Colloque - Transparency, Indexicality and Consciousness : Inserted Thought and the Phenomenal-Concept Approach to De Se Thoughts

François RecanatiPhilosophie du langage et de l'espritCollège de FranceAnnée 2023-2024Colloque - Transparency, Indexicality and Consciousness : Inserted Thought and the Phenomenal-Concept Approach to De Se ThoughtsColloque organisé par François Recanati, Professeur du Collège de France, chaire Philosophie du langage et de l'espritIntervenant(s)Marie Guillot, Université de NanterreI will use the clinical phenomenon of thought insertion as a test case for a comparison between some of the available accounts of the concept of self we use in de se thoughts, namely those thoughts we would most naturally express using the word "I". According to token-reflexive accounts, which are in some respects the most straightforward approach, de se thoughts involve a certain type of descriptive concept referring to the subject as, roughly, "the thinker of this very thought" (Higginbotham 2003, Howell 2006, García-Carpintero 2016). Inserted thoughts, I claim, are evidence against this approach. Patients with thought insertion report thoughts occurring in their stream of consciousness, but which they don't recognize as their own. On the reasonable assumption that a certain kind of epistemic transparency about the content of our own thoughts applies, this phenomenon (in subjects who are otherwise rational) warrants treating "the thinker of this very thought is thinking P" and "I am thinking P" as involving different (although co-referential) semantic contents, pace the token-reflexivist. I will suggest that thought insertion might also prove a problem case for what may be called non-egological accounts, according to which (at least some) de se thoughts do not involve an explicit representation of the self at all, but stem instead from a distinctive kind of cognitive architecture (Lewis 1979, Ninan 2013, Recanati 2007, Musholt 2013). I'll go on to argue that inserted thoughts are more easily accommodated within a third type of account. According to phenomenal accounts, (at least some) de se thoughts are anchored in phenomenal experience (Grünbaum 2012; Kapitan 2015) or, more specifically, involve a dedicated phenomenal concept (Guillot 2023). This approach is better placed to explain the difference between genuine de se thinking, and accidentally reflexive thoughts associated with thought insertion, thanks to the appeal to a substantive and distinctive source of awareness of the self which there is reason to think delusional patients may lack.

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