Anti-Individualism and Knowledge

Abstract

Contemporary philosophy of mind is dominated by anti-individualism, which holds that a subject's thoughts are determined not only by what is inside her head but also by aspects of her environment. Despite its dominance, anti-individualism is subject to a daunting array of epistemological objections: that it is incompatible with the privileged access each subject has to her thoughts, that it undermines rationality, and, absurdly, that it provides a new route to a priori knowledge of the world. In this rigorous and persuasive study, Jessica Brown defends anti-individualism from these epistemological objections. The discussion has important consequences for key epistemological issues such as skepticism, closure, transmission, and the nature of knowledge and warrant. According to Brown's analysis, one main reason for thinking that anti-individualism is incompatible with privileged access is that it undermines a subject's introspective ability to distinguish types of thoughts. So diagnosed, the standard focus on a subject's reliability about her thoughts provides no adequate reply. Brown defuses the objection by appeal to the epistemological notion of a relevant alternative. Further, she argues that, given a proper understanding of rationality, anti-individualism is compatible with the notion that we are rational subjects. However, the discussion of rationality provides a new argument that anti-individualism is in tension with Fregean sense. Finally, Brown shows that anti-individualism does not create a new route to a priori knowledge of the world. While rejecting solutions that restrict the transmission of warrant, she argues that anti-individualists should deny that we have the type of knowledge that would be required to use a priori knowledge of thought content to gain a priori knowledge of the world. Bradford Books imprint

Externalism and “knowing what” one thinks

“…5 (This is also defended by Heil 1988;Peacocke 1996;Bar-On 2004, andParent 2007, among others.) Brown (2004), however, objects that the (SV)-judgment is not enough for knowledge. Her reason is that per Goldman (1976Goldman ( , 1986, knowledge requires discrimination among alternatives, and Oscar cannot introspectively discriminate between H 2 O-and XYZ-contents.…”

“…Following Brown (2004) and others, many believe that the slow switch argument is no threat to an externalist's ordinary self-knowledge. That's because ordinarily, the possibility of "slow switching" is an idle skeptical possibility, an irrelevant alternative.…”

Social Externalism and First-Person Authority

“…19-20. 11 For a comprehensive treatment of the arguments for the (in)compatibility of Externalism and FirstPerson Authority, see Brown (2004).…”

Distributed Knowledge in Environmental Planning: Hybrid IT-Based Approaches in Scenario-Building Contexts

“…However, the problem of power domination for individual (and social) survival in group behaviours has been raised as a major critique to a compositional view of reality which ignores the powerful forces driving the continuous fragmentation of large aggregates (Brown 2004).…”