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Dretske's Naturalistic Representationalism and Privileged Accessibility Thesis.
1Humanities and Social Sciences Department, IIT Bombay, Powai, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400076 India.
Philosophia (Ramat-Gan, Israel)
|September 20, 2022
Summary
This paper analyzes Dretske's naturalistic defense of privileged accessibility, challenging its grounding in phenomenal subjectivity. It explores how externalist views offer new insights for understanding first-person knowledge of mental states.
Area of Science:
- Philosophy of Mind
- Epistemology
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- The privileged accessibility thesis posits that individuals have special access to their own mental states.
- Internalist and externalist philosophies offer differing accounts of the justification for this privileged access.
- Dretske's naturalistic externalism reinterprets introspection to support privileged accessibility.
Purpose of the Study:
- To critically analyze Fred Dretske's naturalistic defense of the privileged accessibility thesis.
- To examine Dretske's reformulation of introspection as displaced perception.
- To contrast internalist and externalist justifications for privileged accessibility.
Main Methods:
- Critical analysis of philosophical arguments.
- Examination of Dretske's theory of naturalistic content externalism.
- Comparison of internalist and externalist perspectives on justification.
Main Results:
- Dretske's view grounds justification for privileged accessibility externally, not in phenomenal subjectivity.
- Awareness of the entire representational mechanism, not just states, is key.
- Dretske's model, while not fully reducing phenomenal qualities, offers a framework for compatibilists.
Conclusions:
- Dretske's naturalistic externalism provides a novel approach to defending privileged accessibility.
- The theory impacts transparency theorists and compatibilist views on mental states.
- Further research may explore the reduction of phenomenal qualities within this framework.
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