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First-person authority: an epistemic-pragmatic account

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>2012
<mark>Journal</mark>Mind and Language
Issue number2
Volume27
Number of pages18
Pages (from-to)181-199
Publication StatusPublished
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

Some self-ascriptions of belief, desire and other attitudes exhibit first-person authority. The aim here is to offer a novel account of this kind of first-person authority. The account is a development of Robert Gordon’s ascent routine theory but is framed in terms of our ability to bring it about that others know of our attitudes via speech acts which do not deploy attitudinal vocabulary but which nonetheless ‘show’ our attitudes to others. Unlike Gordon’s ascent routine theory, the theory readily applies to attitudes other than belief, avoids a need to appeal to processes of making up one’s mind, and does not rest upon a distinction between ‘outward looking’ and ‘inward looking’ processes.