Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T13:58:24.811Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Defence of Lichtenberg

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2019

Giovanni Merlo Open the ORCID record for Giovanni Merlo [Opens in a new window]
Giovanni Merlo*
Affiliation:
University of Stirling, UK
*
*Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Cartesians and Lichtenbergians have diverging views of the deliverances of introspection. According to the Cartesians, a rational subject, competent with the relevant concepts, can come to know that he or she thinks – hence, that he or she exists – on the sole basis of his or her introspective awareness of his or her conscious thinking. According to the Lichtenbergians, this is not possible. This paper offers a defence of the Lichtenbergian position using Peacocke and Campbell's recent exchange on Descartes's cogito as a framework for discussion. A thought-experiment will be presented involving two communities with radically different conceptions of the metaphysics of the self. The purpose of the thought-experiment is to suggest that a substantive metaphysical thesis, whose truth cannot be a priori known, is presupposed by any justified transition from one's introspective awareness of a certain mental activity to the self-ascription of that activity.

Keywords

cogitoLichtenbergselfcollective thinking
Type
Article
Information
Episteme , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , December 2021 , pp. 624 - 639
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bermúdez, J.L. (2011). ‘Bodily Awareness and Self-Consciousness.’ In Gallagher, S. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Self, pp. 157–79. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Billon, A. (2015). ‘Why are we Certain that we Exist?’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 91(3), 723–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Billon, A. (2017). ‘Basic Self-awareness.’ European Journal of Philosophy 25(3), 732–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bird, A. (2014). ‘When is There a Group that Knows?’ In Lackey, J. (ed.), Essays in Collective Epistemology, pp. 42–63. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Block, N. (1978). ‘Troubles with Functionalism.’ Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 9, 261–325.Google Scholar
Bonabeau, E., Dorigo, M. and Theraulaz, G. (1999). Swarm Intelligence: From Natural to Artificial Systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bratman, M. (1999). Faces of Intention: Selected Essays on Intention and Agency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, T. (1996). ‘Our Entitlement to Self-knowledge.’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 96, 91–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, J. (2012). ‘Lichtenberg and the Cogito.’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 112(3), 361–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dainton, B. (2008). The Phenomenal Self. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dretske, F. (1999). ‘The Mind's Awareness of Itself.’ Philosophical Studies 95, 103–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duncan, M. (2015). ‘We are Acquainted with Ourselves.’ Philosophical Studies 172(9), 2531–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallagher, S. and Zahavi, D. (2016). ‘Phenomenological Approaches to Self-Consciousness.’ In Zalta, E.N. (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/self-consciousness-phenomenological/.Google Scholar
Gilbert, M. (1989). On Social Facts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gilbert, M. (2004). ‘Collective Epistemology.’ Episteme 1(2), 95–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, A. (2004). ‘Group Knowledge Versus Group Rationality: Two Approaches to Social Epistemology.’ Episteme 1(1), 11–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hellie, B. (2013). ‘Against Egalitarianism.’ Analysis 73(2), 304–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hossack, K. (2006). ‘Vagueness and Personal Identity.’ In MacBride, F. (ed.), Identity and Modality, pp. 221–41. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Howell, R.J. (2006). ‘Self-knowledge and Self-reference.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 72(1), 44–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lackey, J. (ed.) (2015). ‘Introduction.’ In Essays in Collective Epistemology, pp. 1–7. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lichtenberg, G.C. (2012). Philosophical Writings. Translated and annotated by Tester, S.. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
List, C. (2018). ‘What is it Like to be a Group Agent?’ Noûs 52(2), 295–319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, L.H. (1993). ‘Epistemological Communities.’ In Alcoff, L. and Potter, E. (eds), Feminist Epistemologies. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Nozick, R. (1981). Philosophical Explanations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Oliver, A. and Smiley, T. (2013). Plural Logic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pacherie, E. (Forthcoming). ‘Collective Phenomenology.’ In Ludwig, K. and Jankovic, M. (eds), The Routledge Handbook on Collective Intentionality. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Peacocke, C. (2004). The Realm of Reason. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Peacocke, C. (2012). ‘Descartes Defended.’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 112(3), 109–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prinz, J. (2011). ‘Waiting for the Self.’ In Liu, J. and Perry, J. (eds), Consciousness and the Self, pp. 123–49. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmid, H.B. (2014). ‘Plural Self-awareness.’ Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 13, 7–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwitzgebel, E. (2008). ‘The Unreliability of Naïve Introspection.’ Philosophical Review 117(2), 245–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwitzgebel, E. (2015). ‘If Materialism is True, the United States is Probably Conscious.’ Philosophical Studies 172(7), 1697–721.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, J. (1995). The Construction of Social Reality. New York, NY: Free Press.Google Scholar
Senor, T.D. (1996). ‘The Prima/Ultima Facie Justification Distinction in Epistemology.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 56(3), 551–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shoemaker, S. (1996). The First-Person Perspective, and Other Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strawson, G. (1997). ‘The Self.’ Journal of Consciousness Studies 4(5–6), 405–28.Google Scholar
Tester, S. (2013). ‘G.C. Lichtenberg on Self-Consciousness and Personal Identity.’ Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 95(3), 336–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tononi, G. and Koch, C. (2015). ‘Consciousness: Here, There and Everywhere?’ Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 370. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2014.0167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tuomela, R. (1995). The Importance of Us. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, B. (1978). Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry. Hassocks: Harvester Press.Google Scholar
Zahavi, D. (2003). ‘Phenomenology of Self.’ In Kircher, T. and David, A.S. (eds), The Self in Neuroscience and Psychiatry, pp. 56–75. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zahavi, D. and Kriegel, U. (2015). ‘For-me-ness: What it is and What it is Not.’ In Dahlstrom, D., Elpidorou, A. and Hopp, W. (eds), Philosophy of Mind and Phenomenology, pp. 36–53. London: Routledge.Google Scholar