Prospects of a deflationary theory of self-knowledge (original) (raw)

Following a certain transparency claim, evidence concerning the external world can be used in order to ground the attribution of a belief to oneself. This epistemic privilege arguably depends on the applicability of norms of rationality that are manifest in paradoxes of the Moorean kind ('It is raining but I don't believe it'). In this paper I clarify how these norms of rationality apply to the self-attribution of belief and I determine the features by virtue of which they deliver genuine epistemic warrants. A central issue in this debate depends on the way experiences provide the subject with reasons to form a belief. It is useful in this respect to compare the self-attribution of judgements, of acts of judging, to the self-attribution of other kinds of experiences, such as perceptions and desires.