Externalism in the philosophy of mind contends that the meaning orcontent of a thought^[1] is partly determined by the environment. The view has garneredattention since it denies the traditional assumption, associated withDescartes, that thought content is fixed independently of the externalworld. Apparently under this assumption, Descartes also believed thathe could know the content of his thoughts while suspending alljudgment about his environs. (Indeed, such knowledge was thoughtindubitable.) Yet if externalism is correct, this may well be amistake. As we shall see, externalism can suggest that Descartes isunable to know that his own thought represents, say, elm trees (vs.beech trees) without knowing that it iselms (and notbeeches) that the thought is connected to in the world. But if suchworldly knowledge is a prerequisite, then Descartes could not know thecontent of this thought just “from the armchair,” so tospeak. So there seems to be a conflict between externalism and sucharmchair knowledge of one’s own thought contents (for short:“armchair self-knowledge”). The question whether thisconflict is real is what drives the contemporary debate on externalismand self-knowledge.

Officially, we can put the issue in terms of an apparent tensionbetween the following:

(EXT)

Thought content is determined partly by theenvironment.^[2]

(SK)

A subject can know from the armchair what content her thoughts have.^[3]

The issue is that EXT seemingly implies that knowing about contentrequires knowing about the environment. And since the latter isempirical, so too would be the former, contra SK.^[4] Now it is usually thought that, if EXT is incompatible with SK, thiswould be a serious problem for EXT (though some think internalism alsoconflicts with SK; see McLaughlin & Tye 1998a, Farkas 2003, Bar-On2006, p. 434). Yet some think the incompatibility threatens SK insteadof EXT (see section2.4). Regardless, the interest in the debate goes beyond EXT, for itpertains to many central concerns of philosophers, such as the natureof knowledge and the relation between mind and world. The debate alsotouches on more specialized topics, including memory, conceptacquisition, epistemic responsibility, and transcendentalarguments.

In the standard terminology, the dispute is betweenincompatibilists who affirm the conflict between EXT and SK,andcompatibilists who deny it. Incompatibilists have pressedthe conflict mainly in two ways. The first way, discussed in section2, is by a reductio ad absurdum: Incompatibilists argue that EXT plusSK entail the absurdity that one can know just from the armchaircontingent facts about the external world. The second way, discussedin section 3, features a thought experiment about “slowswitching” between two environments. Incompatibilists argue thatsuch thought experiments show that EXT precludes SK. In section 4, wewill end with some lesser-known issues for externalistself-knowledge.

• 1. Why Externalism?
• 2. The Reductio to Armchair Knowledge of the External World
  • 2.1 Reply 1: Environmental Implications are Empirical
  • 2.2 Reply 2: Externalism about Empty Concepts
  • 2.3 Reply 3: Transmission Failure
  • 2.4 Reply 4: Self-Knowledge is Empirical
  • 2.5 Reply 5: A Transcendental Argument?
• 3. Slow Switching Arguments
  • 3.1 Reply 1: Self-Verifying Judgments
  • 3.2 Reply 2: Relevant Alternatives
  • 3.3 Reply 3: Externalism about Memory
  • 3.4 Reply 4: The Argument is Self-Undermining
  • 3.5 Reply 5: Anti-Recognitionalism
• 4. Other Issues with Externalist Self-Knowledge
• Bibliography
  • Works Cited
  • Collections
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Why Externalism?

Given the tension with SK, why should we accept EXT in the firstplace? One reason is that EXT is more or less entailed by manycontemporary theories of content. For instance, several theories say(in short) that a concept^[5] has its content in virtue of certain causal relations the conceptbears to an environmental referent (Dretske 1981, Millikan 1984; 1989,Fodor 1987; 1990; also, cf. Kripke 1972 and Evans 1982, ch. 6). Otherssee mental content as posited when interpreting a subjectvis-à-vis objects in her environment (Davidson 1973; 1987,Dennett 1975). Still others see content as determined by theinferences that feature the relevant concept. Such an inference,moreover, is often defined partly by the environmental object whichnormally prompts the inference, or in which the inference normallyterminates (Sellars 1954).

Predictably, such theories face various difficulties—so noneprovide a decisive case for EXT. Yet the foremost arguments for theview are not so parochial. These arguments instead rest on variousthought experiments, purporting to show that internally identicalsubjects can host different thought contents, solely because ofenvironmental differences (Putnam 1973; 1975, McGinn 1977, Stich 1978,Burge 1979; 1982; 1986). If the thought experiments are right aboutthis, then internal states do not wholly determine thought content.The environment would play a part as well.

The most famous experiment imagines a remote planet called “TwinEarth,” a planet which is superficially indiscernible from Earth(so that even its events parallel the events on Earth). But there isone key difference: The compound H₂O occurs nowhere on TwinEarth. In its place is a different compound that looks, tastes, etc.,exactly the same, which we may call “XYZ”. Now considerOscar, a normal adult English speaker, along with his Twin Earthdoppelgänger, Twin Oscar. (Ignore that people are mostlyH₂O; that’s an accident of this example.) Theexternalist intuition is that, even if these “twins” areunschooled in chemistry, Oscar uses ‘water’ to refer toH₂O yet Twin Oscar uses ‘water’ to refer toXYZ. After all, when Oscar asserts “water is scrumptious,”this is directed at water, yet Twin Oscar’s parallel assertionis in reference to XYZ, a.k.a. twin water.^[6]

Moreover, suppose we accept the Fregean view that the meaning of aterm determines what the term refers to (or in Carnap’s words,that “intension determines extension”).^[7] Then, given the different referents, the twins’ terms must havedifferentmeanings as well. But Oscar and Twin Oscar arephysical duplicates; so it appears the meaning of ‘water’is not wholly fixed by speakers’ internal states. Rather, theenvironment also figures into it.^[8]

This claim about linguistic meaning is then extended to the content ofmental representations fornatural kinds like water, and fornon-natural kinds like sofas (where the latter are defined bysocial convention) (McGinn 1977, Stich 1978, Burge 1979; 1982; 1986).Consider that when Oscar says “sofas are delightful,” heexpresses athought that references sofas. But suppose thatTwin Oscar’s community defines a “sofa” slightlydifferently, so that broad, overstuffed armchairs count as“sofas.” Consequently, when Twin Oscar asserts“sofas are delightful,” he differs from Oscar inexpressing a thought that refers to (among other things) broad,overstuffed armchairs. But again, if content determines reference, thedifference in reference demonstrates a difference in intension orcontent, in spite of identical internal states.^[9] Thus we arrive at EXT.

Some might find these science fiction stories extravagant, and it maybe unclear whether they teach us anything about the real world. Yetthere are actual examples which also illustrate the point (Ludlow1995b; see also Butler 1997, Tye 1998).^[10] Consider that ‘chicory’ and ‘endive’ havetheir denotations switched between Standard American English andBritish English. The two types of salad green also seem identical tothe untrained eye (or palate, as the case may be). Thus a Brit and anAmerican, both untrained, might be internally the same in all relevantrespects, yet refer to different greens when asserting “chicoryis scrumptious.” So ‘chicory’ will express a conceptwith different content, despite the subjects being internally alike.(Notably, ‘water’ itself might vary in content amongdifferent locations in the actual world. What flows from taps containsdifferent admixtures in different municipalities. Cf. Malt 1994.)

Nevertheless, some philosophers reject these considerations for avariety of reasons (Zemach 1976, Mellor 1977, Searle 1983, ch. 8, Bach1988; 1998, Crane 1991, Rosenberg 1994, Chomsky 1995; 2000, Segal2000, Martinich & Stroll 2007, ch. 5, Farkas 2008, Pollock 2015;see also Fine 1975). Other philosophers do not reject EXT as much asrestrict it: They posit a kind of content—so called“narrow” content—which is determined independentlyof the environment. (See Block 1986, Loar 1988, Georgalis 1994; 1999,Chalmers 1996; 2002, Jackson 1998, Siewart 1998, Horgan & Tienson2002, Wikforss 2007, Mendola 2008; see also the entry onnarrow content. See in addition Yli-Vakkuri & Hawthorne 2018 for a thorough butpessimistic examination of the notion.) As one illustration,two-dimensionalists characterize narrow content as a function thattakes an environment as input and outputs the “wide”content of the concept in that environment, i.e., the content of whichEXT is true (Chalmers 1996; 2002). And putatively, the problem witharmchair self-knowledge does not arise with narrow content. (For more,see Fernandez 2004 as well as the entry ontwo-dimensional semantics.)

The debate on whether EXT is unrestrictedly true is important, butthis is not the place to discuss it. (Yet see the entry onexternalism about mental content.) For our purposes, the main point is that EXT is not without support,and so there is some reason to hold onto the view despite the apparenttension with SK.

2. The Reductio to Armchair Knowledge of the External World

But is the tension real? One pro argument is a reductio ad absurdum:The claim is that EXT and SK jointly entail an obvious falsehood,namely, that Oscar can know from the armchair contingent facts aboutthe external world (McKinsey 1991; 1994; 2002; 2007, Brown 1995,Boghossian 1997; 1998). If so, then EXT and SK cannot be jointly true,and the incompatibilist wins the debate.

The argument is this: Assume EXT and SK for reductio, andlet‘E’ name theEnvironmental conditionthat EXT requires for a concept to have a water content (versus a twin content).^[11] Apparently, then, EXT and SK imply that Oscar can know from thearmchair—or in the incompatibilist’s idiom, know“apriori”—both of the following:

1. If Oscar is thinking that water is wet, thenEobtains.
2. Oscar is thinking that water is wet.

In this,p is known apriori (or just: “p isapriori”) iffp is known without a concerted empiricalinvestigation of the external world. (Note that introspectiveknowledge counts as “apriori” in this context, even thoughit arises from a kind of introspective experience. For more on thepresent conception of the apriori, see Miller 1997, Davies 1998,Nuccetelli 1999, and McLaughlin 2000; 2003). On the current line, (1)can be known apriori if EXT is true (though as we shall see, there aredifferent ways to spin this). Whereas, (2) is apriori given SK. Yet ifOscar has apriori knowledge of both (1) and (2), Oscar can then usemodus ponens to know apriori that:

3. E obtains.

ButE is an environmental condition that presumably can onlybe known empirically. So EXT and SK apparently lead to an absurd sortof apriori knowledge, and are thus incompatible. (Henceforth, callthis argument “the reductio.”)

Before we consider the compatibilist’s replies, twoclarifications of the reductio is in order. First, as emphasized byByrne (2018, pp. 8–11), the reductio is a threat to Oscar’speculiar access to his own thought rather than hisprivileged access. (McKinsey’s own text may conflatethe two.) Even if (1) is true, it may be that Oscar remains in abetter position to know (2) than anyone else, which would besufficient for a kind of privileged access. So the real concern forEXT is that if (1) is true, it is dubious that Oscar has aspecial way of knowing (2) which outside observers do nothave. If (1) is true, then the worry is that Oscar can know his ownthoughts only in a non-peculiar, non-apriori manner, much like the theway that others know what he is thinking (through empiricalobservation of his behavior). So if EXT is true, it is only peculiaraccess (not privileged access) that is under immediate threat. Oscarmight still have better access to his own thoughts; yet since hecannot know (3) apriori, EXT would suggest that his knowledge of (2)cannot be achieved by any special apriori means.

A second clarification: It may be unclear whether EXT entails (1) inthe first place (whether apriori or not). However, if EXT is derivedfrom one of the causal theories of content (from section1), then acquiring the water concept necessitates causally interactingwith water (if only via your linguistic community). (See McGinn 1989,ch. 1 passim, McCullough 1999, but contrast with McLaughlin & Tye1998a, Ball 2007.) Thus, possessing the concept requires the existenceof water, meaning that the view entails (1). Even so, if theincompatibilist wants to add that (1) is entailedapriori,she would need the contentious premise that some causal theory ofcontent is entirely apriori.

So on a more charitable reading, the incompatibilist’s reductiodoes not target an externalism based on a causal theory. It is ratherdirected at a view based solely on the Twin Earth thought experiments,given that the experiments are more naturally seen as apriori. (Butsee Baker 2007.) For the remainder of section 2,‘externalism’ and ‘EXT’ shall referexclusively to this kind of Twin Earth based externalism.

2.1 Reply 1: Environmental Implications are Empirical

Yet it may remain unclear whether EXT is committed to (1). For thethought experiments alone do not assume that water isnecessary for water thoughts (Brueckner 1992). The thoughtexperiments indeed assume that suitable interaction with water issufficient for Oscar to have water thoughts. They also assumethat Twin Oscar’s interactions with XYZ are insufficient. Butthis does not yet imply that interacting with water is theonly way that someone can arrive at water thoughts.

However, this assumes thatE is a condition where waterexists (or existed at one time). Yet the incompatibilist’sreductio need not assume that (McKinsey 1994; 2002; 2007). One canfirst see the incompatibilist as presenting a dilemma, correspondingto two ways that EXT might be interpreted. On the first reading, EXTholds that a water thoughtlogically orconceptuallyimplies some environmental conditionE. Yet for theincompatibilist, logical or conceptual implications are apriori. So ifEXT on this first reading is true, (1) is apriori (and nothing hereprejudges whatE is).^[12]

Even so, the first reading is not the usual interpretation of EXT. Ona more standard construal, EXT holds that a water thoughtmetaphysically implies some environmental conditionE. Yet metaphysical implications, e.g., that “water iswet” implies “H₂O is wet,” are not alwaysapriori. (See Kripke 1972 and the entry onRigid Designators). So the apriority of (1) is not guaranteed here, and the reductioseems in doubt.

Yet incompatibilists reply that the second reading cannot be what isreally intended. For it renders EXT into somethingtrivial—it is obvious that Oscar’s water thoughtsmetaphysically imply a number of external conditions, e.g., that Oscarwas born (McKinsey, 1994; 2002; 2007, Rowlands 2003). But EXT issupposed to be more substantive than that. Compatibilists reply,however, that the thought experiments suggest that a water thoughtmetaphysically implies somecontent specific environmentalcondition, such as the existence ofwater (Brueckner1995).

So the way seems clear for the compatibilist to reject the apriorityof (1). But as before, the incompatibilist may respond that we areillicitly assumingE to be the condition simply that waterexists. Yet the strongest version of the reductio may not assume that.One might instead understandE as follows:

4. E = Water or a community using the water concept exists(or, existed) (Brown 1995, Boghossian 1997).

IfE is identified as this disjunctive condition, it is morebelievable that (1) is apriori under EXT. And if that is believed, thereductio then presses that EXT permits apriori knowledge thateither wateror a community exists. Yet that tooshould not be apriori.

But assuming (4), why would EXT render (1) apriori? Granted, manyexternalists find it apriori plausible that besides interacting withwater, Oscar could acquire the water concept from other communitymembers. That suggests that if Oscar has acquired the concept, (4)must be true. However, some externalists conjecture that there areother conditions under which the water concept can be acquired. Evenif Oscar is socially isolated and lives in a waterless environment, hecan conceivably arrive at the concept by hypothesizing theH₂O molecule (Burge 1982). If this cannot be ruled outapriori, then EXT does not secure the apriority of (1)—even if(4) is assumed.

Yet incompatibilists reply that (ironically)these veryreflections reveal apriori something that should not be apriori(Brown 1995, Boghossian 1997). Namely:If Oscar is aware thathe has no such hypotheses (i.e., if he is “agnostic” aboutchemical essences), then (1) must be knowable apriori. In more detail,if Oscar is agnostic about chemistry and knows that apriori abouthimself, he can use the reflections above to know apriori that hiswater thoughts metaphysically require the existence of water or acommunity. From there, apriori knowledge ofE seemsimminent.

Nevertheless, the compatibilist’s opening objection lingers:Nothing yet shows that theonly ways to acquire waterthoughts, under EXT, are in the ways catalogued so far (Ball 2007).For all that has been shown, it remains possible that essence-agnosticOscar is socially isolated and his water thoughts reference no naturalkind. (See also Gallois & Hawthorne 1996, Gallois 2008, andMcLaughlin & Tye 1998a, b, c.)

But perhaps additional apriori considerations can rule this out (Brown1995). Suppose that Oscar has the concept of a sofa and knowledgeablyapplies the concept in a variety of cases. Yet assume he is agnosticon whether the concept applies to broad overstuffed armchairs. Then,if Oscar has no community to settle the matter, EXT may suggest thatOscar’s concept isindeterminate in what it refers to.And that seems odd.

However, the compatibilist may ask why this is supposed to be aproblem (McLaughlin & Tye, 1998a, b, c). The indeterminacy mayshow only that Oscar’s concept isvague and not thatOscar fails to possess any concept whatsoever. (Brown 2001 replies bydefining ‘agnostic’ so it applies only if the concept isnon-vague. Yet Brown 2004, ch. 8 concedes that Oscar then can nolonger know apriori if he is “agnostic.”) So, here too, itseems that EXT does not reveal apriori that water thoughtsmetaphysically require a content specific environmental condition.

2.2 Reply 2: Externalism about Empty Concepts

Still, it may remain intuitively compelling that a Twin Earth thoughtexperiment, if cogent, would show (1) apriori—even ifEis just the condition where water exists.^[13] For the experiments seem to show apriori that, to have the bona fidewater concept, the concept must be non-empty, i.e., itsreferent must exist. However, a compatibilist can counter this byoffering a semantics of empty concepts that is consonant with EXT(Stoneham 1999, Sawyer 2003, Goldberg 2006b, Haukioja 2006, Parent2017, ch. 4; see also Pryor 2007, pp. 184–185). Even so, thereare two arguments in the literature suggesting that any externalistview of empty concepts must fail (Boghossian 1997; 1998, Segal 2000,Besson 2012).

On its face, empty-concept externalism can be supported by a TwinEarth thought experiment (Boghossian 1997).^[14] Consider “Dry Earth”—a planet exactly like ours,except wherever water occurs on Earth, there are only watery lookingholograms (though Dry Earthians mistake these for a real kind). Theintuition is that unlike Oscar, Dry Oscar uses ‘water’ toexpress an empty concept. And if Dry Oscar is not referring to water,then as before, the Frege-Carnap view implies that his concept has adifferent intension or content. So even for empty concepts, contentseems determined partly by facts about the environment (includingfacts about what isabsent from the environment).

However, carrying this further may lead to absurdity, sinceexternalism about empty concepts can suggest that a concept’sform is sensitive to the environment (Boghossian 1997; 1998).Suppose, as is plausible, that empty concepts have adescriptive form—so that (e.g.) the unicorn concept isunderstood as the concept “horse with a horn.” For mostexternalists, this contrasts with our concept of water which does nothave a descriptive form, but is rather atomic. If that is correct,then Dry Oscar expresses a descriptive concept when using‘water’, whereas Oscar expresses an atomic one. In whichcase, the environmental difference creates a difference inform as well as content. But that is strange, since formseems to be a purely syntactic matter, fixed entirely by what’sin the head.

