EXPRESSING AS ‘SHOWING WHAT’S WITHIN’:ON MITCHELL GREEN’S, SELF-EXPRESSION OUP 2007

DORIT BAR-ON

UNC-Chapel Hill

1. Introduction

The notion of expression is used in a number of seemingly unrelated contextsand ways. Therapists encourage patients to learn to ‘express their feelings’, apiece of music may be said to express great sadness, we speak of the expres-sionist movement in art, and of expressivism in various areas of philosophy.Nonhuman animals and people alike are said to express affective states (such asfear, anger, wants), we speak of people as also expressing feelings, sentiments,attitudes, intentions, views, even selves. We think of groups of individuals (acorporation, an administration) as capable of expressing sentiments and atti-tudes. And we also speak of sentences as expressing propositions, words asexpressing concepts, essays as expressing ideas. For a notion in such prevalentuse, which, moreover, appears to carry so much intuitive and theoreticalweight, expression has received surprisingly little theoretical attention; it scoresvery high on use and usefulness but low on theoretical analysis.

Green’s Self-Expression (SE henceforth) is a bold and ambitious attempt toremedy this situation. Green is after no less than a unified view of all the myriadways we have of expressing ourselves: through wincing or crying, as well asthrough culturally acquired gestures; by engaging in convention-governedspeech-acts, and in works of art or music, as well as in various idiosyncraticways.1 It is his aim to portray what he terms ‘self-expression’, wherever itoccurs, and however it is carried out, as a matter of the production of a signalthat also shows an expresser’s state of mind.2 The book provides a clear defenseand development of this idea. It makes a distinct and significant contribution toour understanding of an important topic that lies at the intersection of philoso-phy of language, mind, and action, metaethics, linguistics, ethology, biology ofcommunication, and aesthetics.phib_512 212..227

I have great sympathy to Green’s general approach to his topic, as well as tomany of the details of his view of expression. Partly for this reason, my effort inwhat follows will be more constructive than critical. Offering my own spin onsome key elements in Green’s view, I will highlight a difficulty I see for Green’sofficial account of expression, but will suggest that his overall view hasresources to handle it.

1. Green is not, however, attempting to explain how sentences express propositions or how wordsexpress concepts.

2. Green borrows the notion of a signal from evolutionary biology: “any act or structure whichalters the behavior of other organisms, which evolved because of that effect, and which iseffective because the receiver’s response has also evolved”; Maynard Smith and Harper(2004, p. 3).

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2. The Diversity of Expressive Behavior andMental-State Expression

I focus my remarks on expressive behavior, as produced by both human beings andnonhuman animals, setting aside artistic expression (a topic on which Greenhas very interesting things to say in the last chapter of Self-Expression).3 The classof behaviors we ordinarily describe as ‘expressive’ spans a wide range. At oneend of the spectrum, we have so-called natural expressions, such as yelps, growls,grimaces, gasps, and smiles, where both the behavior and its connection to theexpressed states are supposed to be inculcated by nature. There are alsomimicked or acquired facial expressions or gestures that become ‘secondnature,’ such as shrugging shoulders or tutting. Then we have conventionalnonverbal expressions, such as tipping one’s hat, or sticking out one’s tongue. (Theline here is far from sharp; giving a hug, jumping for joy, stomping your feet,for example, all seem to fall somewhere in between, exhibiting both ‘natural’and acquired, stylized elements.) Still in the conventional realm, we haveexpressive verbal utterances, such as “Darn it!” or “Ouch!”, “Sorry!”, “This isgreat!” “I hate you!” and so on. We also find in the verbal domain utterancessuch as “There’s a crow on the telephone poll,” which (if sincere) expresses aspeaker’s present belief, or “Let it rain,” which expresses the speaker’s wish forrain. Finally, at the extreme end of the conventional side of the spectrum, wehave speech-acts, such as assertion or promising, which are alleged to have theexpression of certain mental states as part of their felicity conditions. And, asGreen points out, there are also self-expressions that are neither natural noracquired nor conventional, but are rather highly idiosyncratic (SE, pp. 140–3).Green also amply illustrates another dimension of the heterogeneity of expres-sive behaviors: in some instances, expressing ourselves is something that justhappens to us, in others expression is something we voluntarily let happen, inothers still, it’s something we do voluntarily (SE, pp. 27–9). When an expressiveact is voluntary—say giving your friend a spontaneous hug—very often it is theexpressive behavior that one engages in intentionally, rather than the express-ing itself. Typically, it’s the act of giving the hug that is intentional, not expressingyourself by giving the hug (although sometimes self-expression is willed). Someexpressive acts are overt, and directed toward an audience, others are not (aswhen we privately caress a photo, or silently curse to ourselves).

Still, we can discern the following commonality among the expressive behav-iors mentioned so far: they all express states of minds, as opposed to, say,propositions, concepts, or ideas. Importing a distinction from Sellars (1969), wecan separate expression as a semantic, representational relation (‘s-expression’,for short), which holds between linguistic strings or other representations andtheir contents, on the one hand, and expression as a relation between bits ofbehavior or acts and states of mind, on the other hand.4 Expression in this latter

3. For a critical discussion of Green’s view on artistic expression, see Moore (2010) (and seeGreen’s reply in the same volume).

4. Applying this distinction, I have argued, is crucial for developing acceptable expressivist viewsin various domains; see Bar-On (2004: passim), Bar-On and Chrisman (2009), and Bar-On(forthcoming).

