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Knowing and Saying that I Know
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 January 2009
Extract
Of course there's every difference in the world between my merely saying something and its being so. My claim that I have a toothache is a far cry from the toothache itself. Words are not things: I neither sit in the word ‘chair’ nor eat the word ‘food.’
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- Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1991
References
1 Stroud, Barry, The Significance of Philosophical Skepticism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), pp. 39–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 Austin, J. L., ‘Other Minds,’ in his Philosophical Papers, Urmson, J. O. and Warnock, G. J. (eds) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961), pp. 44–84.Google Scholar
3 Originally in The Journal of Philosophy 56 (1959): 845–57Google Scholar; reprinted in Wittgenstein: A Collection of Critical Essays, Pitcher, G. (ed.) (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966), pp. 231–250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4 Burton Drehen has pointed out to me that Albritton wants to find a synthetic a priori in Wittgenstein. I am not concerned with his picture of Wittgenstein, though, so much as with his use of ‘justified in saying.’
5 It may be objected by this point that I am conflating two distinct discussions by speaking in the same breath of Austin and Wittgenstein; they are completely different philosophers, goes the objection, and should not be taken to illuminate each other. While I do not think the two enterprises should be kept as distinct as that, I will not argue against this objection here. My question in reply is rather: If Austin and Wittgenstein are as different as that, why have they both been interpreted in this remarkably similar way? It seems plain to me that Stroud and Albritton, whatever their differing intentions, have explicated Austin and Wittgenstein, respectively, to make their analyses mere accounts of what we may say. I argue that in both cases this explication tames the force of the philosophers' work. Therefore I have reason enough to set Albritton's interpretation beside Stroud's.
6 It can also have quite different meanings: perhaps I was justified in saying ‘I know’ even when I knew that I didn't know. I will explore such a case in the next section; here I am granting that ‘justified in saying’ can, under certain circumstances, mean something weaker than knowing.
7 Austin has of course spoken of the peculiarity of the first-person, present tense ‘I know’ (‘Other Minds,’ 65–71). I see myself as following his lead in focusing on that case, but without resting my argument on his further analysis (that ‘I know’ functions as a quasi-performative). I think Austin's analysis is true, but as it has not already convinced an opponent like Stroud, an argument which does not depend on that analysis will work more effectively.
8 I owe this point, and much in the subsequent discussion, to Stanley Cavell.
9 Austin's remarks about ‘I know’ and ‘I believe’ (‘Other Minds,’ 67Google Scholar) are exactly apposite here.
10 Cavell, Stanley, The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy (Oxford University Press, 1979), esp. pp. 145–54.Google Scholar See also ‘Austin at Criticism’ and ‘Must We Mean What We Say?’, in Must We Mean What We Say? (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1969), pp. 97–114 and 1–43, respectively.Google Scholar
11 CR, p. 147.
12 Austin, , ‘A Plea for Excuses,’ in Philosophical Papers, p. 133, note 1.Google Scholar
13 I owe thanks to many people for their help on this paper. Above all others, I am grateful to Stanley Cavell and Burton Drehen: this work has grown out of their philosophical teachings, in the first place, and specifically out of their responses to earlier drafts of this material. For the same reason, I owe particular thanks to Warren Goldfarb. I am further grateful to Thomas Carlson, Harvey Cormier, Daniel Kading, and especially Anna Kirkwood.