Davidson's externalisms

Abstract

Donald Davidson ha tenido un papel extremamente importante en lo que hoy se llama Externismo. Sin embargo, la formulación exacta de su externismo no es obvia porque sus compromisos están dispersos a lo largo de muchos de sus artículos. El objetivo de este trabajo es explorar los detalles de su externismo. Indicaremos que Davidson, sin duda defiende, que la mente no está auto-contenida. No obstante, tal idea tiene por lo menos dos sentidos distintos en su trabajo: por un lado, estados y contenidos mentales deben ser individuados, en parte, respecto a factores externos a la piel de uno, porque fueron causados por ellos; y por otro lado, estados y contenidos mentales deben ser individuados por factores externos porque la mente está constituida por conocimiento. Indicaremos que la relación entre estos dos niveles explicativos, aparentemente armoniosa, se vuelve conflictiva dentro del mismo programa davidsoniano. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT

Donald Davidson has deeply contributed to what is nowadays called Externalism. However, the exact formulation of his externalism is not obvious since his externalist commitments are spread along many of his papers. The aim of this work is to explore the details of his externalism. We will point out that Davidson clearly defends that the mind is not self-contained. Nonetheless, this idea acquires at least two different senses under his view: on the one hand, mental states and contents must be individuated in part by factors external to one’s skin because the former were caused by the latter; and on the other hand, mental states and contents must be individuated in part by external factors because the mind is constituted by knowledge. We will point out that the apparently harmonious relation between those two levels of explanation turn out to be conflictive at a certain point within the very Davidsonian program.