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Full Idea
How can we know what we ourselves are thinking if the very existence of the content of our thought may depend on facts of which we are ignorant?
Gist of Idea
How can we know what we are thinking, if content depends on something we don't know?
Source
Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 5)
Book Ref
Stalnaker,Robert C.: 'Mere Possibilities' [Princeton 2012], p.133
A Reaction
This has always been my main doubt about externalism. I may defer to experts about what I intend by an 'elm' (Putnam's example), but what I mean by elm is thereby a fuzzy tall tree with indeterminate leaves. I don't know the meaning of 'elm'!