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On Mind and Our Knowledge of It
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2009
Extract
This paper is an attempt to clarify our talk about minds and thoughts—our own minds and the thoughts which run through them and which we know directly, as well as the minds of other people and the thoughts with which we credit them. We do so in order to be able to characterize satisfactorily our whole performance in talking about minds and thoughts, the rules according to which such talk operates and the goals it purports to reach. We also hope to evaluate, in the light of such a characterization, a number of more elaborate ways of speaking about minds and thoughts, so as to become clear as to their advantages or disadvantages in comparison with more ordinary ways of speaking. The whole investigation is well worth undertaking, since it has long been evident that our talk about mind and thought is, to a peculiar extent, liable to become the seat of certain deep perplexities, which do not arise when we deal with unusual material on the borderlines of knowledge, but which tend, rather, to obtrude themselves in commonplace situations, and to trouble our grasp of the most obvious notions and the most evident truths. Such perplexities, broadly covered by the word “philosophical,” are rendered very stubborn by their objects and their origin. For when we are dealing with things remote, strange and intricate, we have at least a firm foothold in the well-known, simple and near, and a clear set of terms to talk with; but we hardly seem to have a perch to hop to, or any intelligible language left to talk in, when the obvious itself begins to present difficulties. And it is also characteristic of most of the difficulties we are considering that in them the burning zone of perplexity seems to shift erratically from issue to issue, that each expedient adopted to meet them involves us in new problems, that men cannot ever agree as to the best expedient or the least serious difficulty, and that, in the outcome, they resemble nothing so much as a set of sleepers under inadequate coverings, some of whom prefer exposure in one place, while others prefer it in another.
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- Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1945
References
page 207 note 1 First pointed out by Hegel, I think.
page 207 note 2 It will be one of the tasks of this essay to recommend this way of speaking.
page 207 note 3 It will be obvious from this passage, and throughout this essay, how much I owe to Wittgenstein, Wisdom and others.
page 208 note 1 I shall not attribute the characterization I am about to give to any-particular person. It represents my own way of making sense of notions that have found acceptance in many quarters. I leave aside the question as to whether it is sensible to attempt to characterize language in general.
page 210 note 1 The dialectical objection I have put could, no doubt, be evaded in several ways. But if so, other unplausibilities would present themselves.
page 210 note 2 To be ready for A if B presents itself is a common attitude in men and animals.
page 212 note 1 Whether these references should be freed from their insolubly doubtful character is, of course, an arguable question.
page 217 note 1 I am not ignoring the fact that whether “same” and “different” are used in different senses itself depends on the language we are using. But in my language we certainly do use them in different senses.
page 219 note 1 It will be noted that the immediate, inerrant knowledge we are considering; goes beyond telepathy, if this be regarded merely as the immediate knowledge that people axe having certain experiences.