At least one compatibilist has tried embracing environment-dependentsyntax, though he concedes it is an uncomfortable view (Ludlow 2003;2011). At the least, such a stance would seem ad hoc (Besson 2012).Others question the “supervenience principle” in theargument, viz., that a difference in form necessitates a difference ininternal state (Corbí 1998, Brown 1999, Korman 2006, Parent2015a, 2017, ch. 4). Further argument has been offered for thisprinciple (Boghossian 1998), yet such arguments may beg the questionby presupposing a Chomskian, internalist notion of logical form(Parent 2015a, 2017, ch. 4).

However this issue unfolds, externalism about empty concepts faces afurther challenge (Segal 2000, pp. 54–56). Consider: Either theexternalist sees the unicorn-concept as necessarily empty or not.^[15] If the former, then the view implies that unicorns are impossibleobjects, like round squares. And that is rather counterintuitive (yetsee Kripke 1972 on unicorns). But taking the other horn (sorry), acontingently empty concept would have its content fixed by descriptorslike “horse with a horn.” In this case, EXT seems false.For the constancy of the descriptors guarantees that the concept hasthe same content in every possible world, whether or not it containsunicorns (Segal 2000; see also Besson 2012). (But for replies, seeKorman 2006 and Parent 2015a, 2017, ch. 4.)

2.3 Reply 3: Transmission Failure

If externalism about empty concepts fails, then EXT may well entail(1) apriori, per the incompatibilist’s reductio. But acompatibilist could try a different line of resistance. She mightsimply grant that (1) and (2) are apriori, but still try to blockapriori knowledge of (3). (Here too,E is assumed to be justthe condition where water exists, though it is believed that similarpoints hold if (4) is true instead.) The most prominent strategy ofthis type is to deny the “transmission of warrant” thatsupposedly occurs in the deduction of (3) from (1) and (2) (hereafter,“the deduction”). The idea is that, even if theexternalist agrees that (1) and (2) are warranted, none of thiswarrant “transmits” to (3) in the deduction (Davies 1998;2000; 2003a; 2003b, Wright 2000a; 2000b; 2003; 2011; 2102; 2015; seealso Wright 1985). If so, the deduction cannot furnish aprioriknowledge of (3), pace the incompatibilist.

For brevity, let us call the advocate of transmission failure“the advocate.” Then, the advocate’s core idea isthat even though (1) and (2) entail (3), they do notprove(3). For in brief, the “proof” seems question begging (cf.McLaughlin 2000). ‘Question begging’, however, may not bethe right word here (Beebee 2001, Prichard 2002, Silins 2011). Still,the idea is that (3) in some sense is presupposed, once the deductiongets started. If such circularity is operative, then the deductioncannot create any warrant for (3), much less prove it. Or in theadvocate’s idiom, the warrant for (1) and (2) cannottransmit to (3) in virtue of the deduction.

As a satisficing approximation,^[16] the transmission of warrant generally occurs iff:

(TW)	If a subjectS is warranted in believingp andis warranted in believing thatp entailsq (andS further recognizes thatq follows deductively fromthese beliefs)—thenS acquires, potentially for thefirst time, a warrant in believingq. (Cf. Wright 2000a, p.140–141.)

Yet (TW) should be distinguished from epistemic closure, as discussedby some anti-skeptics (e.g., Dretske 1970). Some compatibilists thinkthat the reductio also exemplifies a failure of epistemic closure (seeBernecker 2000, Hale 2000, Sawyer 2006, although see Sawyer 2015 for a“contrastive” account that upholds closure). Regardless,transmission failure is a different affair, if only because epistemicclosure concerns “knowledge” rather than“warrant.” Nevertheless, warrant transmission differs evenfrom the “closure of warrant,” characterized asfollows:

(CW)	IfS is warranted in believingp and warrantedin believing thatp entailsq, thenS iswarranted in believingq (or is able to be thuswarranted).

The difference between transmission and warrant closure is best seenin cases of question begging. Take an overtly circular argument whichconcludes (3) using (3) as a premise. Trivially, anyone warranted inbelieving the premise is warranted in believing the conclusion. So(CW) is satisfied in this case. But the argument does nottransmit warrant to its conclusion; it cannot bestow anywarrant on (3) that was not already there. From a different angle, aperson cannot use the argument to gain knowledge of (3)for thevery first time. Hence, warrant fails to transmit onto theconclusion, even though warrant closure holds trivially.^[17]

The advocate thus cries “transmission failure” in relationto (1)–(3), on the grounds that (3) is“presupposed.” Yet in this case, the presupposition chargeis not as straightforward. For clarity’s sake, let us call (1)and (2) the “*premises” of the deduction, to contrast themwith the premises of the reductio. (The latter are stronger inclaiming that the former are apriori.) Then, the advocate bases thepresupposition charge on the following: An externalist can rationallygrant that the *premises are warranted only if she has certain“background assumptions” whichalready imply (3).The point is sometimes framed in terms of “informationdependence:” An externalist who grants warrant to the *premises“rationally requires certain collateral information” thatincludes (3) (Wright 2000a, p. 149). Consequently, anexternalist’s “acceptance of those [background]assumptions cannot be rationally combined with doubt about the truthof [(3)]” (Davies 2003a, p. 43, but contrast Davies 2000, p.402).

For simplicity (since rational externalists are the only ones we careabout), assume henceforth that “the externalist” isrational. Then, the presupposition charge is most readily appreciatedvia the following approximation:^[18] When considering the reductio,

B(3)	An externalist grants that the *premises are warranted only if(3) is already among herBackground assumptions.

Note: B₍₃₎ is a “second order” thesis about thedialectics of the reductio; the antecedent is a condition where theexternalistgrants that the *premises are warranted(regardless of whether theyare warranted). ThusB₍₃₎ says that the externalist will be presuming (3), ifshe concedes warrant to the *premises in the first place. It is inthis sense that (3) is presupposed once the deduction is mobilized,resulting in transmission failure.

An argument for B₍₃₎ has yet to be given, but there are twoon offer. The first opens with the remark that, since EXT requireswater for thinking “water is wet” (as all parties arecurrently allowing), the same is true of the self-attributing thought“I’m thinking that water is wet.” (Davies 20002003a, 2003b). However, if a person regards this metaphysical claim aswarranted along with (2) —then she cannot rationallyput (3) in doubt. For if the existence of water were in doubt, thengiven her warranted metaphysical claim, this rationally compels afurther doubt on whether thethought expressed by (2) existsin the first place. But the existence of the thought must beacknowledged before one can concede a warrant to it. So ourexternalist will rationally allow a warrant to both *premises only ifshe already assumes (3) as background, which is just whatB₍₃₎says.

The second argument we might attribute to a character called“Wrightgenstein” or just “W.” for short, sinceit originates in Crispin Wright’s interpretive work onWittgenstein. Qua externalist, W. acknowledges the possibility oferror in discerning one’s own mental contents, as when Dry Oscarmisjudges his empty concept to have a natural kind content. Even so,he sees no reason to surrender the warrant possessed by ordinaryjudgments about content. This parallels a natural view of perceptualjudgment: Even though perceptual illusions occur, ordinarily we stillpossess warrant for our perceptual judgments about the world. W.thinks this is because our ordinary perceptual and self-attributingjudgments enjoy a kind of “default” warrant. Such awarrant discounts the possibility of illusion, even when one hasgathered no supporting empirical evidence. Though if a reasonablesuspicion arises, the default no longer applies. But ordinarily ourjudgments are “presumed innocent” of error until proven(or at least evidenced to be) guilty; this in turn is rooted in ourcommunal practices, and is justified on pragmatic grounds (Wright2000a, p. 152–153).

All this is important for B₍₃₎, since if W. grants (2) awarrant in the absence of empirical investigation, it will be adefault warrant (at least in part). And this kind of warrant existsonly inordinary cases. Thus, he grants this warrant only ifhe assumes that there is no Dry Earth illusion where (3) merelyappears to be true. So in particular, in the context of the reductio,W. allows an apriori warrant to the *premises only if (3) is alreadyassumed as background. QED

Let us now consider some objections to transmission failure. Oneaccuses the advocate of conflating different types of warrant (Raffman1998, Sainsbury 2000). Note here that, if the deduction fails toprove the conclusion, this does not mean it transmits nowarrant at all. (Beebee 2001, Burge 2003). The objector accordinglysuggests that the deduction indeed transmits a warrant, though it is a“thinner” warrant, i.e., a warrant that is weaker thanwhat a proof would bestow. But if a thinner warrant transmits, thencontra the advocate, the deduction indeed confers some apriori warrant(albeit non-demonstrative warrant) onto (3). This, then, vindicates aversion of the reductio—for the intuition is that we cannotwarrant apriori a claim about the worldat all.

But is this intuition correct? To evaluate it we need further clarityon what a “thin” warrant is. Some understand this as thewarrant failing as a warrant for equivalent propositions. Forinstance, a non-empirical thin warrant for (2) may fail to warrant theextensionally equivalent ‘I am thinking that H₂O iswet’ (Davies 2003b, p. 114 and 118). Alternatively,“thinness” for W. may reflect that the warrant is notsomethingearned by gathering empirical or proof-theoreticevidence. It is instead just a defeasible “entitlement”that holds only in the ordinary cases (Wright 2003).

