Inferential Rationality and Internalistic Scarecrows

CDD: 128.33 Inferential Rationality and Internalistic Scarecrows Paulo Faria Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul Department of Philosophy Porto Alegre, RS - Brazil Received: 25.06.2015; Revised: 28.12.2015; Accepted: 31.12.2015 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/0100-6045.2015.V38N3.PF Abstract: In a recent paper, Manuel Pérez Otero attempted to turn the tables on Paul Boghossian's claim that content externalism is incompatible with the ‘a priority of our logical abilities’. In reply, Boghossian argued that Pérez Otero's criticism misses the main point of his argument through concentrating on the semantics of singular (as opposed to general) terms. I elaborate on Boghossian's reply by showing that even taken on its own terms Pérez Otero's paper fails to engage with internalism through systematically misrepresenting what a truly internalistic account of the semantics of singular terms should be. Keywords: Inferential rationality; Content internalism; Singular terms. Paul Boghossian has recently replied to Manuel Pérez Otero's ‘Boghossian’s Inference Argument against Content Externalism Reversed’ (See Pérez Otero 2014 and Boghossian 2014). The gist of Boghossian’s reply is that his original ‘inference argument’ against content externalism was as much about general terms like ‘water’ as it was about singular terms like ‘Pavarotti’, on which Pérez Otero’s criticism concentrates. The point of the argument was to show that content externalism ‘blurs the distinction between an agent’s mishandling the information she has, versus her merely failing to have the information.’ (Boghossian 2014: 182). With that goal in mind, it would have been unwise to concentrate on singular terms, as the upholder of a ‘direct reference’ approach to such expressions might have no qualms about excluding beliefs involving singular terms from assessments of rationality and rational explanation, the way Manuscrito – Rev. Int. Fil., Campinas, v. 38, n.3, pp. 5-14, set.-dez. 2015. 6 Paulo Faria we already do with de re beliefs. Such a strategy, though, could not be extended to the case of general terms, on pain of ‘leaving nothing for assessments of rationality to be about.’ (Boghossian 2014: 183) I have no qualms with any of Boghossian’s claims in his reply, but I think there is more to be said in criticism of Pérez Otero’s imaginative - if, as I will claim, ultimately unsuccessful - effort. In particular, I think that even on his own terms - concentrating on the semantics of singular terms - Pérez Otero fails to keep the promise of a reversal of Boghossian’s original argument. That is not to say that everything is in order with Boghossian’s argument, and nothing I will say should be taken as an endorsement of Boghossian’s purported reductio of content externalism. All I am claiming is that Pérez Otero’s attempted peritrope fails; and that the failure is instructive. I briefly sketch my assessment of where that leaves us by the end of this paper. The aim of Pérez Otero’s paper is to turn the tables on Boghossian’s claim (as argued for in Boghossian 1992 and 1994) that content externalism is incompatible with the ‘a priority of our logical abilities’. Its main thesis is that ‘the problematic situation that Boghossian describes represents an important challenge for any theory of content, not just for externalism’ (Pérez Otero 2014: 182). Moreover, it is Pérez Otero’s contention that ‘to the extent that the problem bears on the externalism ⁄ internalism debate, it is the externalist side that comes out on top.’ (Ibid.) With that aim in view, six conjectural ‘internalist solutions’ to Boghossian’s challenge are reviewed, all of which are found (reasonably enough in each case) wanting. In counterpoint, two externalist responses are reviewed, both of them (in contrast with the suppositious ‘internalist solutions’ devised by Pérez Otero) actually put forward in the literature. (These are the Schiffer-Burge ‘anaphorical’ account of content preservation and the ‘logical luck’ approach pioneered by Sorensen1). The comparison is claimed to establish the stronger thesis that Boghossian’s argument is more problematic for internalism than it is for externalism. These are bold and surprising claims, yet I cannot see that Pérez Otero manages to make them good. And that comes from what I cannot help seeing as a deep flaw in the whole conception of the paper. To put it in a nutshell, the 1 See Schiffer 1992, Burge 1998, Sorensen 1998, and Faria 2009. Manuscrito – Rev. Int. Fil., Campinas, v. 38, n.3, pp. 5-14, set.-dez. 2015. Inferential Rationality and Internalistic Scarecrows 7 review of the six so-called ‘internalist solutions’, which bears Pérez Otero’s burden of proof, is, I’m afraid, a paradigm case of shooting at scarecrows of one’s own contrivance, devised and customized, as it were, for swift dismissal. That this is the case is brought to the fore by noting that all of the six internalistic responses devised by Pérez Otero share the common weakness of granting to externalism a crucial assumption which, intuitive as Pérez Otero (and, presumably, other friends of externalism) may find it, no clear-sighted internalist should embrace (and none, to the best of my knowledge, has ever actually embraced): namely that contextual factors such as highlighted in Twin-Earthstyle thought experiments are apt to impinge upon the reference of such ostensibly non-indexical terms as (in Boghossian’s ‘Pavarotti’ case, on which the paper concentrates) proper names. Now Pérez Otero is persuaded that ‘with respect to singular terms, our externalist intuitions (as highlighted by Putnam and Burge in their thought experiments about Twin Earths) are even stronger than they are with respect to natural kind terms (which are usually evoked to illustrate the discussion).’ (2014: 161). And again: ‘the original externalist intuitions invoked by Putnam to support the idea that an external factor - the reference of ‘water’ - contributes to determining the meaning of ‘water’ are also present, and more obviously so, in the case of singular terms such as ‘Pavarotti’.’ (2014: 177). Ultimately, ‘it is the common, externalist intuitions (that were invoked by Putnam and Burge in their original thought experiments) that tip the balance in favour of externalism’ (2014: 180). No evidence is provided, however, for the tacit assumption that such intuitions are shared by any writer in the internalist camp - and I doubt that any could be found. Actually, the closest that Pérez Otero comes to discharge that burden of proof surfaces in the utterly misguided (and no sooner entered than cautiously hedged) remark that ‘Boghossian explicitly states’ (2014: 169) that the reasoner in his original example falls prey to a fallacy of equivocation (as his two successive tokenings of ‘Pavarotti’ would fail to refer to a single individual, courtesy of his having been ‘slow-switched’ from Earth to Twin Earth). Now, to be sure, Boghossian ‘explicitly states’ t (...truncated)