Guy Longworth

Should we expect someone who knows by seeing invariably to be able to settle the questions (i) How do you know? (ii) Why do you think so? or (iii) Are you sure? I defend the following answers. First, we should not expect someone who knows that p by seeing invariably to be able to know how they know that p. Second, we should expect someone who knows that p by seeing to have conclusive reasons for thinking that p; however, in light of the first claim, we should not expect their seeing what they do invariably to figure amongst their reasons. Although one who knows by seeing need not know how they know and need not have amongst their reasons the fact that they see what they do, still their seeing what they do can play an important role in establishing surety.

What would it be for one person to think with another? How should we understand the idea of people thinking together and so sharing their thinking as well as their thoughts? The primary aim of this chapter is to begin to explore this question by describing one sort of activity which seems to figure essentially in connection with this more general idea of thinking together. In seeking a case of thinking together, we seek a collectively instanced measure of thinking a determinate thought. Making out that possibility depends on making out the possibility of a collective instance of the occurrent thinking of a determinate thought. And that depends, first, on explaining what the collective thinking of a determinate thought involves over and above the individual thinking on which it depends and, second, on making out the possibility of there being an occurrent vehicle for such collective thinking.

ABSTRACT One can know without observation what one is up to, but can one know without observation what someone else is up to? I explore two strategies for defending the claim that one can. The first strategy relies on the fact that one can know what someone is doing by accepting what they tell one about what they are doing. It proposes that testimony can preserve the credentials of a piece of knowledge so that if a benefactor has non-observational knowledge, then a recipient of their testimony can acquire non-observational knowledge by accepting it. The second strategy appeals to the existence of collective activities. It proposes that where a number of people engage in a collective activity, each can know what each is up to, and that knowledge can be had without observation. My goal is to set out both strategies. A secondary aim is to suggest grounds for greater optimism about the prospects of the first strategy than the second.

_Designed for readers new to the subject, _Reading Philosophy of Language_ presents key texts in the philosophy of language together with helpful editorial guidance._ A concise collection of key texts in the philosophy of language Ideal for readers new to the subject. Features seminal texts by leading figures in the field, such as Austin, Chomsky, Davidson, Dummett and Searle. Presents three texts on each of five key topics: speech and performance; meaning and truth; knowledge of language; meaning and compositionality; and non-literal meaning. A volume introduction from the editors outlines the subject’s principal concerns. Introductions to each chapter locate the pieces in context and explain relevant terminology and theories. Interactive commentaries help readers to engage with the texts.

_Designed for readers new to the subject, _Reading Philosophy of Language_ presents key texts in the philosophy of language together with helpful editorial guidance._ A concise collection of key texts in the philosophy of language Ideal for readers new to the subject. Features seminal texts by leading figures in the field, such as Austin, Chomsky, Davidson, Dummett and Searle. Presents three texts on each of five key topics: speech and performance; meaning and truth; knowledge of language; meaning and compositionality; and non-literal meaning. A volume introduction from the editors outlines the subject’s principal concerns. Introductions to each chapter locate the pieces in context and explain relevant terminology and theories. Interactive commentaries help readers to engage with the texts.

John Cook Wilson is an important predecessor of contemporary knowledge first epistemologists: among other parallels, he claimed that knowledge is indefinable. We reconstruct four arguments for this claim discernible in his work, three of which find no clear analogues in contemporary discussions of knowledge first epistemology. We pay special attention to Cook Wilson’s view of the relation between knowledge and forms of thinking (like belief). Claims of Cook Wilson’s that support the indefinability of knowledge include: that knowledge, unlike belief, straddles an active/passive divide; that, rather than entailing belief, knowledge excludes belief; and that understanding forms of thinking other than knowledge (such as belief) depends on understanding knowledge. Reflecting on Cook Wilson’s framework highlights underappreciated concerns relevant to any attempt to define knowledge.

What is the philosophical role of an historical account of how someone, or some people, came to believe or value as they do? I consider some proposals, due to Bernard Williams and David Wiggins, according to which such an account might either vindicate or subvert our believing or valuing as we do. I suggest some reasons for scepticism about those proposals, at least when construed as providing a fundamental means of assessing cases of believing or valuing. The main problem raised for the proposals, when so construed, is that they conflate reasons that now support believing or valuing with reasons for coming in the first place to believe or value.

