MUST EXPRESSION BE INSTRUMENTAL?

• Authors: Bäckström Stina
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This article engages critically with the theory of expression proposed by Mitchell Green in his Self-Expression (2007). In this book, Green argues that expressions are signals designed to convey information about mental states. By putting pressure on one of the examples Green uses in his book, I will challenge this thesis. Then I will deepen this challenge by developing a contrast between two philosophical perspectives on expression, which I name the ‘instrumental’ and the ‘descriptive’. I take Green’s theory of expression to be an exemple of the instrumental perspective. Expression, in the instrumental perspective, is a means for transmitting information about mental states from organism to organism. I articulate the descriptive perspective with the help of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Ludwig Wittgenstein. On the descriptive view, expression is (at least a part of) an answer to the question what it is so much as to have mental states and a living body. I suggest at the end of the article that if we remain within the instrumental perspective, we will not be able to use expression to satisfactorily answer this question.

Keywords

EN

EXPRESSION; GREEN MITCHELL; MERLEAU-PONTY MAURICE; SIGNAL; WITTGENSTEIN LUDWIG

• Publisher: Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and Institute of Philosophy of Academy of Sciences of Czech Republic
• Journal: Organon F. medzinárodný časopis pre analytickú filozofiu
• Year: 2021
• Volume: 28
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 282 – 302

Contributors

author

Bäckström Stina

• Södertörn University, Centre for Practical Knowledge, Alfred Nobels allé 7, Flemingsberg 141 89 Huddinge, Sweden

Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2021.28202