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n this paper I engage with a certain debate between Michael Dummett and John McDowell on the possibility of the full-blooded theories of meaning. This is a debate on what sort of semantic theories can be of use in giving an account of the speaker’s knowledge of a language. After defining modesty and full-bloodedness for a theory of meaning, I proceed to uncover Dummett’s reasons for his two central claims: Truth-conditional theories of meaning are modest and a theory of meaning must be full-blooded. Then I critically evaluate McDowell’s and Richard Kimberly Heck’s takes on the latter claim. I conclude that with the same descriptions of our linguistic competence it is impossible to characterize our language use as a rational activity and also give a full-blooded theory of meaning that can be used to study thought.

Recently physician overconfidence has been considered as a major factor contributing to diagnostic error. A philosophical inquiry into overconfidence as a character vice has the promise of shedding light on how we can overcome this vice and potentially reduce diagnostic errors. In his recent work, Quassim Cassam conducts such an inquiry. This paper puts Cassam’s work on physician overconfidence in the context of his theoretical work on self-knowledge and epistemic vices. It shows that physician overconfidence, considered as a major factor in diagnostic error, provides a significant real-life application of Cassam’s accounts of self-knowledge and epistemic vices. It focuses on the features of these accounts that lead to the following result: self-knowledge is rarely, if ever, a remedy for physicians’ overconfidence and the resulting diagnostic errors. By appealing to the same data Cassam cites regarding diagnostic error and physicians’ overconfidence, it is shown that the more substantial—in the sense Cassam specifies—one’s third-personal knowledge of oneself is, the less likely it is to be of any practical value qua self-knowledge. This paper defends the view that what Cassam calls ‘trivial self-knowledge’—first-personal knowledge that has been the primary concern for philosophers—is crucial for any kind of self-knowledge to be instrumental for self-improvement. Since an agent acts from the standpoint that she is aware of herself trivially, it is argued that what Cassam calls ‘substantial self-knowledge’ has no practical value unless it is integrated with what he calls ‘trivial self-knowledge’. In this way the paper explains why if what one learns about oneself from the third-person perspective is drastically different from what one takes to be true from the first-person perspective, one cannot act on this knowledge. Since the standpoint from which one experiences and acts intentionally are one and the same, the paper also explains why traumatic experiences (such as the death of a patient or of a loved one) can sometimes lead to fundamental change and self-improvement.

That the study of the first-person reports of intentional actions, happenings, thoughts, and sensations as revealing the structure of self-consciousness was a central theme of Anscombe's work in philosophy of mind has not been sufficiently registered in the literature. I aim to show that this theme animated many of her works throughout her writing career and her "The First Person" (1974) can be best understood as one of these works and in the light of others.