Speaking My Mind

Expression and Self-Knowledge
Erscheinungsjahr 2004
ISBN: 978-0-19-927628-8
Verlag: OUP Oxford

Buch, Englisch, 464 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 699 g

Eagerly anticipated book from a much-admired philosopher
A highly original and important account of expression
Draws together mind, language, knowledge, and action
A new perspective on our relations to our own minds
Sophisticated, nuanced, and convincing

Dorit Bar-On develops and defends an original view of avowals and self-knowledge which offers systematic answers to many persistent questions concerning our ability to know our own minds. According to Bar-On's Neo-Expressivist view, avowals - those everyday spontaneous pronouncements that we make about our own present states of mind - are acts through which we directly express, rather than merely report, the very mental conditions the avowals ascribe. Verbal acts of speaking our minds are thus similar to natural expressions, such as sighing, or smiling; they show, rather than simply telling of our present states of mind. Drawing on resources from the philosophy of language and of mind, the theory of action, and epistemology, Bar-On argues, as against many expressivists and their critics, that an expressivist explanation is consistent with a non-deflationary view of self-knowledge and a robust realism about mental states.

Contents
I Introduction: The Special Security of Some 'I' Talk
II Using 'I' as 'Subject': Cartesian Reference or No Reference?
III 'I'-Ascriptions: The Semantic and the Epistemic
IV The Epistemic Approach to Avowals' Security: Introspection and Transparency
V Content Externalism, Skepticism, and the Recognitional Conception of Self-Knowledge
VI The Distinctive Security of Avowals: Ascriptive Immunity to Error Beyond Security in Content Assignment
VII Avowals: 'Grammar' and Expression
VIII Avowals: Expression, Content, and Truth
IX Speaking My Mind: Expression, Truth, and Self-Knowledge
X Speaking My Mind: Grammar, Epistemology, and (Some) Ontology
Bibliography
Index

Zielgruppe

Scholars and students of philosophy, particularly in epistemology, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind, also those in related areas of linguistics and cognitive science.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bar-On, Dorit

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Allgemeine Psychologie Kognitionspsychologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Sprachwissenschaften Sprachphilosophie
• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Allgemeine Psychologie Differentielle Psychologie, Persönlichkeitspsychologie
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften Interdisziplinär Neurowissenschaften, Kognitionswissenschaft
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Moderne Philosophische Disziplinen Philosophie des Geistes, Neurophilosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sprachphilosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Erkenntnistheorie

Über Autor(innen)

Dorit Bar-On, Department of Philosophy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill