<html><div style='background-color:'><DIV></DIV>> <DIV></DIV>>Kenneth MacKendrick wrote: <DIV></DIV>> > <DIV></DIV>> > but when you stub your toe, <DIV></DIV>> > you have privileged access to that pain in a way that others don't (this <DIV></DIV>> > particular formulation won't be found in Habermas, for good reason <DIV></DIV>> > methinks... but I take create delight in formulating it this way). Now, if <DIV></DIV>> > I am contradicted on this point, then I submit that we aren't living on the <DIV></DIV>> > same planet. <DIV></DIV> <P>At the risk of not living on the same planet with Kenneth, I disagree. I think the "privileged access" we gave to our own pain is just a matter of a convention of not contradicting people about things they are usually but not always in a better position to know than others do. But I think we can be wrong about just about anything, including self-ascriptions of pain, and others can be right about ascribing pain to us when we might deny it. Our mental states, even our qualia or raw feels, are not incorrigible. And our knowledge and self-ascription of them certainly isn't even if the states themselves are. Rorty makes this point very well, although with an unnecessarily behaviorist flavor, in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. --jks </P> <DIV></DIV></div><br clear=all><hr>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at <a href='http://go.msn.com/bql/hmtag_itl_EN.asp'>http://explorer.msn.com</a><br></html>