Belief and Self-Consciousness (original) (raw)
Related papers
Oxford Handbook Online, 2016
A fundamental puzzle about self-knowledge is this: our spontaneous, unreflective self-attributions of beliefs and other mental states—avowals, as they are often called—appear to be at once epistemically groundless and also epistemically privileged. On the one hand, it seems that our avowals simply do not rely on—nor do they require—justification or evidence. On the other hand, our avowals seem to represent a substantive epistemic achievement: they appear to represent beliefs that are especially apt to constitute genuine knowledge of our own present states of mind. Several authors have recently tried to explain away avowals' groundlessness by appeal to the so-called transparency of present-tense self-attributions—a feature that is best illustrated by considering present-tense self-attributions of beliefs. As observed by Gareth Evans, if asked whether I believe, e.g., that it's raining, I will typically not 'look inward' and attend to my own state of mind, but instead I will look outside, to the world—to see whether it's raining or not. Two recent and divergent construals of transparency agree that it shows avowals of beliefs (and perhaps other mental states) to be only apparently groundless. After a critical discussion of these two construals (Section 2), we present an alternative reading of transparency that explains—rather than explains away—the apparent groundlessness of avowals (Section 3). We then explore (in Section 4) a way of coupling this alternative reading with a plausible account of how it is that our ordinary avowals can represent genuine knowledge of our own present states of mind.
Consciousness and identity: who do we think we are
New Ideas in Psychology, 1999
This article proposes that the epistemological concerns raised by the inherent incoherence of thought requires a dialogical approach to understanding the nature of thought, consciousness and self. This approach leads to a fundamentally spiritual view of self, and a view of consciousness as a non-local field shaping the limits of perception, and the degree of gap between reality and thought's representation of it. A method of measuring this kind of consciousness is examined, and examples are provided of the insights gained through this methodology. Some implications of this perspective are explored, and conclusions arising from this inquiry are presented.
A Humean Insight into the Epistemic Normativity of the Belief in the Self
Phenomenology and Mind, 2014
Baker (2013) showcases the complexity of responses on both sides of the debate concerning the ontological status of the first-person perspective. This paper seeks to orientate the debate about the first person perspective away from an existence problem and back to a justified belief problem. It is argued that the account of our belief in the self, which emerges from hume's descriptive epistemology, opens up the possibility of attributing a form of non-evidential justification to belief in selves.
Self-Knowledge and the Transparency of Belief
Self-Knowledge, Hatzimoysis, ed. Oxford University Press, 2011
In this paper, I argue that the method of transparency --determining whether I believe that p by considering whether p -- does not explain our privileged access to our own beliefs. Looking outward to determine whether one believes that p leads to the formation of a judgment about whether p, which one can then self-attribute. But use of this process does not constitute genuine privileged access to whether one judges that p. And looking outward will not provide for access to dispositional beliefs, which are arguably more central examples of belief than occurrent judgments. First, one’s dispositional beliefs as to whether p may diverge from the occurrent judgments generated by the method of transparency. Second, even in cases where these are reliably linked — e.g., in which one’s judgment that p derives from one’s dispositional belief that p — using the judgment to self-attribute the dispositional belief requires an ‘inward’ gaze.
Consciousness, Self-Consciousness, and Authoritative Self-Knowledge
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (Hardback), 2008
Many recent discussions of self-consciousness and self-knowledge assume that there are only two kinds of accounts available to be taken on the relation between the so-called first-order (conscious) states and subjects' awareness or knowledge of them: a same-order, or reflexive view, on the one hand, or a higher-order one, on the other. I maintain that there is a third kind of view that is distinctively different from these two options. The view is important because it can accommodate and make intelligible certain cases of authoritative self-knowledge that cannot easily be made intelligible, if at all, by these other two types of accounts. My aim in this paper is to defend this view against those who maintain that a same-order view is sufficient to account for authoritative self-knowledge. A prevailing assumption in some recent discussions of self-consciousness and of self-knowledge is that there are really only two kinds of views that can be taken about subjects' awareness or knowledge of their own conscious intentional or phenomenal states (Thomasson 2000; Kriegel 2003a, 2003b, 2006). Either one can take a kind of 'same-order', or 'one-level', view about the relation between such states and subjects' awareness or knowledge of them (Block 2007; Burge 1996, 1998, 2007) 1 or one can take a kind of 'higher-order' view, according to which a necessary condition on one's being in a conscious intentional or phenomenal state is that one has a distinct, 'higher-order' perception or thought about it (
A third person approach to self-consciousness
Anthropology & Philosophy, 2015
Several authors have recently defended the idea that there is a “pre-reflective self-consciousness”, or “pre-reflective self”, which is regarded as a very precocious psychic function that grounds every conscious act. In particular, Prebble, Addis & Tippett (2013) argue that this kind of self-consciousness is a fundamental prerequisite for episodic memory and is very similar to the Jamesian notion of I, or subjective self (as opposed to Me, or objective self). In this paper we will argue that the identification of the Jamesian notion of I with pre-reflective self-consciousness is a misunderstanding of James’ account and that self-consciousness is, properly said, the result of a gradual process of objectification, which requires conscious (but not self-conscious) activities of representation. Indeed, the subjective self (or self-consciousness), far from being the grounding source of every conscious mental activity, is the result of a complex neurocognitive and psycho-social construction, where the understanding of other minds both ontogenetically precedes and grounds the understanding of our own minds.
First person: the demand for identification-free self-reference
The Journal of Philosophy, 1995
Not long ago after a trying railway journey by night, and much fatigued, I got into an omnibus, just as another gentleman appeared at the other end. 'What shabby pedagogue is that, that has just entered?' thought I. It was myself; opposite me hung a large mirror.
2002
This article develops a constitutive account of self-knowledge that is able to avoid certain shortcomings of the standard response to the perceived prima facie incompatibility between privileged self-knowledge and externalism. It argues that if one conceives of linguistic action as voluntary behavior in a minimal sense, one cannot conceive of belief content to be externalistically constituted without simultaneously assuming that the agent has knowledge of his beliefs. Accepting such a constitutive account of self-knowledge does not, however, preclude the conceptual possibility of being mistaken about one's mental states. Rather, self-knowledge has to be seen as only a general constraint or as the default assumption of interpreting somebody as a rational and intentional agent. This is compatible with the diagnosis of a localized lack of self-transparency.