University of Chicago

Fall 2001

Phil333, A01-lecture notes 6

Evans on introspection

Evans, Varieties of Reference

Two selections from Evans: the first lays out a requirement on conceptual capacities that he thinks holds quite generally; the second traces out the implications of that requirement for thinking about the self.

As we shall see, we may understand Evans as elaborating Strawson’s claim that although no criteria of identity for the self are applied in introspection, introspective beliefs still have links with such criteria.

1. The generality constraint

The generality constraint: if a subject can entertain the thought that a is F, and if she has a concept of what it is to be G, then she can entertain the thought that a is G; and if a subject can entertain the thought that a is F, and if she has an Idea of b, then she can entertain the thought that b is F.

A few naïve comments on the principle, ignoring many complications:

1. As you may remember from middle-school grammar, “a” is the subject of the sentence, “is F” the predicate.  “a” refers to or picks out an object, broadly speaking: e.g., a dog, a chair, a person, a country, an irrational number, an explosion and so forth.  The “F” of “is F”, meanwhile, is replaced by a word for, broadly speaking, a property, a word such as “red”, “tall”, “ten-years-long”, “diabolical”, “underground”.
   So an instance of the generality constraint would be: if a subject can entertain the thought that Bob is six-feet-tall and if she has a concept of what it is to be Dutch, then she can entertain the thought that Bob is Dutch.
   
   
2.  “an Idea of an object”. An Idea of an object is meant as analogous to a concept of a property.  We don’t often speak of concepts of particular objects, of that which is referred to or otherwise picked out on the subject side of the sentence, in the way that we speak of concepts of properties, of that which is spoken of on the predicate side.  So we talk about the concept of redness or of being red, but not the concept of George Bush, or my concept of George Bush.  There are reasons for this discrepancy, which won’t get into.
   Regardless, Evans coins a new term.  An Idea of an object x is roughly speaking: a way of thinking about x. 
   You can have different Ideas of the same particular.  Someone who has only the most passing acquaintance with baseball may think of Barry Bonds simply as the player who recently broke the single-season home-run record.  Then his Idea of Barry Bonds is just that.  Someone who knows nothing of baseball but is sitting in a restaurant and has Barry Bonds pointed out at him will have an Idea of Bonds as that guy over there, an Idea essentially involving a perceptual component.  Someone, by contrast, who knows Barry Bonds personally, will have a much richer and more variegated Idea of Bonds, involving multiple sufficient ways of thinking about him.
   
   
3. “categorical appropriateness of predicates to objects”. Evans suggests he wants to limit the range of the constraint relative to the “categorical appropriateness” of given predicates to given subjects.  What he means by this is that it may be the case that only certain kinds of properties are sensibly conceived as applying to a given kind of object.  Thus it may be that predicates picking out color-properties can’t sensibly be predicated of subjects picking out numbers.  So the sentence, “7 is red,” doesn’t express a coherent thought.  So one would have to add to antecedent of the statement of the principle: “…and if being G is a property we can sensibly think of a as having, then…”
   By the way, some people disagree with Evans.  They think that “7 is red” does express a coherent thought.  It’s false, but it’s still a thought.
   
