8 research outputs found
What asymmetry? Knowledge of self, knowledge of others, and the inferentialist challenge
There is widely assumed to be a fundamental epistemological asymmetry between self-knowledge and knowledge of others. They are said to be âcategorically different in kind and mannerâ (Moran), and the existence of such an asymmetry is taken to be a primitive datum in accounts of the two kinds of knowledge. I argue that standard accounts of the differences between self-knowledge and knowledge of others exaggerate and misstate the asymmetry. The inferentialist challenge to the asymmetry focuses on the extent to which both self-knowledge and knowledge of others are matters of inference and interpretation. In the case of self-knowledge I focus on the so-called âtransparency methodâ and on the extent to which use of this method delivers inferential self-knowledge. In the case of knowledge of othersâ thoughts, I discuss the role of perception as a source of such knowledge and argue that even so-called âperceptualâ knowledge of other minds is inferential. I contend that the difference between self-knowledge and knowledge of others is a difference in the kinds of evidence on which they are typically based
The First Person and Self-Concern
This is a thesis about the practical, affective, and normative significance of first person thought. I urge that theories of first person thought must pay closer attention to these dimensions of the phenomenon, and I seek to enrich our appreciation of these dimensions by proposing that first person thought is associated with a distinctive concern for self. My aim is to determine what account of first person thought would best explain its distinctive association with self-concern. Chapter 1 introduces and motivates the project. Chapter 2 proposes a diagnostic category of âReductionist Viewsâ, according to which first person thought is adequately characterised by its fundamental reference rule. I argue that Reductionist Views do not contain the resources to vindicate the practical, affective, and normative significance of first person thought, and that they are independently implausible. In Chapter 3, I consider âPerceptual Viewsâ of first person thought. I argue that, although such views face important problems, they nevertheless provide some resources for explaining the cognitive significance of first person thought. Taking cue from Perceptual Views, in Chapter 4, I articulate the âImmediate Access Viewâ, according to which first person thought is grounded in immediate self-knowledge and a nonlinguistic and nonconceptual form of self-awareness. I conclude by discussing some of the ways in which self-concern could be explicated along the lines of the Immediate Access View, and by identifying the general form of an account on which self-concern can be vindicated
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Self-Knowledge, Choice Blindness, and Confabulation
There are two kinds of epistemic theories about self-knowledge: the traditional account, and the inferentialist account. According to the traditional view of self-knowledge, we have privileged access to our propositional attitudes. âPrivileged accessâ means that one can gain knowledge of oneâs own propositional attitudes directly via an exclusive, first-personal method called introspection. On the other hand, the inferentialist view of self-knowledge postulates that we donât have privileged access to our propositional attitudes and must infer or self-attribute them instead. In this thesis I argue that the traditional view of self-knowledge, which postulates that we have privileged access to our propositional attitudes, ought to be abandoned in favor of an infernetialist picture of self-knowledge
I argue that recent experimental results in social psychology strongly imply that we donât have privileged access to our propositional attitudes. In the choice blindness paradigm, the majority of participants can be manipulated into becoming oblivious to choices that they made just moments previously. Not only do participants utterly fail to notice that they did not receive what they wanted, but they also provide confabulated reasons as to why they made their âdecision.â I maintain that the phenomena of choice blindness and confabulation are very difficult for the traditional theory of self- knowledge to accommodate and explain; whereas, on the other hand, the inferentialist account actually predicts and anticipates these experimental findings.
