Transparency and Self-Knowledge

Alex Byrne sets out and defends a theory of self-knowledge-knowledge of one's mental states. Inspired by Gareth Evans' discussion of self-knowledge in his The Varieties of Reference, the basic idea is that one comes to know that one is in a mental state M by an inference from a worldly or environmental premise to the conclusion that one is in M. (Typically the worldly premise will not be about anything mental.) The mind, on this account, is 'transparent': self-knowledge is achieved by an 'outward glance' at the corresponding tract of the world, not by an 'inward glance' at one's own mind. Belief is the clearest case, with the inference being from 'p' to 'I believe that p'. One serious problem with this idea is that the inference seems terrible, because 'p' is at best very weak evidence that one believes that p. Another is that the idea seems not to generalize. For example, what is the worldly premise corresponding to 'I intend to do this', or 'I feel a pain'? Byrne argues that both problems can be solved, and explains how the account covers perception, sensation, desire, intention, emotion, memory, imagination, and thought. The result is a unified theory of self-knowledge that explains the epistemic security of beliefs about one's mental states (privileged access), as well as the fact that one has a special first-person way of knowing about one's mental states (peculiar access). Cover 1 Transparency and Self-Knowledge 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Preface 8 Contents 10 1: Problems of Self-Knowledge 14 1.1 Self-knowledge 14 1.2 Transparency 15 1.3 Privileged and peculiar access 17 1.3.1 McKinsey and Ryle 17 1.3.2 Privileged access 18 1.3.3 Peculiar access 21 1.3.4 The independence of privileged and peculiar access 22 1.3.5 Peculiar access and McKinsey’s puzzle 23 1.3.6 Empirical work 24 1.4 Economy, inference, detection, unification 27 1.5 Self-knowledge as a philosophical problem 29 1.6 Preview 35 2: Inner Sense 37 2.1 Introduction 37 2.2 Against inner sense 39 2.2.1 The object perception model and the broad perceptual model 39 2.2.2 Objection 1: inner sense can’t detect extrinsic properties (Boghossian) 42 2.2.3 Objection 2: inner sense is like clairvoyance (Cassam) 44 2.2.4 Objection 3: inner sense is incompatible with infallibility 46 2.2.5 Objection 4: inner sense is incompatible with self-intimation 50 2.2.6 Objection 5: inner sense leads to alienated self-knowledge (Moran) 51 2.2.7 Objection 6: inner sense cannot explain first-person authority (Finkelstein) 53 2.2.8 Objection 7: the deliverances of inner sense are not baseless (McDowell) 55 2.2.9 Objection 8: inner sense implies possibility of self-blindness (Shoemaker) 56 2.3 Residual puzzles for inner sense 61 3: Some Recent Approaches 63 3.1 Introduction 63 3.2 Davidson on first-person authority 63 3.3 Moran on self-constitution and rational agency 70 3.4 Bar-On’s neo-expressivism 75 3.4.1 Simple expressivism 76 3.4.2 Two questions, one answer 77 3.4.3 Immunity to error through misidentification and misascription 79 3.4.4 Neo-expressivism and the asymmetric presumption of truth 83 4: The Puzzle of Transparency 87 4.1 Introduction 87 4.2 Gallois on the puzzle 90 4.3 Moran on the puzzle 92 4.4 Dretske on the puzzle 96 4.5 The puzzle of transparency for sensations 100 4.6 Kripke’s Wittgenstein on other minds 106 4.7 Hume on the self 107 4.8 Introspective psychology 109 5: Belief 112 5.1 Introduction 112 5.2 The puzzle of transparency revisited 112 5.2.1 Epistemic rules and BEL 113 5.2.2 Evans 116 5.2.3 First variant: reliability 116 5.2.4 Second variant: inadequate evidence 118 5.2.5 Third variant: reasoning through a false step 119 5.3 Peculiar and privileged access explained 121 5.3.1 Peculiar access 121 5.3.2 Privileged access 122 5.4 Economy and detection 125 5.5 Extensions 129 5.5.1 Knowing that one knows 129 5.5.2 Knowing that one does not believe 130 5.5.3 Knowing that one confidently believes 132 5.6 Objections 134 5.6.1 The inference is mad (Boyle) 135 5.6.2 There is no inference (Bar-On) 137 5.6.3 The account conflates do believe and should believe (Bar-On) 138 5.6.4 The account fails when one lacks a belief (Gertler) 139 6: Perception and Sensation 141 6.1 Introduction 141 6.2 Perception 142 6.2.1 The amodal problem 143 6.2.2 Alternatives to transparency 144 6.2.3 Option 1: non-observational knowledge 145 6.2.4 Option 2, first pass: visual sensations 147 6.2.5 Option 2, second pass: visual experiences of an F 148 6.2.6 Back to transparency: SEE 151 6.2.7 The memory objection 153 