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Subjective Externalism
Author(s) -
Sawyer Sarah
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
theoria
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.34
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1755-2567
pISSN - 0040-5825
DOI - 10.1111/theo.12137
Subject(s) - externalism , internalism and externalism , attribution , epistemology , constraint (computer aided design) , content (measure theory) , psychology , realization (probability) , philosophy , social psychology , mathematics , mathematical analysis , statistics , geometry
In this article I argue for a novel theory of representational content, which I call ‘subjective externalism’. The view combines an internal, subjective constraint on the attribution of thought content which traditionally underpins internalist theories of thought, and an external, objective constraint on the attribution of thought content which traditionally underpins externalist theories of thought. While internalism and externalism are mutually inconsistent, the constraints to which each theory is committed are not. It is this realization that opens up the conceptual space for subjective externalism, according to which the correct attribution of thought content to an individual is essentially constrained by her nonrepresentational relations to objective manifest properties in her wider reality.