Knowing and Expressing Ourselves

KNOWING AND EXPRESSING OURSELVES BENJAMIN WINOKUR A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN PHILOSOPHY YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO FEBRUARY 2021 ©BENJAMIN WINOKUR, 2021 Abstract This dissertation concerns two epistemologically puzzling phenomena. The first phenomenon is the authority that each of us has over our minds. Roughly, to have authority is to be owed (and to tend to receive) a special sort of deference when self-ascribing your current mental states. The second phenomenon is our privileged and peculiar self-knowledge. Roughly, self-knowledge is privileged insofar as one knows one’s mental states in a way that is highly epistemically secure relative to other varieties of contingent empirical knowledge. Roughly, one has peculiar self- knowledge insofar as one acquires it in a way that is available only to oneself. In Chapter One I consider several more detailed specifications of our self-ascriptive authority. Some specifications emphasize the relative indubitability of our self-ascriptions, while others focus on their presumptive truth. In Chapter Two I defend a “Neo-Expressivist” explanation of authority. According to Neo- Expressivism, self-ascriptions are authoritative insofar as they are acts that put one’s mental states on display for others, whether or not these mental states are also known by the self- ascriber with privilege and peculiarity. However, I do not dispute that we often have privileged and peculiar self-knowledge. This raises the question of what such knowledge does explain, if not the authority of our self-ascriptions. In Chapter Three I examine several extant answers to this question, focusing on privileged and peculiar self-knowledge of the propositional attitudes. Each answer meets with objections. In Chapter Four I develop a “Social Agentialist” account of the explanatory indispensability of privileged and peculiar self-knowledge. I argue that such knowledge enables at least three forms of ‘social-epistemic agency’: interpersonal reasoning, complex group action, and linguistic interpretation. Next, I argue that, even though privileged and peculiar self- ii knowledge does not explain the authority of our self-ascriptions, it is importantly related to our (Neo-Expressively understood) authority. In Chapter Five I consider possible sources of our privileged and peculiar self-knowledge, focusing again on propositional-attitudinal self-knowledge. I eventually defend a “Constitutivist” view. This is the view that, for agents who meet certain background conditions, self-knowledge is privileged and peculiar because it is metaphysically built into the attitudes self-known. iii For my parents iv Acknowledgements I was not remotely confident in my philosophical abilities when I first arrived at York to work toward my doctorate. Frankly, there are still days where I feel like a deer in philosophy’s headlights. This being said, I know that my personal and philosophical growth has been significant throughout my time here. So much of this owes to the unwavering efforts of my supervisor, Claudine Verheggen. I still remember awkwardly stumbling into her office on the day that I intended to ask for her supervision. I also remember her expression when she agreed, as if it was absurd for me to have worried about rejection. Since then, she has read an outrageously large amount of my work, always knowing when to criticize my arguments or offer some (far too) kind words. If it were not for her, I would never have finished this dissertation. There’s just no other way to put. My gratitude toward her is immeasurable. I am also deeply thankful for the efforts of Christopher Campbell and Henry Jackman. Their comments on drafts of each chapter in this lengthy dissertation have greatly improved their quality, even if I cannot be sure that I always did justice to their concerns. More importantly, they agreed to serve on my committee. Further thanks are owed to Shanya Rosenbaum and Victoria McGeer for rounding out my committee, and to Regina Rini for chairing my defense. I also want to thank my mentors who did not serve on my committee, but whose influence on my dissertation has been significant nevertheless. First of these is Robert Myers, who has helped me to grappled with the work of several philosophers that figure heavily in my dissertation and broader philosophical thinking. He is also to be credited with reading and commenting drafts of some of my papers, portions of which have been adapted to this dissertation. v Second, I want to thank Rockney Jacobsen. When I studied at Wilfrid Laurier University, prior to arriving at York, Rockney was on sabbatical and so I never encountered any of his work. Indeed, I did not even encounter the topics on which this dissertation was written. Fortunately, once I found my way to the topics of self-knowledge and self-expression, he dedicated a great deal of time to chats and email correspondences with me. Third, and finally, I owe a great deal of thanks to Dorit Bar-On. I first met her over lunch when she was visiting York to deliver a talk to our department. She humoured many poorly- formed questions about her book, Speaking My Mind. Years later, we resumed our correspondence and have continued it actively up to the present day. Her views are among the most prominently discussed in this dissertation. Were it not for her generosity, I would not understand them nearly as well as I (hopefully) do. Support from one’s professors and mentors is indispensable to finishing a dissertation. But one also needs the support of one’s friends. In my case, I am happy to think of just about every one of my fellow graduate students as a friend. Here I name some of those to whom I have grown closest over the years: Alex Leferman, Olivia Sultanescu, Sam Steadman, Ali Karbaeli Mahdi, Dylan Ludwig, Lauren Edwards, Brandon Tinklenberg, Dennis Papadopoulos, Jef Delvaux, Bogdan Florea-Alexandru, and David Rocheleau-Houle. I have learned so much from them. Perhaps more importantly, I have partied with them, travelled with them, and commiserated with them. My soul has a strong Dionysian component. That aspect of me would be dead, or close to it, if it were not for my many friends outside of the academy who know how to relax. Listing all of them would be impossible. Fortunately, they know who they are. Finally, I thank my parents for the unparalleled support they have always provided for me. vi Table of Contents Front Matter: ii-x Abstract: ii-iii Dedication: iv Acknowledgements: v-vi Table of contents: vii-x Chapter One—Authority: 1-51 §1.1.1—Introduction: 1 §1.1.2—Clarifying Our Explanandum, First Pass: Authority: 5 §1.2.1—Barz’s Dilemma: 8 §1.2.2—Barz’s Three Requirements: 9 §1.2.3—Authority as Indubitability1: 12 §1.2.4—Authority as Indubitability2: 16 §1.2.5—Authority as Presumptive Truth1: 17 §1.2.6—Authority as Presumptive Truth2: 19 §1.3.1—Avoiding Barz’s Dilemma: Indubitability1+: 22 §1.3.2—Avoiding Barz’s Dilemma: IndubitabilityBrute-Error: 25 §1.3.3—Avoiding Barz’s Dilemma: Presumption of Truth3: 32 §1.3.4—An Interlude Regarding the Groundlessness of Avowals: 36 §1.3.5—Avoiding Barz’s Dilemma: Groundless-Authority1: 42 §1.3.6—Avoiding Barz’s Dilemma: Groundless-Authority2: 44 §1.3.7—A Point of Speculation: 46 §1.4.1—Finalizing Our Explanandum: 47 §1.4.2—Setting Up the Discourse—Self-Knowledge and Avowals: 49 Chapter Two—Expressivist Authority: 52-103 §2.1.1—Introduction: 52 §2.2.1—Traditional Expressivism Expounded: 53 §2.3.1—A Problem for Traditional Expressivism as an Explanation of Authority: 57 §2.3.2—Traditional Expressivism as Radically Logico-Semantically Revisionary: 58 §2.4.1—Neo-Expressivism Expounded: 59 §2.4.2—Neo-Expressivism Expounded: Neo-Expressivism as a Non-Epistemic Account: 65 §2.5.1—Neo-Expressive Authority: Indubitability1+: 69 §2.5.2—Neo-Expressive Authority: IndubitabilityBrute-Error: 70 §2.5.3—Neo-Expressive Authority: Presumption of Truth3: 71 vii §2.5.4—Neo-Expressive Authority: Groundless-Authority1: 72 §2.5.5— Neo-Expressive Authority: Groundless-Authority2: 73 §2.6.1—Additional Features of Neo-Expressivism: Moore’s Paradox: 74 §2.6.2—Additional Features of Neo-Expressivism: Transparency to the World: 75 §2.7.1—Objection to Neo-Expressivism: Explanatory Buck-Passing: 77 §2.7.2—Objection to Neo-Expressivism: No Authority for Avowals of Dispositional States: 82 §2.7.3—Objection to Neo-Expressivism: The Contingency of Expressive Authority: 84 §2.7.4—Objection to Neo-Expressivism: Negative Avowals: 90 §2.7.5—Objection to Neo-Expressivism: No False Yet Sincere Expressive Avowals: 91 §2.7.6—Objection to Neo-Expressivism: Avowing and Self-Knowledge1: 93 §2.7.7—Objection to Neo-Expressivism: Avowing and Self-Knowledge2: 99 §2.7.8—Objection to Neo-Expressivism: Avowing and Self-Knowledge3: 100 §2.8.1—Preamble to Chapters Three Through Five: 102 Chapter Three—Agentialist Self-Knowledge: Part One: 104-161 §3.1.1—Introduction: 104 §3.2.1—Burgean Agentialism: Critical Reasoning: 108 §3.2.2—Burgean Agentialism: Privileged and Peculiar Self-Knowledge: 109 §3.2.3—Burgean Agentialism: Uniqueness of Warrant: 113 §3.3.1—Objection to Burgean Agentialism: Critical Reasoning Without Self-Knowledge: 114 §3.3.2—Objection to Burgean Agentialism: Critical Self-Beliefs as Epistemically Inert: 117 §3.3.3—Objection to Burgean Agentialism: Critical Self-Beliefs as Motivationally Inert: 120 §3.3.4—Objection to Burgean Agentialism: Easy First-Order Rationality: 121 §3.4.1—Privileged

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