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A Defence of Lichtenberg

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2019

Giovanni Merlo Open the ORCID record for Giovanni Merlo [Opens in a new window]
Giovanni Merlo*
Affiliation:
University of Stirling, UK
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*Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Cartesians and Lichtenbergians have diverging views of the deliverances of introspection. According to the Cartesians, a rational subject, competent with the relevant concepts, can come to know that he or she thinks – hence, that he or she exists – on the sole basis of his or her introspective awareness of his or her conscious thinking. According to the Lichtenbergians, this is not possible. This paper offers a defence of the Lichtenbergian position using Peacocke and Campbell's recent exchange on Descartes's cogito as a framework for discussion. A thought-experiment will be presented involving two communities with radically different conceptions of the metaphysics of the self. The purpose of the thought-experiment is to suggest that a substantive metaphysical thesis, whose truth cannot be a priori known, is presupposed by any justified transition from one's introspective awareness of a certain mental activity to the self-ascription of that activity.

Keywords

cogitoLichtenbergselfcollective thinking
Type
Article
Information
Episteme , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , December 2021 , pp. 624 - 639
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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