Davidson and Mental Objects

“Thus we determine what mental state we are in the way we interpret any sign.”

No, there’s no way we determine what mental state we’re in. That’s how Davidson accounts for what is distinctive about first-person authority. It’s unlike third-personal attributions because it is not made on the basis of evidence (or anything quasi-evidential). First-personal reports are immediately expressible. (Which is not to say they are not “mediated” in another sense — first-personal attributions are possible only for a being who already has a language. Like Hegel says, there is nothing in Heaven or Earth that does not partake both of mediacy and immediacy. The trick is to get the pair right, not to just notice that both are somehow important, and certainly not to reject one for the sake of the other.)

“What Peirce and Derrida end up doing is simply embracing unlimited semiosis and the fallibilism this entails. Even Davidson does this, merely saying that in general we have to be correct.”

It is worth noting that this does not cover the full range of possibilities. John McDowell covers this eloquently in “Knowledge by Hearsay” (and at greater length, alongside many other topics, in “Mind and World”). There is coherentism and there is coherentism — there is a denial of “absolute starting-points” and a denial of grounding tout court. The second is the (bad) position Davidson can’t avoid falling into; the first is the position Davidsonians should accept — McDowell’s position.

What is needed is mediated immediacy, not merely a rejection of unmediated immediacy.

On the Derrida-Davidson front, you should read Reed Way Dasenbrock’s article in the Schlipp volume on Davidson, if you haven’t. I can send you an electronic copy of the book if you need access to it.

Daniel, you’re right that “determined” probably wasn’t the best word choice on my part.

I’ll comment on the first person authority issue later. (Hopefully tonight)

Just a note I added email notifications. See this post.

Also to add to the above, I actually think Davidson talks about this in one of his papers where he mentions childhood development of language. I’ll check when I get home.

Hey Daniel, I hope you don’t mind waiting a little bit to address some of your points. I’d like to reread his stuff on first person first. If what you say about error as irrationality is correct, then that clearly would affect my reading. I didn’t remember it that way but took him to be a fallibilist about first person accounts in the way third person was. It seems like you want first person authority to be a kind of incorrigibility for when we are rational. If that is what Davidson asserts then I completely disagree with him.

Laying aside for the moment the exegesical questions on Davidson’s texts let me turn to the more philosophical questions.

I think the one evidence we have that 3rd parties don’t have is our memory. But memory is itself a mediated kind of connection. Thus I think memory only is a way of re=presenting evidence we once had. So if I say I like ice cream in a sense I’m merely representing the things that made me believe I liked it. (One of which might be the fact I say I like it)

While I agree that we use language in a way that isn’t straightforward interpretation I also think we understand language in a way that isn’t straightforward interpretation. When I’m talking I’m not interpreting in any obvious way. (Except at an unconscious level) It’s when I reach a level of difficulty of understanding – when something breaks down – that I start to think about interpretation more.

OK, I reread my Davidson the past couple of days and I think I see where the confusion is. You are taking me as saying by mediation as mediated by external evidence. I’m not necessarily saying that. But I certainly could have been clearer on that point. To say something is mediated is not to say externally mediated. The problem with 1st person and 3rd person is that the mediation for 3rd person is evidence “out there” which has to be put together. For 1st person that’s just not the case. But it’s mediated in the sense that the causes determine my beliefs. So as I said in one of the comments when someone says the typical sentence I don’t “think about it” but rather have habitual use that gives me the correct sense. With first person authority there is that habitual use that is the same. The difference is that I control the words I use. (Roughly your point about using language rather than interpreting it – although I think it practice its trickier than Davidson suggests)

Let me quote the opening paragraph of “Epistemology Externalized” which I think has all this.

We know in a way no one else can what we believe, fear, want, value and intend. We know how things seem to us, how they look to us, feel to us, smell and sound to us to be be. We know these things in a way we can never know about hte world around us. Whether or not we are sometimes wrong about the contents of our own minds, whether or not we can be in doubt about our sensations and thoughts, one thing is certainly true of such beliefs: they cannot be generally mistaken. If we think we have a certain thought or sensation, there is a strong presumption we are right.

This to me is what first person authority is about and which Davidson is attempting to explain. And there’s definitely nothing I’d disagree with there nor deny Davidson as holding. (The Ryle comment is funny since Davidson explicitly mentions Ryle as what he is arguing against — I’m not making the Ryle move.)

Regarding two utterances having the same causes but different meanings. I agree of course with your point. And it got me thinking quite a bit. I’m not sure I was denying that of Davidson. (At least I didn’t think I was) I think you’d agree that the truth conditions are different though and thus in a sense the causes are different in terms of identifying the senses. Not just in the form you give it with the rabbit but in Putnam’s twin earth thought experiment. (Say someone used to twater being put in front of water)

I’d want to say that objects or states can cause in a multifaceted way. (Perhaps not necessarily holistically speaking, but I’ll leave that topic alone) This would be true internally and externally. So if I’m in pain I might exclaim “ow” or “That hurt.”

