Expression and Self-Knowledge

Dorit Bar-On, Crispin Wright

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781118908471
• eBook ISBN: 9781118908549
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

Provides a timely and original contribution to the debate surrounding privileged self-knowledge

Contemporary epistemologists and philosophers of mind continue to find puzzling the nature and source of privileged self-knowledge: the ordinary and effortless 'first-person' knowledge we have of our own sensations, moods, emotions, beliefs, desires, and hopes.

In Expression and Self-Knowledge, Dorit Bar-On and Crispin Wright articulate their joint dissatisfaction with extant accounts of self-knowledge and engage in a sustained and substantial critical debate over the merits of an expressivist approach to the topic. The authors incorporate cutting-edge research while defending their own alternatives to existing approaches to so-called 'first-person privilege'.

Bar-On defends her neo-expressivist account, addressing the objection that neo-expressivism fails to provide an adequate epistemology of ordinary self-knowledge, and addresses new objections levelled by Wright. Wright then presents an alternative pluralist approach, and Bar-On argues in response that pluralism faces difficulties neo-expressivism avoids. Providing invaluable insights on a hotly debated topic in epistemology and philosophy of mind, Expression and Self-Knowledge:

• Presents an in-depth debate between two leading philosophers over the expressivist approach
• Offers novel developments and penetrating criticisms of the authors' respective views
• Features two different perspectives on the influential remarks on expression and self-knowledge found in Wittgenstein's later writings
• Includes four jointly written chapters that offer a critical overview of prominent existing accounts, which provide a useful advanced introduction to the subject.

Expression and Self-Knowledge is essential reading for epistemologists, philosophers of mind and language, psychologists with an interest in self-knowledge, and researchers and graduate students working in expression, expressivism, and self-knowledge.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• 1 Privileged Access
• 2 Skepticism about the Problem
• 3 A Critique of Some Recent Accounts of First-Person Privilege: Part I: Epistemic Approaches
• 4 A Critique of Some Recent Accounts of First-Person Privilege: Part II: “High-Road” Approaches to Self-Knowledge
• 5 Some Initial Thoughts about Expressivist Responses to the Problem
• 6 Neo-Expressivism: Speaking One’s Mind
• 7 Neo-Expressivism: Knowing One’s Mind
• 8 On Neo-Expressivism: Continuing Doubts
• 9 Speaking One’s Mind: Authority, Testimony, and Expression
• 10 Divide and Conquer: A Prospectus for Progress?
• 11 Expression, Mediating Beliefs, and the Judgment-Independence of Mental States
• Bibliography
• Index
• End User License Agreement