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sense—call it ‘mental-state expression’ (‘m-expression,’ for short)—is some-thing a minded creature does, be it through bodily demeanor, facial expression,gesture, or speech, whether voluntarily or not, using a natural, conventional, oridiosyncratic sign. Thus, of the sentence “Snow is white,” we can say that its-expresses the abstract thought, or proposition, that snow is white; of the word“justice” and its translations into other languages, we can say that theys-express the concept or idea of justice. On the other hand, your tremblingvoice, which is typically unintentionally produced, m-expresses your nervous-ness. Your dog, when he gets up and walks over to give you a lick, m-expresseshis affectionate feeling (where the lick, we may suppose, is a voluntarily pro-duced bit of behavior). And when you give a friend a hug, or say “It’s so greatto see you,” you m-express your joy at seeing her through an intentionallyproduced act.

It may be that, ultimately, in ‘the causal order of being’ (to borrowa Sellarsian phrase), s-expression is grounded in m-expression. Indeed, on abroadly Gricean orientation in the philosophy of language, it may be natural tosuppose that sentences come to express propositions in consequence of speakersengaging in acts that give expression to intentional states of mind in ways thatbecome habitual and eventually ‘fossilized’ into conventions. For instance, androughly, the sentence, “Grass is green” on this view, s-expresses the propositionthat grass is green in virtue of the fact that speakers have come regularly tom-express their belief that grass is green with utterances of this sentence.5 Evenif this is so, once the distinction between s- and m- expression is recognized, itis clear that we can (and I think should) separate what a given sentences-expresses from what mental state a speaker who uses the sentence m-expresses on a given occasion. (If nothing else, the separation allows us tocapture the fact that on a given occasion, one can give expression to one andthe same mental state—say, feeling joy at seeing someone—by uttering “It’s sogood to see you” or “I’m so glad to see you”, where the two utterances employsentences that differ in the proposition they each expresses. One could alsosimply give a warm hug, which expresses no proposition. See below.)

The relata of m-expression, then, are expressive behaviors and mental states.But what is the distinctive characteristic of a bit of behavior, or an agent’s act,that renders it an expression of a mental state, as opposed to, say, a sincereevidence-based report on its presence or character, or merely a reliable indicatorthat provides an audience with evidential basis for inferring the presence orcharacter of the state, and so on? Green proposes to locate what is distinctiveof expression within the broader biological phenomenon of signaling. Hispositive account is offered as an elaboration and improvement on a modelof communication found in evolutionary biology. On Green’s proposal,m-expression should be viewed as a matter of signaling, as well as showing one’scognitive, affective, or experiential state of mind, where A signals B if it conveys

5. It’s important to note that the Gricean account in effect presupposes, rather than allowing us toreduce away, the notion of s-expression as it applies to propositional attitudes. At best, it would allowus to reduce s-expression as it applies to items in a public language to the expression of mental itemsendowed with powers of s-expression all on their own. For relevant discussion, see Bar-On(1995) and Bar-On and Green (2010).

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information, including misinformation, regarding B and was designed—byevolution, culture, or even personal history—for its ability to do so. (As Greenexplains, not all signaling is showing, and not all showing is signaling. Moreon this below.)

3. Expressing and Showing

In an early article on expression, William Alston (1965) argued that we shouldseparate all natural expressions, on the one hand, from intentional linguistic actsin which we express ourselves. With naturally expressive behavior—say, an excited cry, smile, or gesture—“one might be said to have shown,demonstrated, evinced, or betrayed enthusiasm” (1965, p. 17); not so withlinguistic expressions. Alston thought natural expressions should be fully assimi-lated to natural signs such as deer tracks or symptoms such as sneezes, takingthem to be simply “direct behaviouristic symptoms of the emotions or feelings towhich they testify” (op. cit.). He wanted to reserve the notion of expression properto what we do when we intentionally ‘put our feelings into words’.

I’m mentioning Alston’s view in order to bring out—and reject, withGreen—a certain prejudice about expression, namely, that expressing ourmental states using language must be a different kind of affair from expressingthem through facial expressions, gestures, and so on. Thus consider a paradigmcase of expressive behavior: a small child, Jenny, eagerly stretching her arm toreach for a teddy bear. Jenny wants the toy, and her pronounced reachinggesture directly expresses her desire, as her audience will no doubt appreciate.But now consider another episode in which Jenny emits a certain sound (“Uh!”)or calls out: “Teddy!” as she reaches for the toy. And finally, consider anepisode in which she avows: “I want Teddy!” perhaps with no reaching at all.These spontaneous verbal emissions (even those involving the use of conven-tional, acquired, ‘nonnatural’ verbal means) may nonetheless equally comedirectly from the child’s desire and be ‘pressed out’ from her just like thereaching behavior; they may be equally reactive, unreflective, and not drivenby any communicative intentions. Very early on in our lives, we begin to useacquired, conventional means—both words and gestures—to give vent topresent states of mind (we shout for joy, give voice to fear, air our opinion, puta present thought in words, and so on). Such expressive uses of languagebecome second nature; and their suppression would normally be as unusualand psychologically difficult as the suppression of a wince or a sigh.

To bring out the continuities or similarities among these various kinds ofexpressions, I think it’s useful to distinguish between expressive performances(whether voluntary or not), on the one hand, and the expressive vehicles used inthem, on the other.6 This may allow us to capture the similarities amongvarious episodes of expressing one’s joy at seeing a friend through a nonvol-untary twinkle in one’s eye, a facial expression or gesture, a spontaneous hug,

6. Here I collapse two distinctions introduced in Bar-On (2004), ch. 7, between the act ofexpressing and its product, on the one hand, and between the process and vehicle of expressing.