The point about being wrong about myself I still have difficulty. In rereading Davidson I still don’t see him making the stronger point you are. Which isn’t to say you’re wrong of course. You’re far better versed in him than I am. And I’ve mainly just been reading Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective of late. So probably there is something he says elsewhere that makes your point.

That said what I want to say Davidson would agree with is that there are a set of things causing me to have the belief about the mental state I am in such that believing it entails being in it. But that while one logically entails the other they aren’t the same. (Which seems like a trivial point – and one Davidson says explicitly. Beliefs aren’t “before the mind” and neither are the internal mental states are beliefs are about. However the belief in terms of its content (the sentence) is caused by something and this something isn’t present to the mind (isn’t an object before the mind).

Now as you say there’s a sense in which first person authority comes out of language use. As he says in “Knowing One’s Own Mind,” the speaker “is no position to wonder whether she is generally using her own words to apply to the right objects and events, since whatever she regularly does apply them to gives her words the meaning they have and her thoughts the contents they have.” This is roughly the Peircean concept of habit as meaning. However he continues. “Of course, in any particular case, she may be wrong in what she believes about the world; what is impossible is that she should be wrong most of the time. The reason is apparent: unless there is a presumption that the speaker knows what she means, i.e. is getting her own language right, there would be nothing for an interpreter to interpret. To put the matter another way, nothing could count as someone regularly misapplying her own words.” I take this to imply that unlike 3rd person accounts, we pick how we use the words relative to our first person accounts. We can be wrong, but only when we violate our own use. In third person accounts though we are dealing with uses other than our own so greater error is possible.

What I’m taking you to assert is something strong than this. That whatever I say is right because I say it and I determine the application. That just seems wrong.

The point you seem to be suggesting is that error in this case is only possible by irrationality. I confess that I’m not quite sure what you mean by that. I regularly erroneous describe both internal and external objects. I recognize I spoke wrongly if someone asks me about it. So if I’m tired and I say, “I’m not tired,” and my wife looks at me quizzically I recognize I made a mistake. I recognize this because of my habitual use. But it doesn’t mean I didn’t actually mistake. Maybe you’d call this irrational use. I’m not sure. That’s what I was thinking about.

The other case would be something like say being in love. Others can sometimes tell such mental states before the person holding them can. Yet one I start speaking as being in love I think I’m controlling that use. But, assuming one is in a bad relationship one might think one is still in love, speak as one in love, but not really be in love. Perhaps you’d call that unconscious. I have a hard time seeing love as unconscious but I suppose it is to a certain degree.

The way you describe unconscious as “are those [states] which one can’t express normally” is pretty interesting. (I’ll probably steal that from you) I’m not sure it’s true though unless we unpack what we mean by “normally.” I think you want to say “correctly” but I’m not sure. The problem with saying “correctly” is that we get circular pretty quickly.

What I want to say in such cases (regardless of Davidson would agree) is that something is causing my utterances and beliefs. There is something habitual in my use but there is still that social aspect (the fact that talk of pain, loves, etc. involves interpersonal discussion) that leads me to realize my use is wrong. Certainly in one sense I control my own language and can use it anyway I want. But the opportunity for mistake is always there. So I have mastery of my use but not my meaning. Perhaps that’s what you mean by rationality though: correct mastery.

Getting back to your interjection against my raising the phenomenological point. Whether Davidson agrees with your point or not (and I’m coming around to thinking he does) I think it wrong. That is I use language by “picking” the appropriate object/state – word use instinctively. It’s just demonstrably false that I can’t be mistaken and the use seems just has habitual as my interpreting. That’s not to say there isn’t a difference. I don’t know the cognitive science on this point, but I suspect the two moves are related cognitively but with sufficient difference as to function differently. So for instance someone whose brain is damaged so they can’t use verbs can still understand them. (At least I seem to recall that being the case)

Anyway, sorry for waxing long. I learned a lot from what you said. I think I was getting Davidson somewhat wrong because I assumed he recognized that we can use our own language incorrectly. However perhaps I’m just a poor enough speaker at times that I see this often enough that it is a point I take for granted.

Daniel, first I apologize for the length. A lot of this was working through my ideas. (Which was always the purpose of the blog) Thanks for getting to the concise point. I was going to work through Truth, Language, and History after I finished with Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective. But I guess I should have read both in concert. “A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs” is exactly what I needed to have read. Once again thanks for for the feedback.

Yeah, I agree. It really changed how I’ve read him. I was hoping to put some comments up this weekend but I unfortunately was sick in bed with a high fever. (Definitely not the time to be blogging)

Yeah, I’ve unfortunately done it in the past and regretted it. I was actually rereading Husserl and his notion of the reduction and the self-given. I nearly posted something but I’d hate to think how it’d have come off while I had a fever of 102.