The traditional theorist cannot avoid the threat that choice blindness and confabulation pose by restricting the scope of privileged access even further, to exclude propositional attitudes, because privileged access to propositional attitudes is the very property which distinguishes the traditional view of self-knowledge from an inferentialist account. The traditional theorist might attempt to argue that privileged access to propositional attitudes is conceptually necessary, but I maintain that this argument fails. The traditional theoristâs only option, then, is to adopt a dual-method account whereby we sometimes gain self-knowledge via introspection and sometimes via inference. However, I maintain that the dual-method approach is a much weaker theory in terms of explanatory power when compared to the inferentialist account. On balance, then, the traditional view of self-knowledge should be rejected in favor of the inferentialist account
Unified transparency account of self-knowledge
In this thesis I propose an account of knowledge of oneâs own mental states. My goal is set
on a unified transparency account of self-knowledge. It is unified, because the proposal will
account for the generation of beliefs about mental states of all types, regardless of whether
they are propositional, non-propositional, experiential or non-experiential. My account will
thereby be applicable to knowledge of any mental state, from beliefs and desires to fears,
hopes, and sensations such as pain. Moreover, it will be a transparency account because it
holds on to Gareth Evansâs (1982) observation that self-ascribing mental states is done by
attending outwards instead of inwards. There is a sense in which we attend to the world
when we find out whether we believe something, and my proposal aims to capture this
intuition.
The core idea I am exploring is the following: generally, when one produces a first-order
mental state, one also forms a corresponding, dispositional second-order belief about that
state. Both attitudes share elements of their production, which ensures reliability while
retaining fallibility. For instance, when you form a belief âthere is a red carâ by perceiving a
red car, you also generate the dispositional belief âI believe that there is a red car,â if
everything goes right. I argue that almost all features that make self-knowledge special can
be explained with this basic idea. The assumption that the production of a first-order
mental state and a second-order belief about the state go hand in hand has surprising
explanatory power. Moreover, there are at least no obvious reasons why the assumption
should be ruled out. The upshot will be a view that we should take seriously as a contender
for an explanation of self-knowledge. I will not be able to conclusively show that it is the
best explanation, but I argue that it is one worth thinking about.
The thesis is structured in three parts. The first part (chapters 1-3) focuses on the
phenomenon of self-knowledge and the transparency idea. These chapters serve as the
setup for my later proposed view. Chapter 1 and 2 discuss what exactly we want to explain
when we say that we aim to explain self-knowledge. I thereby provide an overview of the
conceptual landscape of self-knowledge and argue that we should understand the
peculiarity of self-knowledge in terms of features of belief and belief-formation. Moreover,
I commit myself to the view that the peculiarity has something to do with our cognitive
access to mental states and relate that to the goal of a unified account of self-knowledge.
Chapter 3 discusses how we ought to understand the other qualification of my goal: a
transparency account of self-knowledge. I provide an overview of transparency accounts in
the literature and lay out the path to avoid common problems of transparency accounts.
In the second part (chapters 4 and 5) I propose the single process model of self-knowledge
as a unified, transparency account of self-knowledge. I provide the core principles of the
view and show how it explains the features of self-knowledge I aim to explain. Chapter 4
focuses on attitudes, both propositional and non-propositional. Chapter 5 expands the view
to phenomenal states, such as being in pain.
The third part (chapters 6 and 7) connects the epistemological discussion of the single
process model to research on cognition. Chapter 6 proposes a cognitive story of predictive
processing that is compatible with the single process model. I thereby discuss the
plausibility of the predictive processing idea and its empirical support. I provide a predictive
processing story of self-knowledge that fits with the single process model of self-knowledge.
In chapter 7 I discuss extended mental states. Clark & Chalmers (1998) propose
that at least some mental states, such as beliefs, can be extended to external devices. Given
that my aim is a unified account, I ought to say something about knowledge of these
extended beliefs. I argue that they cannot be known by the same processes as non-extended
mental states because beliefs about extended beliefs show different features
than beliefs about our non-extended states that we formed by introspection. Hence, even if
my view cannot account for them this is not a problem, because they are not formed by
genuine introspection. Instead, we come to know extended mental states by a distinct
process that we might call extended introspection.
Finally, chapter 8 provides a brief conclusion of the thesis for and points out some placed
that require further development. The account is promising as an explanation of self-belief
and self-knowledge, but whether it is correct also depends on future research outside the
scope of philosophy