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or an exclamation: “So great to see you!”, while acknowledging significantdifferences among the expressive vehicles used in each. Now, there’s an intui-tive contrast between acts of expressing one’s mental state and acts of merelytelling about them. Anyone can say truly, and some can even tell reliably, thatI’m feeling sad. But presumably only I am in a position to express my sadfeeling—for example, by letting tears roll down my cheeks. To use my earlierterminology, we can say that the mere sayings employ sentences that s-expressthe proposition that DB is feeling sad, and in making the utterances, I (if I’msincere) m-express my belief that I am feeling sad, whereas my tears m-expressthe sad feeling itself.7

Now, if Green is right, what binds together expressive performances that areto be included under the umbrella of ‘self-expression’ is the fact that theyinvolve not only signaling one’s mental state, but also showing it. However,whether we have a genuine contrast here will, of course, depend on how we areto understand showing. Early on in his book (SE, pp. 47–9), Green helpfullydistinguishes three varieties of showing: showing-that, showing-a, andshowing-how. Whereas showing that something is the case is a matter ofestablishing, giving proof, or demonstrating the proposition that such & such,showing-a, where a is an object, state, or state of affairs, is making a perceptiblein some way (visually or otherwise) to a suitably attuned audience, andshowing-how is enabling others to know “how something looks, feels, sounds”providing “qualitative knowledge for those with appropriate sensory capaci-ties” (SE, p. 48.) Green points out that the three kinds of showing all enableknowledge: propositional knowledge, perceptual knowledge, and a special kindof knowledge-how—experiential knowledge—respectively. A signal may indi-cate the presence or character of something more or less reliably, so it providesmore or less good evidence for that which it signals. But showing affords more: itenables knowledge. Thus, not all signals show what they signal. IncorporatingGreen’s understanding of showing into his characterization of self-expression,we get the following claim:

What renders expressive behavior distinctive is the fact that it is behaviorthat has been designed (by nature, culture, or individual intention) to conveyinformation about individuals’ states of mind in a way that allows observersto obtain knowledge and not just evidence about those mental states, where theknowledge may be propositional, perceptual or experiential. (SE, pp. 105, 122,138, 186)

I find it striking that, having gone to some length to establish self-expressionas special among the signaling behaviors of human and nonhuman animals inthat expression involves the showing of mental states, Green goes on to includeunder the umbrella of showing relevant to expression not only showing-a and

7. On the neo-expressivist view of avowals developed in Bar-On (2004), however, if I am avowingfeeling sad in uttering “I’m feeling sad,” I am also m-expressing the feeling itself, and not (or notjust) my self-belief. This, even though the sentence I utter s-expresses a self-ascriptive proposi-tion. (See especially chapters 6–8.)

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showing-how but also showing that one is in the mental state. In so doing, itseems to me that Green takes away some of what he gives us by portrayingexpressing as showing.

To give the intuitive flavor of my worry first: Imagine a perfectly empatheticmother hen who was able to produce knowledge-enabling signals of her chicks’hunger or fear. (We may if we like imagine, in addition, a natural history inwhich this empathetic signaling ability proved adaptive and conferred a selec-tive advantage on mother hens that possessed it.) We wouldn’t think of themother hen as capable of expressing her chicks’ states. Green’s account wouldrule this case out, but only through his stipulation that an individual can onlyexpress his or her own states of mind (see SE, pp. 25–6); but one might preferan account of expression that revealed why—rather than stipulating that—expressing has this feature. Or, suppose that some creatures were programmedby nature compulsively to issue reports (or assertions, or some other advertise-ments) of the mental states they were in, and were unable to lie about them,thus enabling suitable observers to know, and not just have evidence, abouttheir present mental states. Would the creatures’ compulsive self-reports berendered any more instances of self-expression just in virtue of their unassail-able reliability?

On Green’s view as stated earlier, m-expressing is a kind of showing, andshowing (of whatever type) provides knowledge, rather than mere evidence.Thus, the contrast between expressing mental states and other forms of indi-cating them is for him fundamentally an epistemic contrast, cashed out in termsof whether the relevant behavior is apt (and was designed) to provide knowl-edge as opposed to mere evidence. But this seems to me insufficient to capturea key feature of expression that philosophers typically trade on—for example,when advancing expressivist theses in various domains. Here, the intuitivecontrast in play is between expressing one’s mental state and reporting it(however reliably), or even sincerely asserting that one has it. For example,when introducing his influential emotivist view of ethical discourse (and distin-guishing it from the subjectivist view), Ayer (1936/1946, pp. 109–10) writes:

. . . [I]f I say, “Tolerance is a virtue,” and someone answers, “You don’tapprove of it,” he would, on the ordinary subjectivist theory, be contradict-ing me. On our theory, he would not be contradicting me, because, in sayingthat tolerance was a virtue, I should not be making any statement about myown feelings or about anything else. I should simply be evincing my feelings,which is not at all the same thing as saying that I have them . . . [E]ven if theassertion that one has a certain feeling always involves the expression of thatfeeling, the expression of a feeling assuredly does not always involve theassertion that one has it . . . [W]hereas the subjectivist holds that ethicalstatements actually assert the existence of certain feelings, we hold thatethical statements are expressions . . . of feelings which do not necessarilyinvolve any assertions.

