## 1. The Distinctiveness of Self-Knowledge



What is special about self-knowledge, compared to knowledge in other
domains? Self-knowledge is thought to differ from other sorts of
knowledge in one or more of the following ways.


1. Self-knowledge is especially secure, epistemically.
2. Self-knowledge is (sometimes) acquired by use of an exclusively
first-personal method.
3. Our capacity for self-knowledge reflects our cognitive
agency.
4. One's pronouncements about one's own mental states
carry a special authority or presumption of truth.



The differences between these are subtle. Statement (1) identifies the
distinctive feature of self-knowledge as the epistemic status of a
certain class of beliefs, whereas statement (2) identifies it by the
method one uses in forming these beliefs. Statement (3) emphasizes the
subject's agency, typically in relation to attitudes like
beliefs and intentions, which are sensitive to reasons. Statement (4)
focuses on the way that self-ascriptions of mental states, such as
saying "I'm in pain", are treated by others.
Statements (1) and (2) are ways of cashing out the notion that we
enjoy "privileged access" to our own mental states. Only
these first two statements construe the distinctive feature of
self-knowledge as plainly epistemic; however, most who endorse (3)
also claim that this agential relation grounds a special epistemic
relation. A minority of philosophers denies that self-knowledge is
special at all (see Section 2).


### 1.1 Epistemic security



The strongest epistemic claims on behalf of self-knowledge are
infallibility and omniscience. One is infallible about one's own
mental states if and only if (hereafter, "*iff*")
one cannot have a false belief to the effect that one is in a certain
mental state. One is omniscient about one's own states
*iff* being in a mental state suffices for knowing that one is
in that state. (This omniscience thesis is sometimes expressed by
saying that mental states are *self-intimating* or
*self-presenting*.) Few if any contemporary philosophers
maintain that we are infallible or omniscient about all of our mental
states. Here is a simple example that challenges both infallibility
and omniscience. Kate trusts her therapist's insights into her
own psychology, and so she believes him when he tells her that she
distrusts her mother. But the therapist is mistaken--in fact,
Kate trusts her mother. Hence, Kate's self-ascription *I
distrust my mother* shows that she is fallible about her own
attitudes (mistakenly taking herself to distrust her mother) and that
she is not omniscient (she fails to recognize that she trusts her
mother).



In the case described, Kate's belief about her attitude is based
on the testimony of another person. A more restricted infallibility
thesis would limit the relevant domain to self-ascriptions based on an
exclusively first-personal method--perhaps
*introspection*. Descartes thought that we could in principle
achieve infallibility in this circumscribed realm, but only by
exercising meticulous care:



> 
> 
> There remains sensations, emotions and appetites. These may be clearly
> perceived provided we take great care in our judgments concerning them
> to include no more than what is strictly contained in our
> perception--no more than that of which we have inner awareness.
> But this is a very difficult rule to observe, at least with regard to
> sensations. (Descartes 1644/1984: I.66, p. 216)
> 
> 
> 



A common objection to even restricted infallibility claims is the
idea, often attributed to Wittgenstein, that where one cannot be
wrong, one cannot be right either. For instance, Wright maintains that
the possibility of error is required for concept application, which is
in turn required for substantial
self-knowledge."[E]rror--if only second-order
error--has to be possible, if a genuine exercise of concepts is
involved" (Wright 1989: 634).



In its unqualified form, the omniscience thesis seems even less
plausible than the unqualified infallibility
 thesis.[1]
 On pain of regress, omniscience seems to require that self-knowledge
is not always a matter of grasping one mental state by being in
another: that is, it seems to require that some mental states
comprehend themselves (so to speak). James rejected this idea.



> 
> 
> No subjective state, whilst present, is its own object; its object is
> always something else. (James 1884: 2)
> 
> 
> 



Some modify the omniscience thesis by claiming that, for some states,
anyone who is in a state of that kind is justified in believing that
she is, even if the thinker doesn't actually have this belief
(Peacocke 1999; Siewert 1998; Silins 2012; Smithies 2012). Horgan and
Kriegel (2007) defend a modified omniscience thesis, based on the idea
that sensations are by definition conscious.



Others argue that we are infallible or omniscient about our beliefs
and other attitudes because there is a constitutive connection between
the first-order attitude and the belief that one has that attitude
(see 3.6 and 3.7). This connection varies. On some views, so long as
we are rational and have the relevant concepts, believing that *p
constitutes* a belief that one believes that *p* (Shoemaker
1994). Others reverse the constitution relation: taking oneself to
believe that *p* can *constitute* believing that
*p* (Coliva 2012a, Bauman 2017).



Claims of infallibility and omniscience concern general relations
between beliefs about mental states and those mental states
themselves. The most famous philosophical argument involving
self-knowledge, Descartes' *cogito* argument (Descartes
1641/1895), does not concern these general relations. Instead, it
concerns the *certainty* of a particular instance of belief.
Descartes aims to demonstrate that, so long as you are carefully
attending to your own thoughts, you can know with certain that
you're thinking--and, hence, that you exist. This can be
certain even if there is a supremely powerful evil genius who controls
your thoughts and seeks to deceive you.



