Abstract
Two more isolated rule-following Robinson Crusoes are discussed. Crusoe 4 still recognizes himself to be speaking a disposition-meaning language because he has introspective access to the dispositions that generate his meaning-urges. But because those dispositions change relatively continuously, he cannot think of himself as speaking distinct languages. Instead, he thinks of his language as one in which he has better and worse dispositions at different times. Crusoe 5, however, has no or little introspective access to the dispositions that generate his meaning-urges. I show that, therefore, he must be like us: he must think of the terms of his language as obeying standards due to the way objects are in the world instead of as due to his dispositions. In this chapter, I explore what this means.
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
See, e.g., Strawson (1994), Pitt (2004), as well as the articles in Bayne and Montague (2011), for discussion (and arguments) for there being a phenomenology of cognitive states: a “what it’s like” when engaging (for example) in syllogistic reasoning. I’m not arguing for or against this view at the moment. Subject to the discussion of Sect. 3.5, I’m allowing that Crusoe 4 is either aware of the internal states that are his consciously going through this (and not that) sort of reasoning, or that he’s aware of internal states correlated with these events of consciousness. Either will do. I should add that I (and others) interpret Wittgenstein as largely denying the existence of this kind of phenomenology. But the absence (or presence) of such a detailed phenomenology isn’t (on my view) an a priori fact about a being’s consciousness of her internal states.
- 2.
Ways of so evaluating alternative private-language practices aren’t needed by Crusoe 1 of Chap. 2, of course, because his experiences of success are ones he can’t improve on.
- 3.
- 4.
And so, the insight described here is to be credited to Hume (1961).
- 5.
More accurately—and following the discussion of Sect. 3.5 more closely—I’ve given Crusoe 2 and 4 a nearly perfect correlation between their internal states and their internal-state concepts. I’ll generally describe the existence of such correlations as “introspective access” or “awareness.”
- 6.
No doubt it differs, for example, for the different senses, and it involves various sorts of automatic subpersonal faculties.
- 7.
- 8.
Similar, perhaps, to how the categories of (Aristotelean) physics were eventually replaced once we recognized friction-tainted environments to be special cases.
References
Bayne, Tim, and Michelle Montague. (ed.). 2011. Cognitive phenomenology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Boyd, Richard. 1991. On the current status of scientific realism. In The philosophy of science, ed. Richard Boyd, Philip Gasper, and J.D. Trout, 195–222. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Hume, David. 1961. A treatise of human nature. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc..
Kripke, Saul. 1982. Wittgenstein on rules and private language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Pitt, David. 2004. The phenomenology of cognition, or, what is it like to think that P? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 69: 1–36.
Putnam, Hilary. 1978. Meaning and knowledge. In Meaning and the moral sciences, ed. Hilary Putnam, 7–80. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Strawson, Galen. 1994. Mental reality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1958. Philosophical Investigations. Trans. G.E.M. Anscombe, 3rd ed. New York: The Macmillan Company.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Azzouni, J. (2017). How Positive Success Curves Enable Private Rule Following. In: The Rule-Following Paradox and its Implications for Metaphysics. Synthese Library, vol 382. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49061-8_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49061-8_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-49060-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-49061-8
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)