6.2.8 Evans again, and the known-illusion problem 155 6.2.9 Evans’ proposal 155 6.2.10 Belief-independence 156 6.3 Sensation 160 6.3.1 Pain perception 160 6.3.2 PAIN and the world of pain 162 6.3.3 Perceptual theorists on the objects of pain perception 164 6.3.4 Back to naiveté 166 7: Desire, Intention, and Emotion 169 7.1 Introduction 169 7.2 The case for uniformity 170 7.3 Desire and DES 171 7.3.1 Circularity 175 7.3.2 Defeasibility 177 7.3.3 Connections 180 7.4 Intention and INT 180 7.4.1 Overgeneration problems 183 7.5 Emotion 185 7.5.1 Disgust and the disgusting 186 7.5.2 DIS and transparency 189 7.5.3 Circularity 191 7.6 Summary: privileged and peculiar access, economy and detectivism 194 8: Memory, Imagination, and Thought 196 8.1 Introduction 196 8.2 Memory 197 8.2.1 The visual world and the visualized world 198 8.2.2 Episodic recollection and transparency 202 8.2.3 Knowing that I am recollecting, first pass 202 8.2.4 First problem: putting the past into the antecedent 204 8.2.5 Second and third problems: belief in images, but not ducks 206 8.2.6 Second pass: MEM-DUCK 207 8.3 Imagination and IMAG-DUCK 208 8.4 Thought 211 8.4.1 Outer and inner speech, and THINK 212 8.4.2 Privileged and peculiar access 215 8.4.3 Extensions: pictorial and propositional thinking 217 8.4.4 Inner speech and imagined speech 218 8.4.5 Unsymbolized thinking and imageless thought 220 8.5 Finis 221 Bibliography 222 Index 236 "T&SK sets out and defends a theory of self-knowledge—knowledge of one’s mental states. Inspired by Gareth Evans’ discussion of self-knowledge in his The Varieties of Reference, the basic idea is that one comes to know that one is in a mental state M by an inference from a worldly or environmental premise to the conclusion that one is in M. (Typically the worldly premise will not be about anything mental.) The mind, on this account, is “transparent”: self-knowledge is achieved by an “outward glance” at the corresponding tract of the world, not by an “inward glance” at one’s own mind. Belief is the clearest case, with the inference being from ‘p’ to ‘I believe that p.’ One serious problem with this idea is that the inference seems terrible, because ‘p’ is at best very weak evidence that one believes that p. Another is that the idea seems not to generalize. For example, what is the worldly premise corresponding to ‘I intend to φ‎,’ or ‘I feel a pain’T&SK argues that both problems can be solved, and explains how the account covers perception, sensation, desire, intention, emotion, memory, imagination, and thought. The result is a unified theory of self-knowledge that explains the epistemic security of beliefs about one’s mental states (privileged access), as well as the fact that one has a special first-person way of knowing about one’s mental states (peculiar access)." -- Oxford Scholarship Online ## Abstract T&SK sets out and defends a theory of self-knowledge—knowledge of one’s mental states. Inspired by Gareth Evans’ discussion of self-knowledge in his The Varieties of Reference, the basic idea is that one comes to know that one is in a mental state M by an inference from a worldly or environmental premise to the conclusion that one is in M. (Typically the worldly premise will not be about anything mental.) The mind, on this account, is “transparent”: self-knowledge is achieved by an “outward glance” at the corresponding tract of the world, not by an “inward glance” at one’s own mind. Belief is the clearest case, with the inference being from ‘p’ to ‘I believe that p.’ One serious problem with this idea is that the inference seems terrible, because ‘p’ is at best very weak evidence that one believes that p. Another is that the idea seems not to generalize. For example, what is the worldly premise corresponding to ‘I intend to φ,’ or ‘I feel a pain’? T&SK argues that both problems can be solved, and explains how the account covers perception, sensation, desire, intention, emotion, memory, imagination, and thought. The result is a unified theory of self-knowledge that explains the epistemic security of beliefs about one’s mental states (privileged access), as well as the fact that one has a special first-person way of knowing about one’s mental states (peculiar access). You know what someone else is thinking and feeling by observing them. But how do you know what you are thinking and feeling? This is the problem of self-knowledge: Alex Byrne tries to solve it. The idea is that you know this not by taking a special kind of look at your own mind, but by an inference from a premise about your environment.