Contemporary recognition of the importance of divisions amongst pragmatic and semantic phenomena has its roots in earlier recognition of the importance of pragmatic phenomena. This chapter begins with the idea that semantics concerns the stable meanings of words and expressions while pragmatics concerns language use, or things done with words. It provides some grounds for rejecting, a defense of orthodoxy that sought to treat the variations that Charles Travis highlights as occurring only with respect to derivative illocutionary acts. The chapter argues that the orthodox view comes under pressure from reflection on certain forms of variation in the illocutionary acts that speakers perform. It explores how the meanings of the words that the speaker used, which figure most directly in the locutionary act that they performed, figure less directly in the illocutionary act or acts that they perform, and less directly still in the further, perlocutionary consequences of the performance of that illocutionary act.

In Knowing and Seeing, Michael Ayers presents a view of what he calls primary knowledge according to which one who knows in that way both knows perspicuously and knows how they know. Here, I use some general considerations about seeing, knowing, and knowing how one knows in order to raise some questions about this view. More specifically, I consider some putative limits on one’s capacity to know how one knows. The main question I pursue concerns whether perspicuity should be thought of either (i) as a condition of sensory experience, (ii) as a condition of sense-based cognition, or (iii) as an interface condition, involving interrelations between sensory experience and sense-based cognition.

1. Since I don't know who you are, dear reader, and since I know that some people don't have hands, I don't know whether you have hands. Probably you do, but knowing that something is probable is rarely, if ever, a way of knowing that thing. By contrast, I know that I have hands. Let me check. Yes, here is one of my hands; and here is another. Since I know that here is one of my hands and that here is another, and since I know that it follows from those two claims that I have hands, I can deduce that I have hands. So, I know that I have hands.

Abstract Some philosophers find linguistic meaning mysterious. Two approaches suggest themselves for removing the felt mystery, or demystifying meaning. One involves providing a substantive account of meaning in meaning-free terms. Although this approach has come under serious attack in recent years, Paul Horwich has recently presented a version of the approach that might be thought impervious. A preliminary attempt is made to argue that Horwich's version is vulnerable to the considerations felt to undermine other versions of the substantive approach to demystification. That leaves the second approach, quietism, which involves showing that although meaning is primitive it is un-mysterious. It is suggested that this approach is worthy of exploration

To what extent was ordinary language philosophy a precursor to experimental philosophy? Since the conditions on pursuit of either project are at best unclear, and at worst protean, the general question is hard to address. I focus instead on particular cases, seeking to uncover some central aspects of J. L. Austin’s and John Cook Wilson’s ordinary language based approach to philosophical method. I make a start at addressing three questions. First, what distinguishes their approach from other more traditional approaches? Second, is their approach a form of experimental philosophy? Third, given their aims, should it have been? I offer the following preliminary answers. First, their approach distinctively emphasizes attention to what we should say when. Second, their approach is closer to contemporary experimental mathematics than it is to some prominent forms of contemporary experimental philosophy. Third, some purported grounds for pursuing their aims by way of surveying what individual speakers would say when are not compelling.

I discuss a purported connection between Grice’s essay ‘Meaning’ and earlier work by Anton Marty. It has been argued that in 1908, Marty presented an account of meaning that is similar to, if not identical with, Grice’s. My aim is to pursue two questions that arise from this priority dispute. To what extent is Grice, as opposed to Marty, responsible for the account presented in Grice’s essay? And what is to be learned from pursuit of this particular dispute over priority? My answer to the first question is that Grice is largely responsible for the account, although it is reasonable to think that Marty’s account figures as a sort of precursor. My answer to the second question is that what there is to be learned from pursuit of the priority question has at least as much to do with differences between Marty’s and Grice’s respective account as it has to do with their similarities. More substantively, I discuss a particular difference in emphasis between Grice’s account and Marty’s, concerning the nature of expression, and the way in which it highlights the problematic status of expression in Grice’s account of meaning.