   
4. The motivation for the constraint.  Evans does not in fact say much about this explicitly in the selection.  And at points it can appear that he regards it simply as a primitive, unexplainable fact about the nature of thought, or at least about the nature of ‘our system of thought’.
   But I think this appearance is misleading.  Although much more would need to be said to cash this out, it seems plausible to see Evans as thinking of the generality constraint as a consequence of the more fundamental claim that thought, i.e., the activity of thinking, is essentially structured, which might in turn be seen as a consequence of the claim that thoughts, i.e., what is capable of being entertained in thinking, are essentially structured.
   To elaborate: take the sentence “Bob is tall.”  We may call what this sentence expresses a thought.  It is also sometimes called a proposition (sometimes the meanings of these words are distinguished but we can ignore that here.)
   As we discussed earlier, a thought (proposition) is something that is true or false, something that has a truth value.  Now, objects as such aren’t true or false.  Bob isn’t true or false.
   To get truth or falsity it seems you must have predication.  You need more than an object, you need something said to be so of the object.  Propositions can have truth-values, as opposed to objects, because they concern both objects and properties, in particular they involve properties being predicated of objects.
   So it might seem there’s a necessary structure in anything that is to count as a thought or proposition.  (This was a central topic of early analytic philosophy.)
   In entertaining the thought, then, in grasping it, in understanding it, we must grasp that structure.  We must understand the thought that Bob is tall as structured into two parts, into the object and that which is predicated of it.  Otherwise we can’t understand the thought as something that is either true or false, which is to say we don’t understand it as a thought at all.
   But how do we do that?  What is it to grasp a thought as a structured entity?  Well, we might think of Evans as saying that doing so requires bringing two separate abilities to bear in entertaining the thought.  One is the capacity to think of or about Bob, the other the capacity to think about tallness, about the general idea of something’s being tall.
   And what makes it the case that we bring two abilities to bear instead of just one in entertaining the thought that Bob is tall?  Well, says Evans, it must be the case that these abilities can be deployed independently of each other.  If we can’t exercise the abilities apart from each other, to have one in play when the other is not, then it’s just mere show that we’re exercising the two abilities together, rather than just one undifferentiated ability, in entertaining the thought that Bob is tall.  And that’s just to say that we must be able to think about Bob in other thoughts, thoughts involving other predicates.  And that we be able to think about tallness as predicated of other objects.  So we are led more or less to the generality constraint.
   (It is a remarkable feature of contextualist critiques of the generality constraint that they have nothing like this line of thought in view at all.)

2. Forming beliefs about one’s own beliefs

In the second selection, Evans focuses on introspective beliefs about mental states, and uses the generality constraint to draw conclusions that we can see as reinforcing the argument we discussed last week from Strawson.  Let’s see how this works.

Evans discusses two kinds of introspective beliefs: beliefs about one’s beliefs, and beliefs about one’s perceptions.  His discussion of the second is, unfortunately from our perspective, infused with his complicated and somewhat confusing theory of what he calls a non-conceptual informational system that underlies all of our perceptions.  I will not have time to discuss it.

First, on what he says about beliefs about beliefs.  I will fill in some steps in his line of thought that he does not himself make explicit.

How do we arrive at beliefs about what we believe?  The answer is simple: we answer the question about whether we believe that p by answering the question whether p.  In arriving at an answer to the latter question, we thereby arrive at an answer to the first question.

E.g., suppose you are asked whether Powell is a good secretary of state.  How do you set about answering that question?  Then suppose you are asked whether you think Powell is a good secretary of state.  How about the one?  Well, you set about answering it in exactly the same way that you set about answering the first question.

Introspective beliefs about one’s beliefs are thus governed by a very simple principle:

Evans’s principle about introspective beliefs about beliefs: Whenever you are in a position to assert that p, you are automatically in a position to assert that you believe that p.

Something like this has come to be called the transparency of belief.  See the book by our own David Finkelstein.

In our earlier example, it might have taken some work to get into a position to assert that p.  That is, if what substitutes for “p” is “Powell is a good secretary of state,” you might need to go through some deliberation first.  If that deliberation arrives at a particular conclusion, say that Powell is not a good secretary of state, then you are also at that point in a position to assert that you believe that Powell is not a good secretary of state.  Alternatively, if you can’t decide whether Powell is a good secretary of state, then you can’t assert either that you believe that he is, or that you believe that he isn’t.

Some cases don’t require deliberation, but rather observation.  You’re not in a position to assert that there’s an eraser in this lectern until you’ve looked.  Once you have and see that there is one, you are in a position to assert both that there is an eraser on the lectern and that you believe that there is.

In other cases, you are already in a position to answer the question whether p, no deliberation or observation needed.  You can assert right now that the sky is blue.  And for just that reason, you can assert now that you believe that the sky is blue.

This phenomenon explains why beliefs of the form, “I believe that p” exhibit immunity to error through misidentification.  There aren’t two steps here: first determining whether someone believes that p and then determining whether it’s you who believes it.  There’s just one step—determining whether p.  This automatically yields an answer to the question whether you believe that p.  The one belief piggybacks on the other.  And so, as Evans puts it, even the most determined skeptic can’t get a knife in here—can’t, that is, raise a question about whether it’s you or someone else who believes that p.

Since no question of the form “You or someone else?” is raised by the question whether Powell is a good secretary of state—you are simply not any part of the topic here—so then, given principle Evan’s principle about beliefs about beliefs, no such question is raised by the question whether you believe that Powell is a good secretary of state.