The contrast that informs Ayer’s (and others’) expressivism does not seemto be aptly captured by Green’s epistemic contrast between showing and

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(merely) indicating or signaling. The contrast Ayer has in mind intuitivelyremains even when we consider forms of telling that are maximally epistemi-cally secure. It is at bottom not a matter of how conducive the relevantbehavior is (by design) to impart knowledge. Rather, it’s a matter of how thebehavior is related to the expressed state, as well as the way it imparts knowledge.Naively, the showing behavior relevant to expressing is behavior that springsdirectly from the expressed state of mind and directly betrays the expresser’sstate of mind so that suitably endowed observers can immediately recognizeit. As I see it, one main challenge for an account of expression that isintended to cover not just so-called natural expressions is to explain howthis naïve idea can be extended to cover also expressive behavior that usesconventional vehicles, for example.8 From the observer point of view, therelevant contrast is between behavior that allows some kind of immediaterecognition of the expressed state, as opposed to requiring, say, inference(however secure) from various features of the behavior supplemented by con-textual information and background knowledge. Allowing that the showingrelevant to expressing is (inter alia) showing that enables propositional know-ledge seems to ignore this contrast.

A similar contrast to the one Ayer and other expressivists have in mindinforms discussions in ethology, where certain animal behaviors—e.g. socalled ‘affective displays’—are described as ‘merely expressive’. Like expres-sivists, ethologists, as well as biologists, often contrast being expressive withbeing produced with some intention to inform. Expressive behavior is oftensaid to be automatic, or reflexive, or nonvoluntary, and to ‘betray’, evince, ordirectly manifest an animal’s affective state, where the contrast is with behav-ior that is intended to provide an audience with information about the behaveror its environment. Here, too, it seems that what’s at issue is not whether thebehavior is designed to provide knowledge as opposed to mere evidence.Now, I fully agree with Green that this received view of expressive behavioris impoverished, and that so-called natural expressions are not properly char-acterized as merely reflexive, automatic natural signs of the expressed states.But as we enrich and extend the account of expressive behavior, it seems tome desirable to offer a delineation that avoids assimilating expressive behav-ior to the much broader and heterogeneous category of behaviors that aresimply apt to (and designed to) provide knowledge, of whatever kind, of one’smental states—which is what the inclusion of showing-that seems to me torisk.9

If our goal is to capture the express/inform contrast as just described, thenperhaps we should revisit the suggestion that at the core of expressive behav-ior lies the kind of showing that is perception-enabling (and perhaps alsoshowing-how), to the exclusion of showing-that. Below I try to give someintuitive reasons for thinking this, and offer my own take on how we couldhandle some of the cases that lead Green to include showing-that underself-expression.

8. This is one of the goals of Bar-On (2004); see especially chapters 6–8.9. For relevant references and discussion, see Bar-On and Green (2010, and in progress).

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4. Natural Expressions as Enabling Perception10

Deer tracks may inform a trained mountaineer of a deer’s size and weight,whether it was walking or running, and so on. A wound examined by a forensicexpert may give information about the implement that inflicted the wound. Thetracks and the wound are mere traces, though they possess sufficient articulationto convey detailed information. Symptoms such as sneezes and red spots alsoindicate the presence of certain bodily conditions. By contrast, a wince, a growl,a cowering demeanor, a squeal of delight, a rolling laughter, don’t simplyprovide information or evidence about states of mind; they directly exhibit ordisplay them. Correlatively, witnesses to expressive behavior (if they’re suitablyendowed) don’t just infer or learn that the expresser is in the expressed state; theyimmediately recognize it. So-called natural expressions also contrast with beedances, which, unlike deer tracks and wounds, are presumably designed to conveyinformation (about certain features of the environment) to designated consum-ers. Capturing these contrasts is what I take to be, in the first instance, the burdenof the theoretical appeal to showing. At least as regards naturally expressivebehaviors, the idea is that such behaviors form a special subclass of communicativebehavioral manifestations, which are not simply symptoms and are not even justsignals designed to indicate states of mind; they also show them to suitablyendowed perceivers (as Green would agree).

Now, a mathematical or logical proof can show certain results; astronomicalevidence can show the presence of a star at some location. This, however,is showing in the sense of establishing, or demonstrating (as in proving); it isshowing that something is the case. A map can show us the location of a postoffice, or the layout of a city in a more direct sense, by modeling some of itstopographical relations to other places referenced by the map. Still, the mapdoesn’t show the post office by giving us a glimpse of it. By contrast, an episode,or act, of a naturally expressive behavior is a kind of display; it is itself a show.When we confront an animal baring its teeth in anger, a child who smiles inpleasure, a man who twists his mouth in disgust, we may take ourselves to bewitnessing how things are with the expresser. We often speak of seeing someone’sanger, hearing the nervousness in someone’s uneven voice, feeling the tension insomeone’s body, and so on. Along these lines, Green argues that at least someexpressive behavior makes perceptible the expressed states, so that an observer ofsuch behavior who is suitably attuned by nature, habituation, or experiencewill be able to perceive—see, hear, feel, etc.—the expressed state of mindthrough the behavior (SE, pp. 84–93). (We speak, in this vein, of children’sinability to hide their feelings, where hiding may be seen as a correlative of thekind of showing that is perception-enabling.)

