The Subject's Point of View

Abstract

This book defends a conception of the mind that is inspired by some of Descartes's writings. The crucial feature of the Cartesian view defended is not dualism — which is not adopted here — but internalism about the mind. Internalism is opposed to the widely accepted thesis of externalism, which states that some mental features constitutively depend on features of our physical and social environment. In contrast, this book defends the minority internalist view that the mind is autonomous with respect to its environment: although it is obviously influenced by things in the environment, this influence is merely contingent and does not delimit what is thinkable in principle. The first part of the book argues that privileged accessibility is the mark of the mental, and that this thesis is strongly tied to criteria of personhood. The second part argues that internalism is best formulated as the thesis that mental features are determined by the phenomenal properties of our conscious mental life, and that the externalist denial of this thesis is incompatible with privileged self-knowledge. Hence, externalism is in conflict with the conception of the mind and personhood defended in the first part of the book. Supporters of the externalist view often present their theory as the most thoroughgoing criticism of the Cartesian conception of the mind; this book answers these criticisms and argues for an uncompromising internalist Cartesian theory of the mind.

Happiness, Dispositions and the Self

“…conscious imagining, thinking ''in words'' etc.). However, a majority of philosophers of mind seem to think that conscious states are necessarily phenomenal (Strawson 1994;Siewert 1998;Levine 2001;Dainton 2008;Farkas 2008;Kriegel 2009). For a defence of the view that propositional attitudes have a distinctive phenomenal character (see Klausen 2008). positive emotional condition (Haybron 2008, Ch.…”

On the Compatibility of Epistemic Internalism and Content Externalism

“…8 However, as Katalin Farkas has argued, this draws the line between the internal and the external in the wrong place, as the issues involving content externalism can arise with items within the skin (Farkas 2003(Farkas , 2008.…”

“…Metaphysical and epistemological accounts have been offered in characterizing this relation. For a metaphysical account that proceeds in terms of sameness of phenomenal properties, see Farkas (2008). For an account in terms of the epistemic relation of indiscriminability, i.e., that a perfect hallucination cannot be told apart from a veridical perception, but that need not imply sameness of phenomenal features, see Martin (2004) and (2005).…”

The rational role of experience

“…One might say that a different, more oomphy and less epistemic concept of causation is relevant to the above considerations, for example, a process or transmission concept of causation (Russell 1912 andSalmon 1984). se. As Farkas (2008b) points out, there is nothing special about the skin boundary, so the thesis that there is narrow content seems arbitrary. This thesis seems interesting because it is a proxy to other, less arbitrary claims.…”