Evans's anti-cartesian argument: A critical evaluation

Ratio

Volumn 19, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 214-228

  Newstead, Anne ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES   (Australia)

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[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 43249151689     PISSN: 00340006     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9329.2006.00321.x     Document Type: Article

References (14)

1. G. Evans, The Varieties of Reference, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982)
2. Q. Cassam, Self and World, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997)
3. G. Strawson, 'Self and Body: Self, Body and Experience', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supp. 73, 1999, pp. 307-332
4. Evans, Varieties of Reference, p. 220
5. P. F. Strawson, Individuals, (London: Methuen, 1958), p. 104
6. Sydney Shoemaker, 'Self-Reference and Self-Awareness', Journal of Philosophy 65/19, 1968, pp. 555-67
7. I ignore complications arising from Evans's modifications of Shoemaker's ideas (such as the notion of 'identification-freedom'), which are contrasted in J. Pryor 1999, 'Immunity to Errror Through Misidentification', Philosophical Topics 26, pp. 271-304. They are not relevant to assessing Evans's anti-Cartesian argument
8. Of course as a referee rightly points out, there are contexts in which many of these utterances do make sense. These statements might perfectly describe the experience of patients suffering somatoparaphrenic delusions or anosognosic conditions. They might also describe the experience of healthy individuals undergoing illusions such as the rubber hand illusion discussed in M. Botvinick and J. Cohen, 'Rubber hands "feel" touch that eyes see', Nature 391, p. 756. Evans should have paid more attention to context of utterance here
9. The primary source is Descartes' Letter to Elizabeth of 28 June 1643. For secondary literature on this point, see J. Cottingham, 'Descartes' Trialism', Mind XCIV, 374, April 1985, pp. 218-30
10. Paul Hoffman, 'The Unity of Descartes' Man', in The Philosophical Review XCV, no 3, July 1986, pp. 339-370
11. Cf. John Mackie, 'The Transcendental "I"', Philosophical Subjects: Essays presented to P. F. Strawson, ed. Z. van Straaten, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), pp. 48-61
12. Bill Brewer, 'Bodily Awareness and the Self', in José Luis Bermúdez, Antony Marcel, and Naomi Eilan, eds., (1995). The Body and the Self, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998)
13. There is also the post-Cartesian view that 'I' sometimes refers to the psychophysical whole human being and sometimes refers just to the self. See, e.g., G. Strawson, 'The Self and SESMET', Journal of Consciousness Studies 6:4, April 1999, 99-135. However, consideration of this alternative is beyond the scope of this article
14. The importance of sense in determining the validity of such arguments is discussed in John Campbell, Past, Space, and Self, London: MIT Press, pp. 73-108. My discussion proceeds largely in terms of reference, however, because, as Campbell notes, first person reasoning seems to presuppose that T has a constant sense. This presupposition does not hold in the case of demonstratives like 'this' and 'that', which is one of Campbell's reasons for concluding that 'I' is not a perceptual demonstrative term