Unlike paradigm cases where A shows us that B (e.g., the proof or conclusiveevidence, including behavioral evidence, showing us that p), natural expres-sions are taken to exhibit directly not only the presence of the state, but also itsquality, degree, and object. A natural expression can display the location of a

10. For a more comprehensive discussion of issues discussed in this and the next section, seeBar-On (2004), ch. 7 and 8.

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pain in the chest, as well as its severity, a mild midriff ticklishness, or amoderate agitation about the bug’s flutter, or rage, as opposed to panic, ata specific attacker, an intense desire for the toy, great excitement at the sightof a mate, or an extreme puzzlement about the disappearing doll, and so on.Indeed, it may be thought that it is by perceiving (seeing, hearing, feeling) thequality, degree, or object of someone’s mental state, as those are exhibited inher expressive behavior, that we perceive the state she is in.11 This meshes wellwith reflections on the role naturally expressive behavior plays in the lives ofcreatures capable of it. Arguably, such behavior is effective when it meetsimmediate and appropriate reactions on the part the designated audience,which are likelier to ensue if the behavior enables perception as opposed to,say, requiring inference about hidden causes of behavior.

Although portraying naturally expressive behavior as perception-enablinghelps isolate a significant distinctive feature of it, more needs to be said. For notall perception-enabling showing is expression. Suppose I point to my child’sbeaming smile so you can see how much she’s enjoying herself. Though mygesture allows you to see a state of mind of my child—her pleasure—I haven’texpressed the child’s pleasure; she has (through her smile). Green’s accountwould rule out this case through the above-mentioned stipulation that we canonly express our own (present) states of mind. But suppose I roll up my sleeveto expose a sunburn on my arm, or I hand you a stethoscope so you can hearmy heart-murmur. Here I do things that enable you to perceive conditions Iam in. But I haven’t expressed those conditions. Green’s account rules out theexpression of nonmental states, as well, but only by including a furtherstipulation—namely, that only introspectible states are expressible. However, thisseems to me problematic in two ways: first, it means that the account againoffers a stipulation, where one might wish for an explanation; and secondly,inasmuch as Green intends his account to be applicable to both nonhumanand human behavior, it would seem advisable to avoid such an appeal tointrospectibility. For while it’s undeniable that nonhuman animals engage inexpressive behavior, it is much more controversial that they can introspect(of course, that depends on one’s view of introspection).

It would be more satisfying if the above-noted features of expression—thatone can only express one’s own states of mind—fell out of the account ofexpression, rather than being built into it by stipulation. This, it seems to me,would require a closer examination of the reasons why expressive behaviorenables perception of expressed states. We can begin by observing that in theabove two types of cases of showing without expressing (my showing you mychild’s smile, my showing you my sunburn), the behavior that allegedly enablesperception of the relevant state is in no way typical or characteristic of being inthat state. Although it may well be that, but for my gesture, you wouldn’t in thisinstance have been able to see my child’s pleasure, my (or anyone’s) pointing tomy child (or anyone’s) smile is in no way part of what in general enablesthe perception of an individual’s pleasure. And, obviously, such ‘third-party’

11. This is one of my reasons for suspecting that Green’s showing-how is not a separate phenom-enon from his showing-a.

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pointing isn’t part of anyone’s feeling pleasure, unlike smiling, which is arguablya characteristic component of feeling pleasure (see below). Similarly, even if myrolling up my sleeve is necessary in a particular instance for you to see mysunburn, my (or anyone’s) rolling up a sleeve to expose the sunburn is in no wayrequired in general for the perception of sunburns; indeed, in this case, nobehavior is required. (Thus, in both types of cases there is, as some might putit, a completely ‘external’ relation between the behavior that enables anobserver to perceive the state and the state shown.)

Another type of case may be worth reflecting on in this connection. ConsiderRosa Parks’ behavior when remaining seated on the Alabama bus and refusingto give up her seat to a white passenger. That behavior showed but didn’texpress her courage.12 In general, although character or personality traits arethings we paradigmatically show through our behavior, they are not, intu-itively, things we express. When behavior shows character traits, the showingbehavior is produced by the person whose trait is being shown, and the relationbetween the behavior and what is shown is not accidental. For it’s plausible tosuppose that the trait that the behavior shows is in some way causally involvedin producing the behavior. Still, absent background information, there’s notelling what trait the behavior shows, because the circumstances in part deter-mine what constitutes or counts as a courageous act. Had Parks been asked tostay put by the bus by the driver, her doing so wouldn’t be an act of courage,so ipso facto wouldn’t show her courage. (Moreover, even in the given circum-stances, there were indefinitely many ways for Parks to show her courage, someof which needn’t have even required her to engage in any overt behavior.)13 Bycontrast, although circumstances may causally determine whether someonewill be tired, scared of x, or hoping that p, and contextual information maycome into the perception of expressive behavior, being in the relevant states ofmind is presumably not constituted by the background circumstances.

In general, I think we would be hard-pressed to point to behaviors that aredistinctive or characteristic of specific character traits. By the same token, abehavior like Parks’ (remaining seated and refusing to move) by itself is in a clearsense opaque with respect to the trait it purports to show. (Similarly for behaviorsthat serve to show others’ mental states.) By contrast, naturally expressivebehaviors are very much characteristic of the states they express (even if theyare not essential to being in those states; see below). Such behaviors are transparentto the expressed conditions, in the sense that suitably endowed observerswitnessing the behavior can perceive (or otherwise immediately recognize) the

12. This is a case mentioned to me by Green, personal communication. Courage, and othercharacter traits, are presumably not introspectible by us; moreover (and perhaps relatedly) Irecognize that it’s not plausibly thought to be perceptible. I’m considering this type of case inorder to bring out a certain point regarding expressive behavior—one that I think is obscuredby excessive focus on the knowledge-enabling features of expressive behavior.