If the latter is what “thinness” consists in, then anadvocate could try to grant the transmission of a thinnerwarrant—but still emphasize that transmission failure is therule when the warrants are thicker (Davies 2003b, but compare Wright2003, p. 72). Yet an advocate might take a stronger stance by doubtingwhetherany thinner warrants transmits. After all, thisputative warrant dissipates immediately once any earnest doubt israised (Wright 2000b, yet contrast with Wright 2003; 2011).

A different objection to the advocate is that, despite appearances,she ends up surrendering SK after all. This is because (3) isempirical and it is conceded that (2) presupposes (3) (cf. Wright2000, p. 151–152). And so, it is hard to see how (2) can bewarranted purely apriori if it presupposes empirical facts about theworld.

In response, at least one externalist has relinquished aprioriknowledge of (2), but emphasizes that some self-knowledge stillremains apriori (Rowlands 2003, ch. 8). In particular, an externalistcould still know apriori that:

5. IfE obtains, then I am thinking that water is wet.

But for his part, W. thinks apriori knowledge of (2) should not besurrendered. Instead, he claims we should not assume that the warrantfor (3) is inevitably empirical. For (3) ordinarily has anon-empirical “default” warrant. So given that (2)presupposes (3), a non-empirical warrant for (3) makes possible anapriori warrant for (2). Even so, W. is quick to remind us that adefault warrant for (3) is too “thin” toprove(3).

However, if the advocate grants an apriori warrant to (3), this maysuccumb already to the reductio (Brown 2003; 2004, Sawyer 2006,Brueckner 2006). For the absurdity was not that an apriori warranttransmits; instead, it was in thinking that (3) can be aprioriwarrantedat all.

Advocates can respond in two different ways here. One is to be neutralon whether (3) is apriori warranted. A neutral position may sufficefor the advocate’s purposes, since transmission failure occursif (3) ispresupposed, regardless of whether it is aprioriwarranted (Davies 2000). But such a response is not available to W.,for he clearly thinks that (3) ordinarily has a non-empirical warrant.Still, perhaps W. could soften this by reiterating that this is a“thin” warrant bestowed by default; it is not a warrantthat is transmitted onto (3) by the deduction.

A final worry for W. is that he is conflating the psychologicalphenomenon of SK with something merely linguistic or“grammatical” (Snowdon 2012). If an externalist wishes toexplain howknowledge of content is possible, why would sheappeal to alinguistic convention to illuminate the matter?It is clear, however, that W. never meant to forbid psychology fromhaving its say (Wright 2015, p.54). But it is possible that ourlinguistic practices for crediting self-knowledge have mislead usabout the psychological facts. An analogy with ethical expressivism ishelpful on this score (cf. Wright 2015, p. 55) Instead ofinvestigating the “real moral facts,” ethicalexpressivists try to account for moral discourse, precisely due to thesuspicion that the discourse may not be grounded in bona fide facts ofthe relevant sort. Similarly, there may be a suspicion in W. that arobust psychological phenomenon of “armchairself-knowledge” simply does not exist. Nonetheless, it may bedesirable for us to speak as if there was such knowledge, given ouraims and interests more broadly.

2.4 Reply 4: Self-Knowledge is Empirical

So far, the replies to the reductio have been “combative”in that they seek to undermine some tacit or explicit premise therein.Yet other responses are “concessive” in that they admitthat the reductio has a point. One concessive response is to rejectEXT in light of the reductio, though as we saw in section 1, EXT hasits own arguments to contend with. But a different concession,considered in this section, is to forgo SK. (There is also a“quasi-concessive” response, considered in section 2.5,where the apriority of (3) is simply embraced rather than rejected asabsurd.)

Some incompatibilists indeed take the lesson of the reductio to bethat SK is false (see, e.g., McKinsey 2002). The sentiment is oftenthat SK should have been highly suspect from the start. Jacob (2004)once expressed this well as follows:

[T]he contemporary philosophical situation is puzzling. On the onehand, few if any features of the special epistemic authority grantedby both the traditional empiricist and the traditional rationalistpictures of introspective self-knowledge have survived recentphilosophical scrutiny. On the other hand, severalphilosophers…assume that the alleged special epistemicauthority granted to introspective self-knowledge by traditionalepistemology can bear the burden of an argument against contentexternalism…I take externalism about the contents of anindividual’s thoughts…to be more plausible…thananything we may think about introspectiveself-knowledge…Imposing top down constraints…from theassumptions about the alleged epistemic status of introspectiveself-knowledge sounds to me like putting the cart before the horse.(pp. 401, 402)

This attitude is encouraged by research from empirical psychology,which suggests that self-knowledge is largely an illusion. (See forinstance Nisbett & Wilson 1977, Nisbett & Ross 1980, Gopnik1983.) However, even if the research shows we are often ignorant ofour own minds, it does not follow that this ismost often thecase. In fact, it has been argued that the current research does noteven preclude infallible self-directed judgments, such as thosedescribed in section3.1 (Parent 2016; 2017, ch. 2).

Still, there are other reasons to surrender SK, and this would be oneway to understand the lesson of the reductio. For instance, well-knownQuinean arguments exist against apriori knowledge, though this is notthe place to discuss these. (But see section 3 of the entry onQuine.) Ryle 1963, ch. 6 independently argued that self-knowledge is not apriori;such knowledge was instead achieved via empirical observation ofone’s own behavior. Yet many contemporary philosophers balk atthis, since it at least underestimate the “authority” thatOscar usually has in judging his own mental states (compared toothers’ judgments) (Boghossian 1989, pp. 7–8). On theother hand, given the psychological research mentioned above, aneo-Rylean view may provide just the right amount of first-personauthority, to the extent that Oscar observes more of his behavior thananyone else (Ludlow & Martin 1993; Martin 1994; McGeer 1996).

There is a more recent incarnation of this sort of view, supported bythe latest from cognitive science (Carruthers 2011). The claim is thatone interprets sensory input when attributing thoughts to oneself,just as in attributing thoughts to others. However, the “sensoryinput” behind self-attributions may include input frominteroception, proprioception, and the like. Nevertheless, the viewmaintains that interpretation of “input” is central inboth first-person and third-person attributions of thought, which cutsinto so called “first-person authority.”

A rather different line against SK derives from an externalist viewabout concept possession. This view hypothesizes that possession of a(non-empty) kind concept requires the ability to ostend ordemonstratively identify instances of the kind by perceptualmeans (Brewer 1999; 2000a; 2000b). If so, then to possess the waterconcept is already to know perceptually where (instances of) the stuffresides. That in turn normally suffices for knowing that water exists.So when it comes to the reductio, the absurdity stems from thinkingthat (2) is apriori, since knowledge of (2) already rests on knowledgeof (3). So one can hardly learn (3) for the first time via knowledgeof (2)—the learning proceeds in the other direction.

In the acquisition process, however, the role of demonstrativeidentification may be unclear. Nevertheless, a similar argumentagainst SK can be formulated as long assome kind ofempirical knowledge is needed to acquire the water concept. Indeed, itis typically assumed that a person acquires a concept fromexperience—which already portends that acquisition depends onempirical knowledge. Yet if that’s right, then even knowledge of(2) has an empirical basis, since possession of the water conceptdoes. Hence, knowledge of (2) does not qualify as purely apriori .

In response, a defender of SK may concede that there is a“training period” for acquiring a concept. Still, aprioriknowledge might be possible in that, once the subject has acquired therelevant concepts, she can use them to gainnew knowledgewithout further empirical inquiry (Boghossian & Peacocke 2000, p.2). But one problem is that EXT usually portrays concept possession ina way that blurs the distinction between the “trainingphase” and the post-acquisition phase (Hawthorne 2007, p. 213).For the externalist thought experiments allow a subject to possess(e.g.) the sofa concept even prior to being “trained” thatno armchair is a sofa.^[19]

A final line against SK is that, if (1) is not apriori (as isplausible), it follows that apriori knowledge of (2) is impossible(Gertler 2004). After all, if (1) is not apriori, then Oscarapparently cannot discriminate apriori between his water concept andthe Dry Earthian concept. So it seems incorrect to say that (2) issomethingknown. Now in fact, this raises the extremelyimportant question of whether such discriminations are necessary forself-knowledge, but further discussion will be delayed until section3. The discrimination sub-literature usually addresses the “slowswitching” arguments rather than the incompatibilist’sreductio.

2.5 Reply 5: A Transcendental Argument?

The last response to the reductio is to deny that the argument is areductio at all. Instead, this compatibilist embraces that EXT and SKfacilitate armchair knowledge of the world. Some externalists haveeven offered independent arguments to that effect (Putnam 1981). Butthese independent arguments are significantly more complex, having todo with model theory and Skolem’s “paradox.” Suchthings shall not be discussed here (but see the entry onskepticism and content externalism).

Yet as concerns the incompatibilist’s reductio, it is unclear ifany externalist accepts it as an anti-skeptical argument (though seePeacocke 1996, p. 152). Even if one believes thatsometranscendental argument can succeed against skepticism, it is hard tobelieve that theincompatibilist’s reductio is a casein point (cf. Davies 1998, p. 353).

Be that as it may, Warfield (1998) and Sawyer (1998) are ofteninterpreted as embracing the reductio qua anti-skeptical argument. Butthe fact is that Warfield is mostly addressing Putnam’s (1981)argument. (Warfield mentions the reductio in passing, but he endorsesBrueckner’s 1992 compatibilism from section2.1, instead of a transcendentalist reply.)

