The non-apriority of concept width
WILLIAM
S. LARKIN
Anti-individualism (AI) is the view that some
of our thought contents are such that we could not be thinking those contents
in particular without being appropriately related to a specific type of external
environment. We can think of AI as
claiming that some of our concepts are wide in the sense that we could
not have possessed those concepts in particular had we been related to a
different type of external environment.[1] Privileged access (PA) is the view
that we have a distinctive non-empirical way of knowing the contents of our own
thoughts that is not available to any one else. Several authors have attempted to show that combining AI and PA
yields the seemingly absurd conclusion that we can have non-empirical knowledge
of some relatively specific feature of the external world.[2] I will show here in a completely general way
that no such attempt can possibly succeed, for no one can know a priori that
one of her actual concepts is wide.[3]
The argument that combining
AI and PA can yield non-empirical knowledge of specific features of the
external world goes something like this:
Let C be a wide concept. If both
PA and AI are true, then the premises of the following argument can be known
without any empirical investigation of one’s external environment:[4]
P1: I
am thinking a C-thought.
P2: If
I am thinking a C-thought, then I am appropriately related to an E environment.
___________________________________________________
C: So I am appropriately related to an E
environment.
The exact nature of the environmental relations
required for possessing wide concepts and exactly how specific an E environment
has to be will depend on the details of a particular anti-individualist thesis.[5] But an E environment will be specific enough
that non-empirical knowledge of it will be intuitively problematic; it will be
a more specific type of environment, for example, than one where simply ‘some
physical objects exist’ or ‘there is some external world out there’.[6] For an E environment is one an appropriate
relation to which is required for the possession of C in particular and
not merely for the possession of concepts in general.[7] Thus non-empirical knowledge of the above
premises can yield, via deduction, non-empirical knowledge of a relatively
specific feature of the external world.[8]
I will argue now that no
matter which version of externalism is in play, and no matter what the details
of the specific concept and relevant environment are; one cannot know P2 without
empirical investigation of specific features of one’s external
environment. This is so because one
cannot possibly know non-empirically that one of her actual concepts is wide.
Any attempt to derive
non-empirical knowledge of the external world via AI from non-empirical
knowledge of what one is thinking presupposes that one can know non-empirically
that one of her actual concepts is wide.
Proponents of the strategy effectively acknowledge this: Michael McKinsey (1991) essentially argues
that one can know a priori that a concept is wide in virtue of the fact that
possessing it conceptually entails some substantive proposition about one’s
external environment and one’s introspective knowledge that one has the
concept.[9] Jessica Brown (1995) essentially argues that
one can know a priori that a certain concept is wide by knowing that one is
agnostic about that concept’s application.[10] And Paul Boghossian (1997) essentially
argues that one can know a priori that a certain term expresses a wide concept
by knowing that one (a) “expresses an atomic concept” with the term, (b) “aims
to name a natural kind” with it, and (c) is “indifferent about the essence of
the kind that his word aims to name.”[11]
The only way to connect up a claim
derived from PA with a claim derived from AI is to presume that some actual
concept revealed through introspection falls under the general
anti-individualist thesis. P2 of the
above argument is not knowable non-empirically unless one can know
non-empirically that C is a wide concept.
Only then could one enlist her knowledge of AI to yield non-empirical
knowledge of P2.[12] However, it is simply not possible for one
to know that any of her actual concepts are wide: To say that one of S’s actual concepts C is wide is just to say that
S could not have possessed C had she been related to a relevantly distinct
environment (a non-E-type of environment).
In other words, C is wide by definition just in case there is
some possible world w where S does not possess C
because w is relevantly distinct from
the actual world a. Thus S can know non-empirically that C is wide only if S can know
non-empirically that there is some world w where she does not possess
C because w is relevantly distinct from
a. But
as I will now show, S cannot know non-empirically that there is some world w where she does not possess C because w is relevantly distinct from a.
A subject S might be able to
know a priori on the basis of her relevant semantic intuitions that she would
not have possessed a concept C in a world w if w is described in rich enough detail. But S could not go on to know that this
independently and richly specified world w is distinct from the actual
world a in the relevant respects
without knowing (at least something about) what a is like in those
respects. Since C is in fact wide the
relevant features of a will be relatively specific
features of the external environment, knowledge of which requires some specific
empirical investigation. So S cannot
know non-empirically that w is both a world in which
she would not have possessed C and a world that is relevantly distinct from a.
