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II (b) 58
Raven paradox/Rorty: the existence of any non-black non-raven confirms the proposition that all ravens are black.
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I 126
Example of an apparent paradox:
Sensation/Wittgenstein/Rorty: "no something, but no nothing either! The result was only that a nothing would do the same services as an something about which nothing can be said." (Philosophical investigations § 304.) ((s) >
beetle-example ).
Sensitivity/Privacy/Privileged Access/Rorty: we can avoid the paradox if we distinguish the two statements:
We have privileged access to our own pain
And
We know the mental states in which we find ourselves solely on the basis of their special qualities we feel.
In order to move from the 1st to the 2nd thesis, we need the Cartesian model of self-consciousness as analogous to the observation that the image of the inner eye and the thought that stomach cramps, for example, are not given naturally in the same way as the feelings caused by the stomach cramps are given.
I 127
Rorty: If we abandon the view that one can only have knowledge of a certain entity by virtue of an acquaintance with its "special qualities felt, not communicable", then we obtain a non-paradoxical approach.
For example, the not yet speaking child knows in the same way that it has pain, as the plant knows the direction of the sun and the amoeba the temperature of the water.
Knowledge: but this knowledge is not related to what a user of language knows when he knows what pain is.
>
Pain , >
Sensation , >
Language use , >
Priviledged access , >
First Person , >
Self-Consciousness , >
Self-knowledge , >
Descartes .