CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2021
| Author | Ahmed, Jaffer |
|---|---|
| Title | Is Mental Privacy Defensible? |
| Summary | In this thesis I argue that there is a version of the mental privacy hypothesis which is both coherent and plausible despite contemporary objections found in the literature. I argue that the knowledge of mentally private items is direct, non-inferential and a form of acquaintance knowledge, derived from observational and perceptual models of introspection and concerned with the phenomenal character of perceptions and sensations. I show that expressivist accounts and Wittgensteinian attacks against the possibility of knowledge about elements in conscious experience are mistaken and that phenomenal avowals can count as genuine reports, even though phenomenal knowledge is not content-bearing or propositional. I also try to show that knowledge of private mental items involves a substantial but limited form of infallibility and indubitability, and I develop two arguments in favour of first-person authority with respect to knowledge of private items. Finally, I consider whether it is possible to have somebody else’s mental experiences and conclude with expressing concerns about a particular argument which is otherwise compelling. |
| Supervisor | Howard Robinson |
| Department | Philosophy MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2021/ahmed_jaffer.pdf |
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