Introspection and Authoritative Self-Knowledge

Abstract

In this paper I outline and defend an introspectionist account of authoritative self-knowledge for a certain class of cases, ones in which a subject is both thinking and thinking about a current, conscious thought. My account is distinctive in a number of ways, one of which is that it is compatible with the truth of externalism-the view that the contents of subjects' intentional states are individuation-dependent on factors external to their minds. It is thus decidedly antiCartesian, despite being introspectionist. My argument proceeds in three stages. A virtue of the position I develop is that the epistemic features on which it is based also apply to sensations and to non-episodic intentional states, to the extent that one has authoritative knowledge of them. However, despite the appeal to analogies with observable properties of objects of perception, the account is not a 'perceptual' model of such knowledge in the sense that those such as Shoemaker, Burge and others have in mind. Because the features on which the analogy is based are abstract and general, they are not tied to cases of observation alone. Those who appeal to such phenomena as 'intellectual experience' (Burge, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 96, 91-116, 1996) or 'intellectual intuition' (Bealer, Philosophical perspectives, Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 29-55, 1999) in their accounts of authoritative self-knowledge may well appeal to such features. This, amongst other factors, distinguishes the position from other introspectionist ones in a way that makes it immune to standard objections to perceptual models of self-knowledge.

Brain imaging technologies as source for Extrospection: self-formation through critical self-identification

“…from the outside world and that our access to the contents of our thoughts (introspection) radically differs from how we encounter the external world of material things: we can have an authoritative (others cannot challenge our belief of being in a particular mental state), privileged (we always know the contents of our own minds better than we know the contents of the minds of others) and immediate (knowledge of our mental contents is non-inferential and non-evidence based) access to the contents of our thoughts, which we lack towards the external world of material things (cf. Macdonald 2007).…”

The artifactual mind: overcoming the ‘inside–outside’ dualism in the extended mind thesis and recognizing the technological dimension of cognition

“…'Introspection' usually refers to special methods or means that enable us to obtain knowledge of our own mental states. Different features are ascribed to this faculty of introspection (see Macdonald 2007): knowledge of our own mental states seems to be authoritative, in the sense that if we think we are in a particular mental state that cannot be challenged. Knowledge of our own mental states seems also to be privileged, meaning that we know the contents of our own minds always better than we know the contents of the minds of other people.…”

Two Kinds of A Priori Infallibility

“…Note, Burge and Lewis's defenses of infallible self justification (and knowledge) are part of their ambitious project to establish the compatibility of a specific kind of externalism with certain kinds of self justification (and self knowledge), a project that has received considerable attention in the literature on self knowledge in the last few decades (seeParent (2007) andMacdonald (2007)). In the discussion to follow, I bypass debate concerning the possibility of self justification or knowledge as such (i.e., fallible self justification and knowledge) and concerning the compatibility of such knowledge with externalist accounts of intentional content.…”