Sawyer, moreover, explicitly discourages those who interpret her(1998) as embracing the reductio as an anti-skeptical argument:“Remarks by others indicate that in general the question ofwhether externalist arguments yield apriori warrants for beliefs aboutenvironmental conditions is seen as synonymous with the questionwhether we have an apriori refutation of external world skepticism. Ido not see the questions as synonymous” (2006, p. 150). Instead,Sawyer’s view seems similar to that of W., where speakers aregiven a prima facie (albeit quite defeasible) warrant when ascribingtheir own mental contents. Granted, Sawyer allows that given EXT, sucha non-empirical warrant can be transmitted to (3).^[20] But it is not the kind of warrant that suffices to undermineskepticism; the warrant is rather of the “thin” variety,noted at the end of section2.3. Nevertheless, although Sawyer’s view is not as radical as manyhave thought, she would face similar obstacles as W.

3. Slow Switching Arguments

We have explored one argument against the joint truth of EXT and SK,namely, the reductio to armchair knowledge of the world. But there isa further group of arguments to the same incompatibilist end. Sucharguments rest on a different thought experiment, the “slowswitching” experiment, to bolster the incompatibility of EXT andSK. In brief, the new thought experiment suggests that under EXT,self-attributions of thought content are not sufficientlydiscriminating to vindicate SK.

The slow switch thought experiment again features Oscar onEarth—yet this time, we suppose he is unwittinglyswitched to Twin Earth (e.g., during his sleep by a secretgovernment operative) (Burge 1988, Boghossian 1989). Upon his arrival,he then takes up his usual activities, being none the wiser. Now theexternalist’s intuition is that although Oscar’s useof‘water’ on Twin Earth initially refers to water onEarth, over time it comes to denote XYZ. (The switch is thus a“slow” one.) After all, Oscar will acquire the habit ofusing ‘water’ in the presence of XYZ, and of using‘water’ to converse with Twin Earthians about the stuff.Yet if ‘water’ changes its referent, then (by the earlierFrege-Carnap view) this signals a shift in intension or content. Andthe change in content can occur without Oscar noticing. Indeed itseems Oscarcannot detect the switch just from thearmchair.

What this indicates is that Oscar is unable to discriminate from thearmchair whether assertions using ‘water’ have a watercontent versus a twin water content. As with the original Twin Earthexample, the lesson here is extended tomental content aswell. Hence, if a “water thought” is one that Oscarexpresses with help from the term ‘water’, the slow switchexperiment indicates that:

1. Oscar cannot discriminate from the armchair that his water thoughthas a water content rather than a twin water content.

His inability to discriminate, moreover, seems pertinent to SK. AsBurge (1988, p. 653) puts it, (A) can easily suggest that SK is falsein Oscar’s case, i.e.:

2. Oscar cannot know from the armchair what content his water thoughthas.

Generalizing from this, (B) suggests that SK ends up false if EXT istrue.

In section3.1, we shall see that Burge denies that (A) entails (B). Yet in light ofhis resistance, Boghossian (1989) formulates a different version ofthe slow switch argument. This second version, known as thememoryargument, runs as follows. As before, suppose Oscar unwittinglyis subject to a slow-switch, so that the concept he expresses with‘water’ att₁ denotes water, and theconcept he expresses att₂ denotes twin water.Then, ifp is a thought that Oscar uses ‘water’in expressing, the memory argument runs as follows (adapted fromLudlow 1993a):

1. If Oscar forgets nothing, then what Oscar knows att₁, Oscar knows att₂.
2. Oscar forgot nothing.
3. Oscar does not know att₂ that he thinksp.
4. So, Oscar does not know att₁ that he thinksp. [from (a)-(c)]

Premise (a) is seen as a platitude about memory (though some denythis; see section3.3). Premise (b) is regarded as stipulative, and premise (c) is thought tobe the lesson of the slow switch experiment. The thinking behind (c)is this: Even if Oscar knows his water thoughts att₁, yet these morph into twin water thoughts att₂, he no longer knows att₂about anywater thoughts. For Oscar no longerhaswater thoughts att₂.

There are further variations on these slow switch arguments.What’s more, there ends up being multiple interpretations of theinitial thought experiment. (See the supplementary document,Variations on Slow Switching, for more details.) Nonetheless, all variations embody the same basicthought: If EXT is true, then in a slow switch Oscar cannotdistinguish from the armchair a water content from a twin content.This then forms the basis for why EXT precludes SK. Given the twotypes of slow switch argument, note that sections3.3 addresses only the second type, the memory argument. The remainingsections, however, plausibly have some bearing on both types ofargument.

3.1 Reply 1: Self-Verifying Judgments

As concerns the (A) to (B) maneuver, Burge protests that this glossesover an especially secure type of armchair self-knowledge. The claimis that some judgments about one’s own thought contents (a.k.a.,“second order” judgments) areself-verifying.Roughly, these are judgments where “thinking makes itso”—where judging “I am now thinking thatp” is enough to make ittrue that one is now thinkingthatp. Importantly, however, this self-verifying feature islimited to one’soccurrent thinking ofp (incontrast to any standing or dispositional thoughts).

To illustrate the self-verifying feature, consider the judgment:

(W)	I am thinking, with this very thought, that water is wet.

Burge’s idea is that in executing this judgment, one “runsthrough” the very thought that the judgment is about. That is,judging (W) necessitates thinking the thought that water iswet—and thinking this thought is precisely what (W) contends. Sothe very act of judging (W) suffices to render the judgment true. Itis in that sense that the judgment is self-fulfilling orself-verifying. Besides Burge, self-verifying judgments were toutedaround the same time by Davidson (1987; 1988) and Heil (1988; 1992),though others have subsequently embraced them as well (e.g., Falveyand Owens 1994, Gibbons 1996, Bar-On 2004, Parent 2007, 2017, chs. 3and 7).

Nevertheless, the suggestion that certain judgments areinfallible can seem exceedingly strong. But for one,infallibility does not imply that the judgment isindubitable. A judgment could de facto be perfectly reliable,yet the subject might still have some unanswered questions about it.Second, it is crucial that ‘thinking’ is construedminimally, in that to “think” thatp is notnecessarily tobelieve thatp.“Thinking” thatp just means having some mentalstate or other with the contentp —it does not implyany particularattitude toward that content.

In light of things like Freudian repression, it can be easy to dismissBurge’s view. But it is important that it pertains only to alimited class of rather atypical judgments. For instance, it appliesonly when the second-order judgment contains a“self-referential” mechanism, expressed in (W) by thephrase ‘with this very thought’.^[21] Moreover, the infallibility concerns occurrent judgments thatattribute theco-occurrent first-order thought. And thejudgment that (W) can be true even if the subject’s mind alsoharbors, consciously or unconsciously, a variety of otherthoughts.

Although self-verifying judgments are atypical, Burge still thinksthey are sufficient to block the inference from (A) to (B). Forapparently, they provide a kind of Cartesian access to one’s ownthought-contents—meaning that (B) is false even if (A) is true.Granted, self-verifying judgments are a rarefied kind of judgment, sothe view is not satisfying as a general view of self-knowledge(Boghossian 1989, pp. 19–22). Still, the main goal was to blockthe inference from (A) to (B), and self-verifying judgments seem to dothat.

Quite a detailed literature has ensued concerning self-verifyingjudgments; the interested reader is directed to the supplementaldocuments,The Epistemic Status of Self-Verifying Judgments, andA Problem with Critical Reasoning.

3.2 Reply 2: Relevant Alternatives

A different reply to slow switch arguments may have seemed obviousfrom the start. It is that the slow switch thought experiment is abizarre piece of science fiction, and is simply irrelevant to whetherwe know our own thoughts from the armchair. After all, unlikeOscar,we are not the victims of covert switches. So howcould the experiment bear on our capacity for armchairself-knowledge?

The point is often framed in terms of a “relevantalternatives” epistemology (cf. Goldman 1976; 1986). Thesuggestion is that in order to know thatp, one does not needto rule outevery possible scenario where ~p.Rather, it suffices just to rule out the “relevantalternatives” where ~p. And ordinarily, deviantskeptical possibilities are not among the relevant alternatives that aknower needs to exclude. Thus, while driving along the countryside,one can ordinarily know if one sees a barn—even withoutexcluding the possibility of a mere barn façade. For barnfaçades are ordinarily irrelevant. In the same way, slow switchpossibilities ordinarily are irrelevant to knowing what content athought has (Warfield 1992, Falvey & Owens 1994, Gibbons 1996,Brown 2004, ch. 2). Accordingly, it is normally unnecessary to ruleout such a possibility in order to know from the armchair one’sown thought.

But what determines relevance exactly? A popular answer comes from theepistemic contextualists (DeRose 1995; 2009, Lewis 1998; see also theentry onepistemic contextualism). Contextualism in the first instance is a view about knowledge, yet itimplies that whether an alternative is relevant is determined by theevidential standards in the context. Consider that in orderto know whether it is raining, normally one can just take a look outthe window. When engaging a Cartesian skeptic, however, that isinsufficient. For the skeptic “raises the bar” on theevidence needed to know by imagining bizarre alternatives that hewants ruled out, e.g., the possibility that you are dreaming.Similarly, some compatibilists regard slow switching as a bizarreskeptical possibility which makes exceedingly high the evidentialstandards for knowledge (Hohwy 2002; Neta 2003 is also pertinent). Soif context makes that possibility relevant, one may lose the abilityto self-know from the armchair. Still, if switching possibilities areirrelevant, contextualism says that even an externalist can know herown thoughts from the armchair.