13. I do not mean here to be claiming that psychological traits such as courage are not “real” orare merely socially constructed, or constituted by convention. You may suppose if you like thatbeing courageous is an entirely nonconventional matter, a ‘brain-based’ natural property ofindividuals. Nevertheless, what will make it a bona fide exercise (and thus a showing) of thisdispositional property on a given occasion will depend on background conditions.

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conditions through the behavior.14 Of course, a lot more needs to be said abouttransparency, perception, immediate recognition, and so on. But note that wehave shifted the burden of explaining why we can only express our ownoccurrent mental states from the stipulated introspectibility of expressible statesto the relation between expressive behavior and expressed states, and to thedistinctive features of the production and uptake of expressive behavior—which is precisely what I think an account of expression should address.

On traditional and contemporary introspectionist views, any perception orunmediated, direct recognition of an individual’s mental state is the prerogativeof the individual herself; it becomes possible through the exercise of the specialfaculty of introspection. Others can only perceive the individual’s behavior andinfer to its mental causes, with various degrees of epistemic security. By contrast,on the view that informs the foregoing discussion, which Green shares, othersare often able to perceive/directly recognize an individual’s mental state,provided they are suitably attuned, and provided the individual engages inexpressive behavior.

The transparency of naturally expressive behavior has two dimensions. First,the behavior directly reveals what kind of mental state the individual is in, aswell as the state’s degree, quality, and intentional object. (A child’s wideningeyes show surprise that is mild and directed at the disappearing doll.) Second, thebehavior shows us an individual’s being in the relevant state. As Green notes,(what I describe as) the two dimensions of transparency can pull apart: anindividual may engage in behavior expressive of a state of mind M, while notexpressing her M (SE, pp. 40–1; chapter 7). Children very quickly learn not onlyto tone down or suppress expressive behavior (which is something even dogscan do—suppressing barks at their owner’s command); they can also purposelyput on expressive behavior—in playful pretense or even to deceive. As wit-nesses to the dissimulation, we may be taken in. The two dimensions oftransparency can pull apart in the opposite way. An individual may use a formof expression that is naturally associated with one kind of state to express adifferent kind of state. In the case of human beings, an individual may intendto show her joy, but produce a strained grimace instead of a happy smile (dueto a facial scar, or some other idiosyncrasy). If we are familiar with theindividual, we may recognize her as expressing her joy, for the grimace mayserve in her expressive repertoire as the expressive vehicle for expressing joy. Andthere are of course, as Green points out, other types of personal idiosyncrasies,as well as culture-dependent variations in expressive vehicles (SE, pp. 140–43).(This is not to say that in the realm of expression anything goes. An individualmay fail to express her present state even when she is in the relevant state andtries to show it through her behavior.) Thus, although naturally expressive

14. To say that behavior that naturally expresses M is transparent in the present sense is just to saythat if/when you are in M, a suitably attuned and appropriately placed observer could perceiveor immediately recognize your being in M by perceiving your behavior. It is also to say thatif one does not engage in any expressive behavior, then others may be unable to perceive hermental states, though they may still be able to come to know of her mental states in other ways.(I discuss the metaphysical nature of the relation between expressive behavior and expressedstates in Bar-On (2004), ch. 10.)

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performances do not s-express (express in Sellars’ semantic sense) individuals’states of mind, since there is no conventional, representational relationbetween, say facial expressions or bodily gestures and some propositions orconcepts, still, the expressive vehicles used in such performances enjoy a kindof autonomy that allows them to exhibit types, qualities, and intentional objects ofmental states. (This is something that both actors and visual artists exploit; seeGreen’s discussion in chapter 7.)

5. The Limits of Perception-Enabling Showing

In view of the possibility of a mismatch between expressive vehicle andexpressed state, someone—not Green—might wonder how any expressivebehavior could enable perception of the expressed states. After all, ‘perceive’ aswell as ‘show,’ are success verbs. If I am to perceive your sadness through yourbehavior, you have to be in the state of sadness. Yet for all I know, the behaviormay be only expressive of sadness, without expressing your sadness. I fully agreewith Green that the fact that we can misperceive expressive behavior—by, forexample, taking a piece of dissimulation to be the ‘real thing’—should notstand in the way of our being able to perceive others’ states of mind. (Compare:the fact that we may be merely under the impression that we are seeing a treedoes not mean that we do not sometimes simply see trees, as opposed toindirectly inferring their presence from visual appearances.)

Drawing on Darwin, Ekman, and others, Green suggests in this connectionthat we can, for example, perceive an emotion such as anger, in the face ofanimal, by perceiving a characteristic component of it, say, the baring of its teeth,which foretells the animal’s impending action of striking at the target of itsanger. Of course, on a given occasion, an animal can bare its teeth withoutbeing angry, in which case, we couldn’t see the anger by seeing the teeth-baring. But we do think we can see a tree by seeing a characteristic componentof it (say, one of its branches), even though on occasion, if the branch weresevered, we might be seeing the branch without seeing the tree. If the tree isthere, attached to the branch, we can see it by seeing its branch. Likewise, if ouranimal is angry, we can see its anger by seeing a characteristic component of it.(Note: a characteristic component need not be an essential component, nordo we need to suppose that being angry necessarily requires showing one’sanger through behavior. So the present proposal can be divorced from logicalbehaviorism.)

