Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

Dorit Bar-On (2004, 2011, 2012, Bar-On & Long 2001) advocates neo-expressivism about self-knowledge as an explanation of moderate first-person authority of avowals. In this talk, I will give a brief overview of Bar-On’s theory and some central criticisms of its main assumptions. I then proceed to argue that even if these central criticisms are assumed solvable, neo-expressivism still fails to explain first-person authority in a relevant class of avowals: Those that involve ambiguity between committing oneself to an attitude and expressing a pre-existing attitude. I argue that in cases where this ambiguity exists, appealing to the expressive character of avowals does not settle why (or if) these avowals exhibit first-person authority. I conclude that Bar-On’s neo-expressivist theory needs to be augmented by some account of what “expressive success” consists in, and suggest that the concept of authenticity should play a role in it.