Åsa
WikforssÅsa
WikforssÅsa Wikforss, born Gothenburg 1961. Ph.D 1996, Columbia University, New York (supervisor Professor Akeel Bilgrami). Post-doc in theoretical philosophy, Stockholm University, 1997-2003. Visiting Professor at Oxford University, Christ Church College, 1997-1999. Docent since 2002. Currently professor in theoretical philosophy, Stockholm University.
My principal interest is in philosophy of language, especially in its intersection with philosophy of mind. My dissertation "Linguistic Freedom: An Essay on Meaning and Rules" (UMI Dissertation Services, 1996) challenges the common view that speaking a language is an essentially rule-guided activity. Since completing the dissertation I have written papers on meaning and norms, and more recently, I have cooperated with Kathrin Glüer-Pagin on a paper that criticizes the related idea that mental content is essentially normative.
Another main topic of my research is externalism, applied to meaning as well as to mental content. I have written on the semantics of natural kind terms (including two papers together with Sören Häggqvist) criticizing the widely shared view that these terms should be given an externalist account of meaning. I have also written several papers on content externalism and incomplete understanding, arguing that content externalism fails to give a plausible account of the individual's cognitive perspective. In 2006 I received a research grant from The Swedish Research Council, for the project 'Minds and Kinds' and I am currently working on a book with the same title where I defend an acount of general terms and concepts that differs from the externalist orthodoxy.
In addition, I have worked on
content
externalism and self-knowledge and in 2003 I received a two-year
research grant from The Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation for the project
'Knowing
One's Own Thoughts'. I have also written on related issues within
epistemology,
for instance on knowledge of other minds.
I am also in charge of organizing the international Stockholm Colloquium in Philosophy. See the list of speakers since 2002.pdf
–
"Against Content
Normativity" (with Kathrin Glüer-Pagin), Mind (2009) 118: 31-70.pre-publication pdf
As meaning's claim to normativity has grown increasingly suspect the normativity thesis has shifted to mental content. In this paper, we distinguish two versions of content normativism: 'CE normativism', according to which it is essential to content that certain 'oughts' can be derived from it, and 'CD normativism', according to which content is determined by norms in the first place. We argue that neither type of normativism withstands scrutiny. CE normativism appeals to the fact that there is an essential connection between content and correctness conditions. But, as we argue, this fact is by itself normatively innocent, and attempts to add a normative dimension via the normativity of belief ultimately fails. CD normativism, in turn, falls prey to the 'dilemma of regress and idleness': the appeal to rules either leads to some form of regress of rules, or the notion of rule following is reduced to an idle label. We conclude by suggesting that our arguments do not support naturalism: it is a mistake to assume that normativism and naturalism are our only options.
– "Self-Knowledge and Knowledge of Content", Canadian Journal of Philosophy (2008) 38: 399-424.pdf
The question of whether content externalism poses a threat to the traditional view of self-knowledge has been much debated. Compatibilists have tried to diffuse the threat by appealing to the self-verifying character of reflexive judgments about our own thoughts, while incompatibilists have strenously objected that this does not suffice. In the paper I argue that this debate is fundamentally misconceived since it is based, on both sides, on the problematic notion of 'knowledge of content'. What this shows, I argue, is not that content externalism is unobjectionable, but that the real challenge to content externalism is not an epistemological one. The real difficulty concerns the content externalist's seemingly necessary commitment to the idea that individuals have an incomplete grasp of the concepts that go into their own thoughts.
–"What the externalist may not want to say about Dry Earth. Reply to Korman."pdf
A popular strategy employed by externalists in response to Boghossian's Dry Earth argument consists in appealing to special 'default conditionals', conditionals specifying the nature of the concept expressed in the event the term should fail to ick out a natural kind. In the paper consider the most recent version of this appeal to default conditionals, defended by Daniel Korman (2007). I suggest that Korman's proposal fails but that it does so in an instructive way that teaches us something both about the externalist thesis and its limitations.
–
"Externalism and a posteriori
semantics" (with Sören Häggqvist). Erkenntnis (2007) 67: 373-386.pdf
–
"Content Externalism and
Fregean Sense". What Determines Content? The
Internalism/Externalism
Dispute, ed. P.
Marvan, Cambridge Scholars Press,
2006 (163-179).pdf
–
"Naming Natural Kinds". Synthese (2005) 145: 65-87.pdf
–
"Externalism and Incomplete
Understanding". Philosophical Quarterly (2004)
54: 287-294.pdf
–
"Direct Knowledge and Other Minds". Theoria (2004),
LXX: 271-293.pdf
–
"A Posteriori Analyticity". Grazer
Philosophische Studien (2003), 66: 119-139.pdf
–
"Semantic Normativity". Philosophical Studies (2001)
102: 203-226.pdf
– "Social Externalism and Conceptual Errors". Philosophical Quarterly (2001) 51: 217-231.pdf
– "On Self-Knowledge and Grasping the Content of One's Own Thoughts". Critical Notice, International Journal of Philosophical Studies (2001) 9: 229-260.
–Review of André Gallois, "The World Without, The Mind Within. An Essay on First-Person Authority". International Journal of Philosophical Studies (2000), 8.
–Review of Gary Ebbs, "Rule-Following and Realism". International Journal of Philosophical Studies (1998) 9: 285-288.
Curriculum Vitae pdf