Perhaps,
instead, we should start by simply stipulating that some possible world w is relevantly distinct from a no matter how a happens to turn out to be
in the relevant respects. But now w is not specified in enough detail for S to
be able to engage her relevant semantic intuitions in order to know a priori
that she would not have possessed C in w. Making the additional stipulation at this point that S would not have
had C in w would of course beg the
question. Given that there is no other
non-empirical route to establishing that the dependently and minimally
specified world w is one in which S would not
have possessed C, S can again not know a priori both that w is relevantly distinct from a and that w is a world in which she
would not have possessed C.
So
one cannot know non-empirically that one of her actual concepts is wide. It is therefore not possible to combine
knowledge that one is thinking a certain type of thought with knowledge of
anti-individualism to derive any non-empirical knowledge of the external world.[13]
Southern Illinois University
Edwardsville
Edwardsville, IL 62026-1433
REFERNECES
Boghossian,
P. 1997. What the externalist can know
a priori. Proceedings of the
Aristotelian
Society 97: 161-75.
Brown,
J. 1995. The incompatibility of
anti-individualism and privileged access.
Analysis 55: 149-56.
-- 1999. Boghossian on externalism and privileged access. Analysis 59: 52-59.
Brueckner,
A. 1992. What an anti-individualist knows a priori. Analysis 52: 111-18.
-- 2002.
Anti-individualism and analyticity.
Analysis 62: 87-91.
Falvey,
K. 2000. The compatibility of
anti-individualism and privileged access.
Analysis 60:
137-42.
Gertler,
B. 2004. We can’t know a priori that H2O exists. But can we know that
water does?
Analysis 64: .
Goldberg,
S. 2003. On our alleged a priori
knowledge that water exists. Analysis
63: 8--41.
McKinsey,
M. 1991. Anti-individualism and
privileged access.” Analysis 51:
9-16.
Nuccetelli,
S. 1999. What anti-individualists cannot know a priori. Analysis 59: 48-51.
[1] I take concepts to be the constituents of thought contents. To possess a particular concept is to be able to think certain types of thoughts. I assume that if one cannot think certain types of thoughts without being appropriately related to a specific type of environment, then the reason is that one cannot possess a particular concept with the appropriate environmental relations.
[2] See McKinsey 1991, Brown 1995, and Boghossian 1997.
[3] Others have raised specific problems with arguments from AI and PA to non-empirical knowledge of the world. See Brueckner 1992, Falvey 1998, and Brown 1999. But I will argue in a much more general way that no such argument can succeed. Others attempts to do this have still been rather narrow in scope, using arguments that seem to apply only to particular versions of anti-individualism, only to specific concepts, or only to natural kind concepts. My argument will apply to all versions of anti-individualism, does not rely on the specifics surrounding the possession of any particular concept (like water), and will apply to artifact kind terms (or any other type of term purportedly expressing a wide concept) as well as natural kind terms. See Golderg 2003 for an argument that does seem limited to a particular concept or at the very least to natural kind concepts. None of Gertler’s criticisms of Goldberg in her 2004 will be effective against my argument.
[4] That is, they can be known without any further specific knowledge of one’s external environment beyond what may have been necessary to acquire the relevant concepts in the first place.
[5] On some views there must be c-stuff in the environment, for example, whereas on other views it may be enough that there be stuff in the environment that could ground appropriate theorizing about c-stuff.
[6] Thus I think that one of Brueckner’s worries about McKinsey’s strategy in his 1992 is unfounded.
[7] The qualification ‘in particular’ in the formulation of AI is necessary to avoid McKInsey’s argument in his 1991 that threatens to reduce AI to a triviality unless it is framed in terms of a conceptually necessary condition on concept possession. In my formulation I am claiming only that it is metaphysically necessary that one be appropriately related to a certain environment in order to possess certain concepts, and I add ‘in particular’ to avoid the kind of worry that McKinsey raises.
[8] If the argument works, then at the very least one can know non-empirically that one is in the type of environment that allows one to possess the wide concept C. And that is a relatively specific proposition about one’s external environment, even if one cannot describe what one knows in any other terms. Knowing that one is in the type of ‘watery’ environment that allows for the possession of the concept water involves knowing something that is in fact fairly specific, even if one cannot say anything else more about the nature of a watery environment.
[9] For criticism see Brueckner 1992, Nuccetelli 1999, Goldberg 2003.
[10] For criticism see Falvey (2000) and Brueckner (2002).
[11] For criticism see Brown (1999).
[12] It is presumed but rarely argued in these contexts that one can know the general AI thesis a priori on the basis of armchair philosophical thought experiments. On my view it may be possible to know a priori the general claim that some concepts are wide (or that some specific merely possible concept is wide) on the basis of some armchair thought experiment, but it is not possible to know that any explicitly specified (actual) concept is wide.
[13] I would like to thank Tony Brueckner, Sandy Goldberg, John Greco, and Sarah Sawyer for helpful comments on work related to the argument here.