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Knowing Your Own Mind*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2010

David Owens
David Owens
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield, United Kingdom
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Extract

What is it to “know your own mind”? In ordinary English, this phrase connotes clear-headed decisiveness and a firm resolve, but in the language of contemporary philosophy, the indecisive and the susceptible can know their own minds just as well as anybody else. In the philosopher's usage, “knowing your own mind” is just a matter of being able to produce a knowledgeable description of your mental state, whether it be a state of indecision, susceptibility, or even confusion. What exercises philosophers is the fact that people seem to produce these descriptions of their own mental lives without any pretence of considering evidence or reasons of any kind, and yet these descriptions are treated by the rest of us as authoritative, at least in a wide range of cases. How can this be?

Type
Critical Notices/Études critiques
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 42 , Issue 4: Deliberation and Irrationalities , Fall 2003 , pp. 791 - 798
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2003

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References

Notes

1 Velleman, D., The Possibility of Practical Reason (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 126–27.Google Scholar

2 See also where Moran discusses emotions which one cannot avow (p. 93).

3 On p. 131, Moran connects claims about alienation to claims about control and responsibility, saying that (certain forms of) the latter are compromised by such alienation (see also pp. 117–18).

4 Moran says similar things about the desires which motivate action (pp. 116–20).

5 This example occurs in Jackson, F., “Weakness of Will,” Mind, 93 (1984): 1–18, esp. p. 4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Holton, R., “Intention and Weakness of Will,” Journal of Philosophy, 96 (1999): 241–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 This reading makes good sense of the parallels Moran draws between akrasia and self-deception (pp. 67, 87).

8 This may be too strong. Perhaps Moran intends only that the deliberative standpoint be one in which it is believed that one's decision will reflect one's practical judgement. I do not think this will help. Someone who does not believe but merely hopes that they will take what they regard as the right decision in a difficult situation may still know, in the usual first-person way, what they end up doing (or deciding to do).