When first championing the memory argument, Boghossian (1989) notedthe reply from relevant alternatives, yet maintained that the slowswitch experiment still shows a conflict between EXT and SK. For onecan imagine cases where slow switchingis a relevantalternative. And in those cases, one could not rule out thispossibility just from the armchair. Even the relevant alternativesaccount denies the externalist armchair self-knowledge in such ascenario. Still, why does this reveal a problem withourself-knowledge? If slow switching actually occurred on a regularbasis, it would be a relevant alternative that could not be excludedfrom the armchair, and the externalist would lose SK. But toacknowledge a possible scenario of this sort does not mean that EXTand SK areincompatible (Warfield 1992). It shows merely thatif EXT is true, self-knowledge isnot necessarily withinreach from the armchair.

In reply, some incompatibilists subversively suggest that switchesdo occur on a regular basis (Ludlow 1995b; Butler 1997). Insection1, we saw that one “Twin Earth” scenario might occur in theactual world: Recall the superficially indiscernible extensions of‘chicory’ and ‘endive’, which are swappedbetween British and Standard American English. An American ex-patriotthus could be unwittingly fooled into denoting chicory when speakingor thinking about “endive.” Still, this seems like anatypical case. But to the contrary, the potential for an undetectedswitch might be as common as the potential for polysemy in thelanguage (Ludlow 1995b). Consider that between different philosophicalcircles, the term ‘pragmatism’ denotes different yetsuperficially similar philosophical theses. So thanks to unnoticedswitches between subgroups, one might be fooled into saying orbelieving things about different kinds of pragmatism. Such variationamong linguistic subgroups seems entirely commonplace. It is theprevalence of these switches, moreover, that makes themrelevant even if no actual switch occurs in a given instance.

In her defense, a compatibilist can observe that these cases are notcases ofslow switching, and the usual view is that contentsdo not change in a “quick switch.” (Though theindividuation of some cognitive processes may switch immediately; seeClark & Chalmers 1998). Yet even if slow switches regularly occur,this still does not show that EXT and SK are incompatible (Warfield1997). It might mean that EXT and SK are not jointly true in ourworld. Nevertheless, they still might hold in some other possibleworld; so no incompatibility strictly follows.

Regardless, it may be troubling enough if an externalist cannotactually have armchair self-knowledge (Ludlow 1997). It isstandardly agreed, moreover, that the externalist should concede onetype of armchair self-knowledge—namely, knowledge that isdiscriminatory between water contents and twin contents, a.k.a.“comparative knowledge” of content (Falvey & Owens1994; see also Mendola 2008). But this may not be a huge concession,since one may remain capable of knowing a self-verifying judgment that(W) from the armchair, absent any comparisons with twin contents.Besides, there is independent reason to reject such comparativeknowledge anyway (see Owens 1990; 1992).

A different issue is that if a compatibilist concedes SK when switchesare relevant, she may be conceding too much (Goldberg 2006a). Forthere is a persistent Cartesian intuition that armchair self-knowledgeshould be unaffected by skeptical hypotheses about the external world.FollowingMeditation Two, even if an evil demon is deceivingme, it still seems I can know what I am currently thinking. Yet theslow switch experiment suggests that this Cartesian intuition ismistaken. For if a slow switch hypothesis is relevant, then even arelevant alternatives epistemology demands that we discriminate waterthoughts from twin water thoughts. Yet one is unable to do so from thearmchair. So apparently, some deviant hypotheses about the externalworldcan undermine armchair knowledge of one’s ownoccurrent thoughts, contra the Cartesian intuition. Somethingimportant about armchair self-knowledge may be lost.

But a relevant alternatives compatibilist might still rescue theCartesian intuition. First, note that in many slow switch arguments,the issue is not whether Oscarknows that he thinks thatp from the armchair; rather, it is whether Oscarknowswhat he thinks. And unlike ascriptions of “knowledgethat,” ascriptions of “knowledge what” areappropriate only relative to one’sgoals orpurposes in a context (Boër & Lycan 1986, Braun2006, DeRose 2009, ch. 2, appendix).^[22] Hence, whether it is apt to say “Oscar knows what hethinks” partly depends on contextually salient goals orpurposes. Granted, if Oscar’s goal is to discriminate between acontent and a twin content, then he cannot “know what” hethinks from the armchair. However, it may be that for otheranti-skeptical purposes, Oscar can indeed “know what”(Parent 2015b, 2017, chs. 5 and 10). For instance, suppose the skepticchallenges Oscar on whether he knows the truth of anything withcertainty. Then, if Oscar points to his self-verifying judgment (W)(“I am thinking forthwith that water is wet”) this couldcount as meeting the challenge. It is a case where thetruthof his judgment is certain, even if itscontent is inquestion. So at least relative to that goal, Oscar may know what hethinks (Parent 2015b, 2017, ch. 5).

Before closing this section, it is worth noting that compatibilistssometimes prefer not to insist on the irrelevance of slow switches,but rather to contest whether their relevance undercuts armchairself-knowledge (Falvey & Owens 1994, Gibbons 1996, Butler 1997,McLaughlin & Tye 1998a, Vahid 2003, Brown 2004, Morvarid 2015). Avariety of inferential principles might lead to theincompatibilist’s conclusion from the relevance of slowswitching. As a more noteworthy example, the principle here might besome kind of “truth tracking” condition; cf. Nozick 1981(Falvey & Owens 1994). On this approach, the slow switch argumentassumes that (W) does not express knowledge, since the subject S failsto track the truth in the following sense:

(TC)	S ’s justification for the belief thatpis such that, if some relevant alternative were true instead,S would still believe thatp.

According to (TC),S fails to know since her justificationwould not divert her judgment, in a relevant scenario where thejudgment is false. However, if this is the principle operative in thearguments, it seems they can be resisted (Falvey & Owens 1994).Plausibly, we donot satisfy (TC) when it comes toself-verifying judgments (see section3.1). For if we consider a counterfactual where I have twin water thoughtsin lieu of water thoughts, Icannot believe I have waterthoughts. A self-attribution expressed as “I am thinking thatwater is wet” would inevitably attribute a twin water thoughtinstead. My self-attribution “tracks the truth” perfectlyin the counterfactual circumstances.

3.3 Reply 3: Externalism about Memory

Let us now focus our attention on the second version of the slowswitch argument, a.k.a. the memory argument, which is repeated herefor the reader’s convenience. Wheret₂ is atime after a slow switch, andt₁ is a time before,then:

1. If Oscar forgets nothing, then what Oscar knows att₁, Oscar knows att₂.
2. Oscar forgot nothing.
3. Oscar does not know att₂ that he thinksp.
4. So, Oscar does not know att₁ that he thinksp. [from (a)-(c)]

(Slow-switching is a relevant alternative here, since it is assumedthat Oscar actually is slow-switched.) Now as one might expect, eachof the premises have been challenged by various compatibilists.Regarding (a), some reject the suggestion that even ifp wasknown att₁, rememberingp does not implyknowing it att₂ (Bernecker 2010, ch. 3).But even if remembering implies knowing, there are other ways Oscarcan lose knowledge besides forgetting (Brueckner 1997a; Burge 1998, n.18). For instance, suppose Oscar knows he is driving through acountryside with at least one barn, but somedefeatingcondition is introduced (e.g., he enters Barn FaçadeCounty). Then, he may no longerknow att₂ that there is a barn in his environs, even ifhe truly believes it. That’s because, although nothing has beenforgotten, a defeating condition exists att₂ thatwas absent att₁.

An incompatibilist might try to stipulate that Oscar meets all theconditions needed to knowp on the basis of memory. However,the compatibilist can reply that this is inconsistent with Oscar beingslow switched (Brueckner 1997a). For a slow switchis adefeating condition, akin to entering Barn Façade County. Inthat case, the incompatibilist’s argument does not even getstarted.

Alternatively, a compatibilist can attack the portrayal of memorysuggested by the argument. Here, one might claim that Oscar’smemory content is partly determinednot by the Earthlyenvironment in which the memory was formed. Rather, memory content isconditioned by the environment in whichrecall occurs (Ludlow1995a; 1996; 1999; Gibbons 1996; Tye 1998; Bernecker 1998). This meansthat, even if knowledge of a water thought was initially stored inmemory, what is “recalled” on Twin Earth is a twin waterthought. If so, then a slow switch causes a kind of memory failure,since the knowledge initially stored in memory is not what isrecalled. (N.B., memories of second-order thoughts are the mostdialectically relevant here, though the literature often usesfirst-order memories as examples, cf. Kraay 2002.)

This view of memory as “shifty” between differentenvironments may be a consequence of EXT. Apparently, we can just aseasily construct a Putnam-style thought experiment about Oscar’sand Twin Oscar’s memories (Ludlow 1995a; 1996; 1999;). Moreover,in the slow switch experiment, the presumption is that Oscar’swater thoughtsgenerally change over to twin waterthoughts—including whatever (first- or second-order) thoughtsare stored in memory.

It may be quite unintuitive to see memory in this way, and we shallattend to objections shortly. But it is worth noting that the viewallows an externalist to resist the memory argument. A compatibilistmight first grant that Oscar does not forget strictlyspeaking—after all, we can assume no neurological impairment hasoccurred in him. Yet she can add that Oscar loses some memory contentregardless, thanks to the slow switch. Even though Oscar does nottruly “forget,” he has still lost knowledge by a differentroute; premise (a) of the memory argument is thus false. (The“shifty” view of memory has waned in recent years;Bernecker 2004; 2010 relinquishes it in favor of something likeBurge’s 1998 view, described below. Ludlow 2004 trades it for aview where a memory is a temporally extended object, one which has“stages” that hosts different contents at different times.Yet see Burge 1998 n. 2 for remarks against such a view.)