However, Green is skeptical that we can extend this picture to all of ourstates of mind. Although he thinks all expressing is showing, he thinks there aremany mental states—including many introspectible mental states—that cannotbe made perceptible. He thinks it’s absurd to think that we can behave in a waythat enables perception of cognitive states such as belief, and he thinks thateven sensations such as feeling itchy, warm or cold, the taste of vanilla or smellof lemon, the visual perception of a blue patch, cannot be shown in theperception-enabling sense (showing-a). In fact, in the case of sensations, Greenthinks that this difficulty explains why it’s a challenge to explain how such states

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are expressible (see p. 29f.).15 Note, however, that even if it is “absurd” tosuggest that “we can perceive such cognitive states as belief” (p. 92), beliefs aresurely among the sort of states we can express. So on Green’s delineation,introspectibility, perception-enabling showing, and expressibility pull apartfrom each other.

In the case of belief, Green adverts to the idea that one can at least show thatone has a belief that p, which points to one reason Green has for includingshowing-that in the characterization of self-expression. So showing-that mayhelp address the worry that in some cases we can express states that we cannotmake perceptible. It might, then, be tempting to invoke showing-that to over-come the alleged difficulty mentioned above with the expressibility of certainsensations as well. Green does not take this route, and for good reason. Doingso would again limit the account’s applicability to nonhuman animals. Supposethat expressing a state such as an itchy sensation, which nonhuman creaturespresumably are capable of experiencing, is a matter of engaging in behaviordesigned to show to a suitably endowed audience that you are in the state(without enabling perception of the state). Suppose, further, that we understandshowing-that, with Green, in terms of making propositional knowledge available.Then it will turn out that many sensations that nonhuman animals are capableof experiencing are not expressible at all by them, at least insofar as theirconspecifics cannot be credited with the relevant propositional knowledge,since they presumably lack the relevant concepts. (One could take the enablingof propositional knowledge to be only sufficient, but not necessary for express-ing that involves showing-that. But then we’d need an explanation of what suchexpressing amounts to in cases where propositional knowledge is not possible.)

Green is motivated to include showing-that in his account of expression bya further worry. Consider states that Green thinks can be made perceptiblethrough natural facial expressions, gestures, or bodily demeanor—say, fear,anger, excitement—but which we think can also be expressed through morestylized, acquired, or conventional vehicles (vigorously rubbing one’s arms,flipping a finger, emitting an expletive, and finally uttering an articulate sen-tence). How do such ‘non-natural’ expressive vehicles enable perception?Whereas the earlier worry was about the limits of what can be shown by beingperceived, the present worry is about the limits of the sorts of behavior that canaccomplish showing in a perception-enabling way.16

15. Green might think that we intuitively take the expressibility of certain sensations to beproblematic is due to the fact that we don’t see how such states can be made perceptible. Thiswould, however, suggest that the kind of showing relevant to our ordinary notion of expressionis after all showing-a. But then Green’s inclusion of showing-that under expression wouldrepresent a significant departure from the ordinary notion. Green may be happy to revise theordinary notion, claiming that it is unduly narrow in its exclusion of showing-that. By contrast,what I’m arguing is that we need a broader understanding than Green offers of whatconstitutes showing-a.

16. Another important motivation for the inclusion of showing-that is Green’s commitment to theidea that speech-acts involve the expression of the mental states that constitute their sincerityconditions (e.g. my sincere assertion that p expresses my belief that p). I have set aside thismotivation in part because I’m not as certain as Green that this idea is part of our core notionof m-expression. I leave discussion of this for another occasion.

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Space limitations prevent me from addressing these worries in any detailhere. But in conclusion, I’d like to make a few interrelated points that I thinkwe should keep in mind when trying to address them:

(i) What needs showing is not some mental object in me(anger, pain, vanilla taste), but rather a certain ‘undergo-ing’ of mine. The relevant a’s, when it comes to showing a mentalstate, are not internal objects analogous to perceivable external objects,but rather mental states, events, or episodes: my occurrent thinking that p,my feeling hopeful that q. Equally, what I need to show isn’t my pain or ticklesensation, or my vanilla smell sensation. Rather I need to show you myoccurrently having/feeling pain or tickle or vanilla smell sensation. (See below.)

(ii) What needs to do the showing is the performance, not thevehicle ‘considered on its own.’ Wide-open eyes, an ear-to-earsmile, a long face, may be said to show the relevant emotions ‘all bythemselves’. But insofar as what needs to be made perceptible is anoccurrent episode (say, of feeling annoyed by something), we ought tothink of the performances (qua events) as what does the work ofenabling perception. In any event, as expressive vehicles shade awayfrom so-called ‘signature’ facial expressions and gestures into moreacquired, culturally determined vehicles, it becomes less plausible tothink of the vehicles themselves as needing to wear the expressed stateson their sleeves.

(iii) The characteristic components through which we can seesomeone’s (being in) M may themselves be acquired behav-iors. As Green points out (see p. 92), the notion of perceiving anemotion via perceiving a characteristic component of it is applicable toexpressive behaviors that are acquired through culture or developidiosyncratically. This seems to me to broaden considerably the rangeof available characteristic components that could facilitate the percep-tion of mental states.

