Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T23:27:52.177Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Self-Knowledge and Knowledge of Content

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Åsa Maria Wikforss*
Affiliation:
Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

Extract

The question of content externalism's compatibility with a plausible account of self-knowledge has been the subject of much debate in recent years. If the very content of my thoughts depends on external factors beyond me, factors that can only be known a posteriori, what happens to the traditional assumption that we know our own thoughts directly, without having to rely on any empirical investigations of the environment?

Two decades ago, Tyler Burge presented what has become the standard compatibilist reply to this challenge. Burge focused on a certain class of judgments, what he calls ‘basic self-knowledge,’ such as I think (with this very thought) that water is wet. Exploiting the fact that reflexive judgments of this sort reemploy the content of the first-order thought, such that no ‘content mistakes’ are possible, Burge argued that externalism is perfectly compatible with the traditional view that we know our own thoughts directly and authoritatively.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barber, A. 2001. ‘Idiolectical Error,Mind and Language 16, 263–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bilgrami, A. 1992. Belief and Meaning. The Unity and Locality of Mental Content, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bilgrami, A. 2003. ‘A Trilemma for Redeployment,Philosophical Issues 13, 2230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernecker, S. 2000. ‘Externalism and the attitudinal component of self-knowledge,’ in S. Bernecker and F. Dretske, eds., Knowledge. Readings in contemporary epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Boghossian, P. 1989. ‘Content and Self-Knowledge.’ Reprinted in Ludlow, P. & Martin, N. 1998.Google Scholar
Boghossian, P. 1994. ‘The Transparency of Mental Content,Philosophical Perspectives 8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boghossian, P. 1997. ‘What the Externalist Can Know A Priori.Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, J. 2000. ‘Critical Reasoning, Understanding and Self-Knowledge.Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 61, 659–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, J. 2004. Anti-Individualism and Knowledge, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brueckner, A. 1999. ‘Difficulties in Generating Scepticism about Knowledge of Content,Analysis 59, 5962.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brueckner, A. 2000. ‘Ambiguity and Knowledge of Content,’ Analysis 60, 257260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, T. 1979. ‘Individualism and the Mental,’ Midwest Studies in Philosophy 4, 73121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, T. 1988. ‘Individualism and Self-Knowledge,’ Journal of Philosophy 85, 649–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, T. 1993. ‘Concepts, Definitions, and meaning,’ Metaphilosophy 24, 309325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, T. 1996. ‘Our Entitlement to Self-Knowledge,Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 96, 91116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, T. 2003. ‘Mental Agency in Authoritative Self-Knowledge: Reply to Kobes,’ in Hahn, M. & Ramberg, B. eds., Reflections and Replies. Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press).Google Scholar
Butler, K. 1997. ‘Externalism, Internalism, and Knowledge of Content,Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 57, 773–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, D. 1987. ‘Knowing One's Own Mind,Proceedings and Addresses of the AmericanPhilosophical Association 60, 441–58.Google Scholar
Falvey, K. and Owens, J. 1994. ‘Externalism, Self-Knowledge, and Skepticism,PhilosophicalReview 103, 107–37.Google Scholar
Farkas, K. 2003. ‘What is Externalism?Philosophical Studies 112, 187208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fodor, J. 1980. ‘Methodological Solipsism Considered as a Research Strategy in the Cognitive Sciences,The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallois, A. 1996. The World Without, The Mind Within. An Essay on First-Person Authority. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibbons, J. 1996. ‘Externalism and Knowledge of Content.Philosophical Review 105, 287310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibbons, J. 2001. ‘Externalism and Knowledge of the Attitudes,The Philosophical Quarterly 51, 1328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, S. 2002. ‘Do Anti-Individualistic Construals of Propositional Attitudes Capture the Agent's Conceptions?Nous 36, 597621.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, S. 2003a. ‘Anti-Individualism, Conceptual Omniscience, and Skepticism,PhilosophicalStudies 116, 5378.Google Scholar
Goldberg, S. 2003b. ‘What do you know when you know your own thoughts?’ in S. Nuccetelli, ed., 2003.Google Scholar
Goldberg, S. 2005. ‘The Dialectical Context of Boghossian's Memory Argument,CanadianJournal of Philosophy 35, 135–48.Google Scholar
Heil, J. 1988. ‘Privileged Access,Mind 97, 238–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kobes, B. W. 2003, ‘Mental Content and Hot Self-Knowledge,’ in Hahn, M. & Ramberg, B. eds., Reflections and Replies. Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press).Google Scholar
Loar, B. 1985. ‘Social Content and Psychological Content,’ in The Contents of Thought, Grimm, H. & Merrill, D. eds. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Ludlow, P. 1997. ‘On the Relevance of Slow Switching,Analysis 55, 285–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ludlow, P. & Martin, N. eds. 1998. Externalism and Self-Knowledge. California: CSLI Publications. McKinsey, M. 1987. ‘Apriorism in the Philosophy of Language,Philosophical Studies 52, 132.Google Scholar
Ludlow, P. & Martin, N. eds. 1991. ‘Anti-Individualism and Privileged Access.Analysis 54, 916.Google Scholar
Millikan, R. 1993. White Queen Psychology and Other Essays for Alice. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Nuccetelli, S. ed. 2003. Semantic Externalism and Self-Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Segal, G. 2000. A Slim Book about Narrow Content, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sawyer, S. 2002. ‘In Defence of Burge's Thesis,Philosophical Studies 107, 109–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sawyer, S. 2003. ‘Conceptual Errors and Social Externalism,Philosophical Quarterly 53, 265–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, B. ‘On Knowing One's Own Language,’ in Wright, Smith & Macdonald 1998, 391428.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vahid, H. 2003. ‘Externalism, Slow Switching and Privileged Self-Knowledge,Philosophyand Phenomenological Research 66, 370–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warfield, T.A. 1992. ‘Privileged Self-Knowledge and Externalism are Compatible,Analysis 57, 232–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wikforss, Å. 2001.’Social Externalism and Conceptual Errors,’ Philosophical Quarterly 51, 217–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wikforss, Å. 2003. ‘A Posteriori Analyticity.Grazer Philosophische Studien 66, 119–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wikforss, Å. 2004. ‘Externalism and Incomplete Understanding.Philosophical Quarterly 54, 287294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wikforss, Å. 2005. ‘Naming Natural Kinds.Synthese 145, 6587.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wikforss, Å. 2006. ‘Content Externalism and Fregean Sense.’ What Determines Content? The Internalism/Externalism Dispute, Marvan, T. ed., Cambridge Scholars Press, 163–79.Google Scholar
Wikforss, Å. 2008. ‘Semantic Externalism and Psychological Externalism,’ Philosophy Compass 3/1, 158–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, C. Smith, B.C. and Macdonald, C. eds. 1998. Knowing Our Own Minds. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar