Expression and the Inner

by David Finkelstein

At least since Descartes, philosophers have been interested in the special knowledge or authority that we exhibit when we speak about our own thoughts, attitudes, and feelings. Expression and the Inner contends that even the best work in contemporary philosophy of mind fails to account for this sort of knowledge or authority because it does not pay the right sort of attention to the notion of expression. Following what he takes to be a widely misunderstood suggestion of Wittgenstein's, Finkelstein argues that we can make sense of self-knowledge and first-person authority only by coming to see the ways in which a self-ascription of, say, happiness (a person's saying or thinking, "I'm happy this morning") may be akin to a smile--akin, that is, to an expression of happiness. In so doing, Finkelstein contrasts his own reading of Wittgenstein's philosophy of mind with influential readings set out by John McDowell and Crispin Wright. By the final chapter of this lucid work, what's at stake is not only how to understand self-knowledge and first-person authority, but also what it is that distinguishes conscious from unconscious psychological states, what the mental life of a nonlinguistic animal has in common with our sort of mental life, and how to think about Wittgenstein's legacy to the philosophy of mind.

Genres: Philosophy

194 pages, Hardcover

First published December 29, 2003

About the author

Professor David Finkelstein (BA, PhD, FEA, FRHistS, FRSA) is the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business at the University of Plymouth.

He has published over 70 published books, essays and refereed journal articles in areas related to nineteenth-century cultural history, print culture and media history, several of which have won awards.

His most recent work includes Movable Types: Roving Creative Printers of the Victorian World (Oxford University Press, 2018), and the 850 page edited Edinburgh History of the British and Irish Press, Volume 2: Expansion and Evolution, 1800 - 1900 (Edinburgh University Press, 2020).

Reviews

[Noe Ramírez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Muy digerible y bien escrito, perfecto para introducirse en cuestiones de Autoridad en Primera persona y expresivismo, pero demasiado énfasis en el Wittgentein bibliográfico y sus posibles interpretaciones, además como no estoy tan versado pues me pierde bastante :p

[Van Choojitarom · Rating 5 out of 5]

A completely perfect book that dissolves the mystery of first-person authority, while answering Kripkean skepticism and Crispin Wright's constitutivism in the process. Also contains the secret of love..

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Challenging and worthy of further exploration into the study of expression as a component of psychology, sociology.

[Princess Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Claro, sencillo, profundo, va al grano... nadie diría que es un libro de filosofía.