The externalist view of memory can come as a shock; however, it mightenjoy some intuitive support (Tye 1998). For instance, suppose afterthe switch that Oscar judges:

W(†)	Water is the only thing I now drink; however, many years ago, Idrank water fortified by gin.

Since (W†) is judged after the slow switch, the initial use of‘water’ refers to XYZ. But does the second use of‘water’ refer to XYZ? It seems so, since (W†) iscomparing his current imbibing habits with the past. Such acomparison, of course, requires the liquid named in (W†) to beconstant. And since the initial use of ‘water’ denotesXYZ, the second use of ‘water’ must also. The upshot isthat after the switch, the second clause in (W†) expresses amemory that has “shifted” from water content to a twinwater content, as predicted by the compatibilist.

Still, the “shifty” view of memory remains controversial.Consider that if Oscar’s memory content is calibrated to TwinEarth, so to speak, then some thoughts stored in memory will shiftfrom beingtrue to beingfalse (Hofmann 1995 (OtherInternet Resources), Brueckner 1997a, Nagasawa 2000). Oscar on Earthexpresses a veridical memory when he asserts:

(W‡)	As a child, I thought that water was positivelyscrumptious.

However, after the slow switch, (W‡) self-attributes a twinwater thought—and that thought is false. So what was a genuinememory becomes displaced by a false memory.

Yet the objection may beg the question of how memory should function(Ludlow 1996). For the issue is precisely whether memory is supposedto preserve past contents across different environments. Thecounter-suggestion is that memory instead offers information aboutpast events, in terms pertinent to the present environment (Ludlow1996; 1999, Bernecker 1998). Ludlow (1999) provides an illustration:“If att₁ I believed it was possible todrown in water, memory will deliver at₂ beliefthat it is possible to drown in twater—and good thing, too!Twater is no less …dangerous than water” (p. 167).

As a second worry, if Oscar’s memory contents shift, has hereally forgotten nothing? A case can be made that the memory shiftsindeed constitute forgetting (Brueckner 1997a). For even though memoryoffers up a similar substitute content, it seems clear that Oscarfails to recall something aboutwater. Yet a failed attemptat recalljust means that Oscar “forgot.” If so,then it is premise (b) rather than (a) which is the culprit in thememory argument. (Even so, there may remain a different sense in whichOscar does not forget; Brueckner 1997a, n. 21; see also Kraay2002).

Nevertheless, it can be debated whether EXT entails the“shifty” theory of memory. When Burge first presented hisTwin Earth experiment, he conceded that it does not show thatall mental contents satisfy EXT (though it suggests that thatis typically so) (1979, p. 92, passim). The contents of memory thusmight be an exception. And indeed, Burge (1993; 1998) endorses theview that memory should “preserve” past thought contents.So in a slow switch case, Burge holds that Oscar’s properlyfunctioning memory preserves an Earthian thought content, so that thevery same content is available later for recall.

Accordingly, Burge rejects premise (c) of the memory argument: IfOscar truly forgot nothing, then preservative memory means he knows att₂ what he knew att₁. PerFalvey & Owens (1994), Oscar’s memory may not providecomparative knowledge of content, i.e., knowledge that enablesarmchair discriminations between water and twin water contents. Butmemory still preserves knowledge of his thought att₁—meaning that (c) is false. (Theincompatibilist might rejoin that (c) is stipulative in the thoughtexperiment; but in that case, Burge sides with Brueckner 1997a inrejecting (b). Yet see Schroeter 2007 for a different issue in caseswhere Burge rejects (c).)

Whether one accepts the “shifty” view of memory or not,the debate is important to opening up different interpretations of theslow switch thought experiment. For it complicates what effect theslow switch has on Oscar’s conceptual repertoire. The defaultview is that the slow switch causes Oscar’s water concept to bewholly replaced by the twin water concept. But it may beunclear why a slow switchdestroys Oscar’s waterconcept, even as he becomes acquainted with twin water (Boghossian1989; 1992a, Gibbons 1996, Burge 1998). More discussion of the issueis found in the supplementary document,Variations on Slow-Switching.

As a final thought, memory may ultimately be a red herring indefending incompatibilism. For suppositions about memory seeminessential to the so-called “memory argument” (Goldberg1997; 1999a; 2000a). After all, the key idea is that Oscar’sself-attributions can be open to more than one interpretation: SupposeOscar recognizes slow switches as relevant alternatives, and heasserts ‘I am thinking that water is scrumptious’. Then,for all Oscar can tell from the armchair, this might express a waterthought or a twin water thought. Such “underdetermination”in the interpretation is what Oscar cannot resolve without empiricalinvestigation. So already there is a problem with armchairself-knowledge, absent any premises about memory.

When spelled out, this “memory free” slow switch argumentassumes the following “principle of knowingidentification:”

(PKI)

If a subjectS recognizes that there is more than onerelevant interpretation of her assertions/beliefs—andShas nothing to decide between them—thenS lacksknowledge of the content of her assertion/belief.

If Oscar satisfies the antecedent of (PKI), it may seem that he ismissing onlycomparative knowledge of content—i.e.,knowledge that allows armchair discrimination between a content and atwin content (Brueckner 1999; cf. Falvey & Owens 1994). And we sawthat many compatibilists are already willing to surrender that type ofknowledge. That’s because Oscar’s assertion “I amthinking that water is scrumptious” might still count as onekind of armchair self-knowledge (cf. section3.1), even if it is not of the comparative type.

However, (PKI) is applied to a specific kind of case, namely, where(i) there is more than onerelevant interpretation, and (ii)the subjectrecognizes this (Goldberg 1999a). There, even arelevant alternatives epistemology requires Oscar to rule out the TwinEarth interpretation. Toward making this clearer, suppose that Oscaris informed of the switches at some later timet₃.In that sort of case, (i) and (ii) will be satisfied. Thus if heasserts “I am thinking water is scrumptious,” he will beaware of relevant alternative interpretations that he cannot rule outfrom the armchair. Accordingly, even if his judgment isself-verifying, it is tendentious to say heknows from thearmchair the content of his thought. (But for a rebuttal, seeBrueckner 2000.)

Notably, since the “memory free” argument is restricted toa special sort of case, it does not show that EXT and SK are entirelyincompatible (Goldberg 1999a, p. 217; Goldberg 2000a). Itstill suggests, however, that EXT precludes SK when certain skepticalhypotheses are entertained—contrary to, e.g., the view inMeditation Two.

3.4 Reply 4: The Argument is Self-Undermining

As should be clear, slow switch arguments can be seen as skepticalarguments, where the skeptic raises the possibility thatweare in Oscar’s predicament. The externalist is thus asked torule out deviant thought contents from the armchair. Moreover, sincethe skeptic thinks she cannot do so, he claims that the externalistlacks armchair self-knowledge. But one sort of reply is that suchskepticism isself-undermining (Ebbs 1996; 2001; 2005;Brueckner & Ebbs, 2012, ch. 12). The contention is that, assumingEXT, the skeptic cannot both deny SK and be justified in accepting thepremises of his own argument. If so, skeptical slow switch argumentsend up being incoherent.

Consider that, since the skeptic wants to make a general point aboutknowledge, he should see slow switch possibilities as relevant to hisown situation. The skeptic should not make an exception of himself,re: his skeptical thesis. Hence, when the skeptic levies the slowswitch argument, his premises force him to say of himself:

1. If I am on Twin Earth, then my saying ‘water isscrumptious’ expresses the thought that twin water isscrumptious.
2. If I am on Earth, then my saying ‘water isscrumptious’ expresses the thought that water isscrumptious.

His premises also require him to say that:

3. I cannot know from the armchair which of the two thoughts isexpressed by ‘water is scrumptious’ (given that switchingpossibilities are relevant).

The problem, however, is that (III) applies to ‘water isscrumptious’ whenever the skeptic says it. Therefore, it appliesto the utterance as it occursin the consequent of (II). Soif (III) is assumed, it follows that the skeptic does not know fromthe armchair what thought is expressed by the consequent of (II),hence, by (II) itself. Yet if it is unknown what thought is expressedby (II), one can hardly bejustified in accepting thethought. Hence, the skeptic cannot simultaneously hold (III) and bejustified in accepting (II). (Ebbs also makes the analogous pointabout the justification for (I), followed by similar objections andreplies. But for brevity’s sake, we shall just consider(II).)

The skeptic might offer two different replies to the self-underminingcharge. The first is that, although the exact content of (II) may beunknown, the skeptic can still be justified in accepting (II)(Brueckner 1997b). For it seems that (II) can be shown true, no matterwhether the skeptic speaks English or Twin English. After all,regardless of what ‘water’ denotes, it is true to say“ ‘water is scrumptious’ expresses the thought thatwater is scrumptious.” Moreover, since the skeptic can recognizethis from the armchair, it seems he can be justified in accepting(II), even while assuming (III).

But to the contrary, it is possible to imagine “weirdworlds” where (II) ends up false (Ebbs 2001). Consider a worldmuch like this one, where H₂O fills the lakes and rivers,etc., and where ‘water’ refers to H₂O. Thedifference is that ‘Earth’ in this weird world does notdenote the planet that the skeptic currently occupies. Rather, itdenotes Twin Earth. In that case, when the skeptic states (II), theproposition expressed is that if he is onTwin Earth, thenasserting ‘water is scrumptious’ expresses the thoughtthatwater (i.e. H₂O) is scrumptious. (Rememberthat ‘water’ in this scenario still denotesH₂O.) Yet if that is what (II) expresses, then the skepticsays somethingfalse. And so, since the skeptic apparentlycannot exclude a weird world from the armchair, he cannot prove tohimself that (II) is true. So once more, the skeptic cannotjustifiably adopt (II) while assuming (III).

