This book argues that a satisfactory account of first-person reference and self-knowledge needs to concentrate on our nature as agents. It considers two main questions. First, what account of first-person reference can we give that respects the guaranteed nature of such reference? Second, what account can we give of our knowledge of our mental and physical actions?
Given the recent debates about self-knowledge and first-person authority it is surprising that there has not been more discussion about our knowledge of our actions. 2 It is surprising because our knowledge of our own actions seems, prima facie, to share many of the features of our knowledge of beliefs and perceptions, that have given rise to these debates. 3 At least this is what I want to suggest in this chapter. Indeed, perhaps the main motivation for this chapter is to place discussion of our knowledge of our own actions firmly alongside our knowledge of other psychological phenomena. I will outline what seem to be intuitively plausible features of our knowledge of our actions, and consider what account we might give of such knowledge that respects those features. A suggestion as to what form an account of our knowledge of our actions should take will be offered. These tasks will constitute the explicit content of the chapter. However, it is also my hope that discussion of the knowledge we have of our own actions will serve some further aims. I hope it will serve to extend the range of possible sources for selfknowledge. By 'self-knowledge' I mean not just knowledge of that thing which is in fact the knower, but knowledge of ourselves as ourselves. The account sketched here promises to give us a way of knowing of our own actions that is unavailable to anyone other than the acting subject. 1 This paper was mostly written during leave taken under the Research Leave Scheme of the Arts and Humanities Research Board. I am very grateful to them. I have benefited from very useful comments from participants of meetings in Fribourg, Girona, Manchester and Warwick (the latter in a seminar arranged as part of the AHRB Project in Consciousness and Self-Consciousness). Special thanks to the participants in a graduate research seminar on self-knowledge at UCL, and for comments to Alan Brown, David Levy, Paul Noordhof, Mark Sacks, Barry Smith and an anonymous referee for this volume. Particular thanks are due to the editors for their comments, interest and patience. 2 There was a flurry of papers on the subject in the early sixties. See O'Shaughnessy (1963); Anscombe (1963); Donnellan (1963); Broadie (1967); Olsen (1969); Danto (1963). Since then there has been Velleman's important discussion in his Practical Reflection. It was only after writing this paper that I came across Johannes Roessler's valuable contribution to this issue. See Roessler (this volume).
the thinking about others thinking of us ...excites a blush"Darwin ([1872] 1965, 325) i. introduction 1. Ordinary self-consciousness When one walks into a room full of strangers one may describe oneself as "feeling self-conscious." To feel self-conscious is to be conscious of oneself as an object represented by others. It seems to me that this kind of selfconsciousness is a pervasive phenomenon that is worthy of our attention. It has, however, been rather overlooked in philosophy. When philosophy has focused on self-consciousness it has been the kind of self-consciousness that characterizes our ability to think about ourselves in the first person. While that ability might be required for feeling self-conscious, the latter self-consciousness is I think a distinct and important phenomenon. In this chapter I will explore the nature of what I will call 'ordinary selfconsciousness' (OSC) and offer an analysis that aims to identify its key components.My main aim is to identify, and to look closely at the phenomenon. However, I will also raise the suggestion that the phenomenon has a crucial role to play in explaining and understanding the nature of the self-conscious emotions of guilt, shame, pride, and embarrassment. Darwin has tended to I have given this paper as a talk on a number of occasions:
This study explored whether high autistic traits, high attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) traits and their interaction were associated with quality of life (QoL) in a sample of 556 of young-adult twins (Mean age 22 years 5 months, 52% Female). Four participant groups were created: high autistic traits, high ADHD traits, high autistic/ADHD traits, and low ADHD/autistic traits. High autistic traits were associated with lower QoL across domains (physical, psychological, social, and environmental). High ADHD traits associated with lower physical, psychological, and environmental QoL. The interaction of autistic and ADHD traits was not significant in any domain. While mental health difficulties were associated with lower QoL, after accounting for mental health, most relationships between autistic traits, ADHD traits and QoL remained.
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