The fact that you attend to the same considerations in answering both questions motivates Evans’ important remark that introspecting one’s beliefs involves no “inward glance”.

There are very tempting metaphors in ordinary speech applied to introspection that do involve the idea of inward observation.  Introspection is often envisioned as, as it were, directing our mind’s eye to an array of objects arrayed in “inner space”.  Evans’ point is that, at least in the case of beliefs, this imagery is extremely misleading.

Putting yourself in a position to assert that you believe that Powell is a good secretary of state is no more a matter of looking inward than is putting yourself in a position to assert, simply, that Powell is a good secretary of state. In both cases, you look to the part of the world that that belief is about—in this case, to Powell and his doings—not to anything inside you.  Thus, coming to know what you believe is not a matter of looking inward but of looking outward, at the world.

3. The role of the generality constraint in beliefs about one’s own beliefs

But now we have a puzzle.  If I arrive at the belief that p and that I believe that p in exactly the same way, by exactly the same procedure, how can I tell the difference between them?

For all Evans’ principle tells you, your believing that Powell is a good secretary of state could amount to the same thing as its being the case that Powell is a good secretary of state.

But of course they don’t.  Your believing that Powell is a good secretary of state and his actually being a good secretary of state are two completely different things.  But since we arrive at beliefs about these two matters in precisely the same way, how do we tell them apart?

Well, according to Evans, the Generality Constraint points us in the direction of an answer.

If I am to be able to entertain the thought that I believe that p, I must understand thoughts of the form, “x believes that p,” for arbitrary people x.

This is simply an instance of the generality constraint.

And, according to Evans, it explains why there is no danger of your confusing the state of affairs of p with your believing that p, even though you arrive at beliefs about both of those in the same way.

Consider the question whether Bob believes that Powell is a good secretary of state.  How do you arrive at an answer to that?  Well, assuming you’re not Bob, you don’t arrive at it in the same way that you arrive at an answer to the question whether Powell is in fact a good secretary of state.  Evans’ principle about introspective beliefs about beliefs doesn’t apply here.

So how do you answer the question?  Well, by asking him, or otherwise observing his behavior.  If you ask him and have reason to think his answer is sincere and seriously meant, then you’re in a position to answer the question whether Bob believes that Powell is a good secretary of state.

Now the generality constraint requires you to think of your own introspective belief that, as you would express it, “I believe that Powell is a good secretary of state.” as a state of affairs of the same kind as Bob’s believing that Powell is such.  And since it’s clear, from your perspective, how Bob’s believing that is different from it’s being so (as partly shown by the different ways in which you go about establishing the two states of affairs), it’s also clear to you how your believing that is different from its being so (even though in this case you verify the two states of affairs in the same way).

The point again is this.  It’s true that you apply the same procedure to determine whether p as to determine whether you believe that p.  But, in accordance with the generality constraint, you must understand your believing that p as an instance of the exact same kind as some person x’s believing that p.

This involves, among other things, realizing that someone else could determine whether you believe that p only by applying the same procedure as you applied in determining whether Bob believes that p.

Thus you must think of yourself as just the same kind of entity as Bob, that is, as a physical creature whose behavior is relevant to the determination of what he or she believes.

See the passage in Evans on p. 226.

3. The connection to Strawson

It should be clear how one might regard this as a development of Strawson’s view of introspection the concept of the self.

Strawson’s question was how, given that Descartes is right that introspection doesn’t involve application of criteria of identity for the self, we can avoid the incoherent Cartesian conclusion that the concept of the self doesn’t involve any criteria of identity.  Strawson’s answer was that my concept of myself isn’t built up wholly from what happens in introspection: it also involves the idea of myself as a human being, a physical object, that both I and other people can have a different, non-introspective perspective on.

Evans is in effect elaborating this answer.  Even though there’s no need for me to identify myself in forming beliefs about what I believe—even though all I need to do is to attend to and reflect upon the world around me—I recognize, in accordance with the generality constraint, that my believing something is a circumstances of the same kind as someone else’s believing something.  It is this connection that enables my introspective beliefs about my own beliefs to involve a genuine concept of the self, in spite of the fact that I do not deploy any criteria of such a concept in forming those beliefs.