The skeptic has a second line of reply to the self-undermining charge,which takes the form of a dilemma. Observe that ‘water isscrumptious’ either expresses the content that the skepticthinks it expresses, or not. If it does, then (II) is true—andso, in conjunction with (I) and (III), the slow switch argumentremains standing (Brueckner 2003). On the other hand, suppose that‘water is scrumptious’ does not express the content thatthe skeptic thinks it does. That just means he has a false beliefabout the content of his first order thought. So he lacks knowledge ofits content (since knowledge requires truth). And thus SK is false inthis case too. Consequently, on either horn of the dilemma, SK isthreatened (Brueckner 2003).

Nevertheless, the skeptic could not justifiably claim that (I)-(III)figure into a sound argument (Ebbs 2005). For at this stage, theskeptic has conceded that (II) might not be true. Even so, it seemsthat he can justifiably identify a different argument as a soundskeptical argument, namely, the dilemma offered above (Brueckner2007).

So has the skeptic escaped the self-undermining charge? There maystill be a question about the skeptic’s adoption of (III). Itmay seem that this is entirely justified, but why is that exactly?Apparently, it is because the skeptic is justified in thinking that‘water is scrumptious’ might express a different thoughtthan the one it actually expresses on Earth, viz., that water is wet.Yet notice that this last bit assumes (II) (Brueckner & Ebbs,2012, ch. 12). But at this stage, the skeptic has already concededthat (II) might be false, due to the possibility of a “weirdworld.” So if (III) is justifiably believed only if (II)is—and (II) was already surrendered—then the skeptic mustconcede the justification for (III). So a kind of self-underminingworry remains (Brueckner & Ebbs, ch. 12. For a response, see ch.13).

3.5 Reply 5: Anti-Recognitionalism

A more programmatic critique of slow switch arguments resists itsassimilation of self-knowledge to perceptual knowledge. In particular,the complaint is that slow switch arguments mistakenly assume that,for Oscar to know what he is thinking, he mustrecognize whathe is thinking on the basis of some “inward observation.”Slow switch arguments then exploit the fact that what would be“observed” is compatible with more than one thoughtcontent. However, for one kind of compatibilist, such“recognitional” models of self-knowledge are largely inerror. According to her, self-knowledge is unlike perceptual knowledgein that it is not normally the product of any kind of recognition(though she need not deny the existence of introspection altogether).Some even take slow switch arguments as positive evidence for theanti-recognitional view of self-knowledge (e.g., Moran 2001, p.15).

“Anti-recognitionalist” compatibilism can be developed ina number of ways. We have already seen some precedent in Burgevis-à-vis self-verifying judgments (section3.1). For these judgments do not represent a “cognitiveachievement” (in the words of Boghossian 1989); they areautomatically self-verifying, whether the subject invests anyepistemic effort in them or not. Anti-recognitionalism has also arisenin W.’s notion of “default” entitlement (fromsection2.3). For W., a subject does not need a tight philosophical argument to beentitled to her self-attributions; such entitlement is grantedautomatically (unless there is special reason to withhold it).

A variety of other anti-recognitionalist views exist. E.g., there is aneo-expressivist view which is gaining prominence (Bar-On & Long2001, Finkelstein 2003, Bar-On 2004; 2006; 2011; 2012a, b; 2103,Parent 2017, ch. 8). There are also views which utilizeagency-theoretic ideas to explain self-knowledge (Moran 2001, Heal2002, Bilgrami 2006, O’Brien 2007, Coliva 2009). The interestedreader is encouraged to visit the entry onself-knowledge for more.

4. Other Issues with Externalist Self-Knowledge

There is a surprising number of further issues regarding EXT and SK.Some of these consist in lesser-known incompatibilism arguments. Forinstance, there is a kind of “inverted” memory argumentsuggesting that, if Burge’s self-verifying judgments count asbona fide self-knowledge, then one’s memory would be infalliblein ways that it is obviously not (Goldberg 2000b). In addition, it issometimes argued that EXT and SK preclude the standard analysis ofepistemic possibility. (Ebbs 2003; 2011. But see McLaughlin 2004.)

Questions about compatibility have been extended to more than justknowledge of content. There is also a case to be made that EXTprecludes armchair knowledge of one’sattitudes towardthose contents (Bernecker 1996, Gibbons 2001). Thus, even if it isknown that you are currently thinking that water is scrumptious, EXTmay preclude armchair knowledge that youbelieve this. Forwhat counts as “belief” might vary according toone’s linguistic community. In addition, new issues have arisenin light ofexternalism about qualia (as held by Lycan 1987;1996; 2001, Dretske 1995, Tye 1995). Briefly, if a quale is partlyindividuated by the subject’s environment, then it seems onecould not know that one had a quale offire engine red unlessone antecedently knew the actual color of fire engines. But since thelatter is not knowable from the armchair, then it seems neither is theformer (Levine 2003, Ellis 2007).

Another set of issues concerns the metaphysics of mind. Some havewondered if EXT and SK absurdly allow armchair knowledge ofFodor’s (1975) Language of Thought Hypothesis (Davies 1998).Others have suggested that the Language of Thought Hypothesisfalsifies SK, assuming EXT (Boghossian 1989, p. 6, Bonjour 1991).Further, some writers have worried that if one can know what onethinks, then one can knowthat one thinks. If so, then theability to armchair know one’s own thoughts would too easilyrefute eliminativism about the mental. (See Dretske 2003a; 2003b;2004, Bernecker 1998; 2004b, Jacob 2004, Parent 2017, ch. 9; somepapers in Smithies & Stoljar 2012 are also relevant. See alsoRoche & Roche 2021 for excellent criticism of Dretske.)

In addition, there is a burgeoning literature on whether EXT iscompatible with epistemic internalism, a view where knowledge orjustification supervenes on what’s in the head (Pritchard &Kallestrup 2004, Brown 2007, Gerken 2008; also cf. Chase 2001,Brueckner 2002. Goldberg 2007a is germane too). Many of the issueshere turn on what kind of self-knowledge is allowed by EXT, and inparticular, whether such knowledge is discriminating enough forjustificatory purposes.

The debate on externalism and self-knowledge should continue to seenew developments. After all, as one writer observes:

in the last two decades several developments in the philosophy ofmind, the philosophy of language, and epistemology make it worthwhileto reconsider semantic externalism’s implications forself-knowledge...[T]hese developments include various versions of 2Dsemantics, the emerging popularity of so-called transparency views ofself-knowledge...various doctrines pertaining to the semantics of‘knows’ (such as contextualism, contrastivism, andpragmatic encroachment), a renewed focus on anti-luminosity arguments(deriving from the work of Williamson (2000)), and developments in theepistemology of testimony as well as in the epistemology ofunderstanding. (Goldberg 2015b, pp. 7–8)

[T]he issue reflects an important clash between philosophicalparadigms before and after the linguistic (or conceptual) turn. On onehand, it is characteristic of Cartesianism that we can know contentsintrospectively, independently of knowing the external world. On theother hand, Frege taught us that content determines which externalobjects we refer to (or in Carnap’s terminology, that intensiondetermines extension). And as Putnam (1975, p. 218ff.) argues,Frege’s idea seems to result in externalism: If contentdetermines reference, then a difference in reference betweenOscar and Twin Oscar shows a difference in content. That seems tohold, even if their narrow psychological states are the same. So ifFrege’s view leads to externalism, yet this precludes Cartesianknowledge of content, then apparentlyone of theseparadigm-defining ideas has to go. Either Cartesians were wrongto say we can know contents just by introspection, or Fregeans weremisguided to think that content is what determines reference. (Parent2015b, p. 1346)

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Collections

Many works cited and further readings are found in the anthologiesabove: Boghossian & Peacocke (eds.) 2000, Coliva (ed.) 2012a,Coliva (ed.) 2012b, Frapolli (ed.) 2003, Gertler (ed.) 2003, Goldberg(ed.) 2007, Goldberg (ed.) 2015a, Hatzimoysis (ed.) 2011, Ludlow &Martin (eds.) 1998, Marvan (ed.) 2006, Nuccetelli (ed.) 2003, Schantz(ed.) 2004, Smithies & Stoljar (eds.) 2012, Villanueva (ed.) 1992,1998, and Wright, et al. (eds.) 1998. Other relevant collectionsinclude:

• Barber, A. (ed.), 2003,Epistemology of Language, NewYork: Oxford University Press.
• Boghossian, P., 2008,Content and Justification: PhilosophicalPapers, New York: Oxford University Press.
• Burge, T., 2006,Foundations of Mind: Philosophical EssaysVol. 2, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Brueckner, A., 2010,Essays on Skepticism, Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.
• Cassam, Q. (ed.), 1994,Self-Knowledge, Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.
• Davidson, D., 2002,Subjective, Intersubjective,Objective, New York: Oxford University Press.
• Hahn, M. & B. Ramberg (eds.), 2004,Reflections andReplies: Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge, Cambridge, MA:MIT Press.
• Pessin, A. & S. Goldberg (eds.), 1996,The Twin EarthChronicles, Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
• Wright, C., 2001,Rails to Infinity: Essays onWittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press.

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