Self-knowledge, belief, ability (and agency?)

Abstract

Matthew Boyle (2011) has defended an account of doxastic self-knowledge he calls 'Reflectivism'. I distinguish two claims within Reflectivism, A) that believing that p and knowing oneself to believe that p are not two distinct cognitive states, but two aspects of the same cognitive state, and B) that this is because we are in some sense agents in relation to our beliefs. I find claim (A) compelling, but argue that its tenability depends on how we view the metaphysics of knowledge, something Boyle does not consider. I argue that in the context of the standard account of knowledge as a kind of true beliefwhat I call the Belief Account of knowledgethe claim faces serious problems, and that these simply disappear if we instead adopt an Ability Account of knowledge along the lines of that defended by John Hyman (1999, 2015). I find claim (B) less compelling, and a secondary aim of the paper is to suggest that once we reject the Belief Account of knowledge, and move over to an Ability Account, there is no explanatory role for (B) left to play.

Mental agency and rational subjectivity

“…18 18 The argument of this section substantially develops a line of thought in (L. Campbell, 2018, pp. 338–339). …”

Self‐Knowledge: Expression without Expressivism

“…Others aim explicitly to explain self-knowledge, but do not obviously say enough about why a subject who (e.g.) believes that p thereby meets the general criteria for knowing that she believes that p as opposed to merely truly believing that she believes that p. I raise this worry in relation to Matt Boyle's (2011) Constitutivist account of doxastic self-knowledge in (Campbell, 2018). The account of self-knowledge which I offer here develops and extends the suggestion I make about doxastic self-knowledge at the end of that discussion.…”

The puzzle of transparency and how to solve it

“…Maybe this is not quite fair to Boyle's viewfor Boyle might claim that knowledge is not a form of awareness but a kind of ability. See Marcus (2016) and Campbell (2018) for defenses of Boyle's reflectivism along these lines. However, since my chief objection to Boyle's account does not depend on whether knowledge is a form of awareness or not, I do not pursue the matter any further here.…”