(iv) When an articulate linguistic vehicle replaces a naturalexpression, the linguistic articulation may take the place ofperception-enabling showing. Think again of Jenny eagerlystretching out her hand for the toy. A parent witnessing her behaviormay offer her a new linguistic vehicle with which she can articulate theintentional object of her desire, so she can begin to say “Teddy!” as shereaches. She’ll soon also learn to say: “There’s teddy” to give voice toher occurrent belief or thought that teddy is there. Verbal articulation ofmental state content quickly becomes ‘second nature’ for languageusers. Moreover, such articulation can itself be seen as a characteristiccomponent of at least some occurrent states. For one pertinentexample, the articulation of a proposition believed (in speech or inthought) can plausibly be seen as an acquired characteristic componentof occurrent judging. (On some views it may even be thought to be anessential component of such states.) Another pertinent example is that ofexpressing one’s sensation of smelling vanilla. We shouldn’t expect to

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be able to see (or smell) the vanilla in the behavior of someone express-ing her sensation, no more than we expect to see the object of Jenny’sdesire in the eagerly reaching arm. We recognize Jenny’s desire forTeddy in part by following the direction of her outstretched arm.Perhaps, similarly, we can recognize someone’s sensation of smellingvanilla through the way his sniffing draws our own attention toambient vanilla smell. Just as Jenny’s acquiring the word “Teddy”allows her to give more articulate voice to her specific desire for teddy,so acquiring the word “vanilla” may allow one to give more articulateexpression to the sensation of smelling vanilla. The verbal articulationshoulders some of the burden initially placed on the perception-enabling show. And in a fully articulate expressive performance, whensomeone spontaneously says: “I feel so awful about what I just did!”,the verbal articulation can be seen as obviating altogether any needfor the expresser to enable the perception of the expressed statethrough the expressive vehicle or the accompanying behavior. (Yet,as far as I can see, nothing in the transition to verbally articulatedexpression as described appears to require moving to showing-that.)

(v) We may even agree that showing understood as perception-enabling is too demanding without yet resorting to including‘showing-that.’ It may not be necessary to insist that the showingrelevant to expression is perception-enabling. Perception may be butone species of a broader genus of direct/immediate nonproposi-tional knowledge (of course, on some views, even the knowledgeenabled by perception is propositional knowledge). What is crucial forcapturing the show/tell contrast spoken of earlier is adhering to theidea of showing that is different from showing-that (= enablingpropositional knowledge). The broader intuitive idea is that expressivebehavior enables immediate recognition, contact, or acquaintance with theexpressed state, which is nonpropositional and not articulable bythe observer, yet issues in distinctive responses that the expressivebehavior is designed to elicit. (A vervet monkey hearing another’sfrightened alarm call immediately knows how urgent the expressed fear is,where to look, what to do, etc.) This immediacy of recognition is a correla-tive, on the observer side, of the directness of production on theexpresser side. Even if we think the utterance of, for example, “You’reso annoying!” may not have the same power to enable you to perceivemy annoyance as does a facial contortion or a frustrated sigh, we maystill hold out for the view that suitably attuned observers of such anutterance are in a position immediately to recognize the utterer’sstate of mind and not just be correctly inferring that the utterer isannoyed based on various contextual clues concerning what the uttereris trying to convey.

To sum up: Green’s Self-Expression promises to offer an account of what makesdistinctive the behavior that expresses our states of mind—whether naturally,or through using acquired, conventional, or even idiosyncratic expressive

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vehicles—in terms of showing. I have argued that doing so requires explainingwhat distinguishes the showing involved in m-expressing one’s state of mindnot only from providing a reliable indication of its presence, but also fromreporting or asserting it, as well as from other forms of letting others knowabout it. I suggested that this can be best accomplished by setting asideshowing-that and cleaving more closely to the paradigm of perception-enabling showing (showing-a, as well as showing-how). I have suggested thatthe view developed in Self-Expression contains resources that would allow us todo just that. Taking our lead from this work, we can hope to make progress inunderstanding what binds together the rich variety of ways that beings like ushave of expressing themselves.

References

Alston, W. 1965. “Expressing.” In Philosophy in America, ed. M. Black, 15–34. Ithaca: CornellUniversity Press.

Ayer, A. J. 1936/1946. Language, Truth and Logic. London: V. Gollancz Ltd.Bar-On, D. 1995. “Reconstructing ‘Meaning’: Grice and the Naturalization of Semantics.” Pacific

Philosophical Quarterly 76: 83–116.———. 2004. Speaking My Mind: Expression and Self-Knowledge. Oxford: Clarendon Press.———. forthcoming. “Expression, Truth, and Reality: Some Variations on Themes from

Wright.” In Festschrift for Crispin Wright, ed. A. Coliva. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Bar-On, D. and M. Chrisman. 2009. “Ethical Neo-Expressivism,” Oxford Studies in Metaethics V:

133–65.Bar-On, D. and M. Green. 2010. “Lionspeak: Communication, Expression, and Meaning.” In Self,

Language, and World: Problems from Kant, Sellars, and Rosenberg, eds. J. O’Shea and E. Rubenstein.Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview. 89–106.

Maynard Smith, J. and D. Harper. 2004. Animal Signals. Oxford University Press.Moore, J. 2010. “Artistic Expression Goes Green.” Acta Analytica 25: 89–103.Sellars, W. 1969. “Language as Thought and as Communication,” Philosophy and Phenomenological

Research 29: 506–27.

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