasized by Baker’s contention that