PEL Presents Closereads: Donald Davidson on Self-Knowledge (Part One)
episode
The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
54 min
2 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 15 hours ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the episode’s opening discussion about and who are the hosts?
This is Close Reads, a philosophy podcast with Mark and Wes. I'm Wes Alwyn. And I'm Mark Linton-Meyer. It's time for a new reading. And I had suggested another article by Donald Davidson. I was going to, I feel like when I initially read him, I felt like this is maybe the best philosopher I've ever read. I felt like the most cogent, the most subtle. I don't feel that after our recent partially examined life exploration of him. But I was still curious to read a little bit more. Yeah, what was your overall reaction to this guy?
He's great. The things we read are a bit dense, probably. They could use a bit more explication, but maybe not for the audience that he's writing for in a particular journal. At that time, he's overall a really good writer, and he's obviously a great thinker. There's only a certain amount of analytic philosophy I can take, so I'm a little worried that you're going to try and, because of your course, death march us through a lot of analytic philosophy of mine, but we'll see.
Yeah, I don't know. I sort of think of these contemporary, I think of the analytic... Well, obviously like Williamson is core analytic and that's very contemporary, but I just, I put Williamson in an entirely different category. It may be closer to Davidson than Chalmers and Fodor and Dennett and people like that. And I'm not sure why that is. Maybe it has to do with the relationship to science or just the relationship to these being live public issues. I guess Ned Block is a good one who is a really sharp writer in that area of philosophy of mind who is still really difficult. Yeah. who is still, you can't nail down. He's not fun like Chalmers is. He's still scathing like Dennett is, but I find him harder to nail down.
And he definitely is not as afraid to go off into mathematics territory. So maybe that is the line. Are you really an analytic philosopher if you're not in mathematics territory?
Mm-hmm.
I also felt the same way in terms of, okay, this is to the point. It doesn't require me to have a lot of background. It's just a really insightful, subtle, carefully thought thing about Nagel. So when people would ask me, what is the one book that you would just recommend for a beginning philosopher? And Nagel's Mortal Thoughts. collection of essays I have long felt like I want to actually maybe we should go back to some of those not necessarily really philosophy of mind but for for this podcast I remember there's one about the absurd in there I
forget
what else but you know nuggets that that was kind of what I liked about analytic philosophy as opposed to Hegel Hegel, you don't understand it. You're struggling with the words with analytic, good analytic philosophy. You're not struggling with the words. You're just it just gives you, you know, actual things to think about.
Yeah, let's get into it.
All right, so this article is called First Person Authority. It's from 1984. I don't even remember. I just stumbled over this yesterday and I don't even remember how exactly, but it seemed, once you read the summary, Wes, it has a little summary in three languages at the top.
Okay, what explains the presumption that a speaker is right when he sincerely attributes a belief, desire, or intention to his present self, while there is no such presumption when others make similar attributions to him? It is argued that solutions to the problem of knowledge of other minds, which merely restate the asymmetry, leave open the field to the skeptic. A new explanation of first-person authority is offered, which traces the source of authority to a necessary feature of the interpretation of speech. Yeah, this attempt to language-ify, you know, already has me skeptical, but we'll see.
Yes, well, I mean, we know sort of the general background of this, which is Wittgenstein's private language argument. You know, do you know what you mean? Can you talk about your individual pain that nobody else can get a hold of? And the very fact that you put it in this public word, pain... makes it in some way accessible to other people.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the episode’s opening discussion about and who are the hosts?
0:00–5:59
2
How do the hosts introduce Donald Davidson’s article “First‑Person Authority”?
5:59–13:23
3
Why do Davidson and Wittgenstein think first‑person statements have special authority?
13:23–21:28
4
What is the connection between first‑person authority and the classic problem of other minds?
21:28–26:49
5
How does the language‑game view explain the asymmetry between self‑ascriptions and other‑ascriptions?
26:49–33:43
6
Do unconscious mental states undermine first‑person authority, according to the discussion?
33:43–39:50
7
What everyday example (turn‑signal behavior) illustrates hidden propositional attitudes?
39:50–48:00
8
How do the hosts wrap up the conversation and preview part two of the reading?
48:00–54:22
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
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