Perhaps the most widely accepted view along these lines is that
self-knowledge, even if not absolutely certain, is more secure,
epistemically, than other kinds of empirical knowledge--most
obviously, perceptual knowledge. Some who take this line maintain that
there is a causal gap between a perceptual state and its object, and
this gap introduces sources of error that are absent in direct
introspective apprehension of a sensation (Russell 1917; Chalmers
2003; Gertler 2012; Horgan 2012; Siewert 2012).


### 1.2 Special method



Most philosophers accept that there is some method of grasping
one's own mental states that is *special* in the sense
that it is available exclusively to the subject. Traditionally, this
special method was construed as a kind of "inward" gaze,
directed at the mental state to be grasped.



The term "introspection"'--literally,
"looking within"--captures a traditional way of
conceiving how we grasp our own mental states. This term uses a
spatial metaphor to express a divide between the "inner"
world of thought and the "external" world. The term
"introspection" is used in various ways in the
self-knowledge literature. Perhaps the most common usage is that
suggested by the term's literal meaning: on this usage,
introspection is inner observation--or "inwardly directed
attention" (Goldman 2006: 246)--that, when successful,
yields awareness of a mental state. The notion that inner observation
is the special method by which we achieve self-knowledge is central to
the acquaintance and inner sense accounts (see
 3.1
 and
 3.2
 below).



While the term "introspection" connotes a looking within,
a view that has recently gained prominence envisions the method unique
to self-knowledge as requiring precisely the opposite. On this view,
we ascertain our own thoughts by looking outward, to the states of the
world they represent. This is known as the *transparency*
method, in that self-knowledge is achieved by "looking
through" the (transparent) mental state, directly to the state
of the world it represents. This view is associated with a famous
passage from Evans.



> 
> 
> [I]n making a self-ascription of belief, one's eyes are, so to
> speak, or occasionally literally, directed outward--upon the
> world. If someone asks me "Do you think there is going to be a
> third world war?", I must attend, in answering him, to precisely
> the same outward phenomena as I would attend to if I were answering
> the question "Will there be a third world war?" (Evans
> 1982: 225)
> 
> 
> 



The idea that the special method by which we achieve self-knowledge
involves *transparency* is central to empiricist transparency
accounts (see
 3.4)
 and to some agentialist accounts (see
 3.7).


### 1.3 Agency



Many of our mental states, such as itches and tickles, are states we
simply undergo. But some argue that others are active. "Our
rational beliefs and intentions are not mere mental attitudes, but
active states of normative commitment" (Korsgaard 2009: 39).
This idea inspires the claim, central to many versions of agentialism,
that the truly distinctive kind of self-knowledge is knowledge of
these "active states of normative commitment"
 (see 3.7).
 Such self-knowledge is distinctive because believing and intending
are things we *do*. According to these agentialists, this means
that rational beliefs and intentions are not known simply through
observation, which is the means by which we know other empirical
phenomena (including sensations). 


### 1.4 First-person authority



The views just described take the subject to be in a special epistemic
position, vis-a-vis her own mental states. But a competing
approach, sometimes attributed to Wittgenstein (Wright 1989),
maintains that the special authority of self-ascriptions is primarily
a matter of social-linguistic practices, which dictate that we should
treat subjects as authoritative about their own states. On this view,
one who responds to a self-ascription like "I believe that
it's raining" with "no, you don't" (in
ordinary circumstances) exhibits a misunderstanding of
social-linguistic norms.



The first-person authority view diagnoses the authority granted to
self-ascriptions as deriving from social norms rather than from the
subject's privileged epistemic position. Strictly speaking, then, this
position is not concerned with self-*knowledge*. However, some
contemporary expressivist accounts (see
 3.8)
 regard the phenomenon of first-person authority as centrally
important to understanding self-knowledge.


## 2. Doubts about the distinctiveness of self-knowledge


### 2.1 General doubts



The idea that self-knowledge is not profoundly special was especially
prevalent during the heyday of behaviorism. For instance, Ryle (1949)
suggests that the difference between self-knowledge and
other-knowledge is at most a matter of degree, and stems from the
mundane fact that each of us is always present to observe our own
behavior.



Doubts about self-knowledge are also fueled by more general
epistemological concerns, such as doubts about the possibility of
theory-free observations (Dennett 1991), and the familiar worry that
the observational process unavoidably alters the target of observation
(Hill
 1991).[2]
 Others argue that while self-attributions may express self-knowledge,
they are not epistemically superior to other kinds of beliefs.



> 
> 
> I suspect ... [that our] judgments about the world to a large
> extent drive our judgments about our experience. Properly so, since
> the former are the more secure. (Schwitzgebel 2008: 268)
> 
> 
> 



In the same vein, some (including Stich 1983) deny that self-knowledge
is special, relative to knowledge of others' states, by claiming
that ordinary ("folk") concepts of psychological states
are theoretical concepts. If psychological states are theoretical
entities, both self-ascriptions and other-ascriptions will proceed by
inference from observed data--presumably, behavior. (See the
entry on
 folk psychology as a theory.)



Skepticism of a different kind stems from a puzzle raised by
Boghossian (1989). On most accounts, attitudes such as desires and
beliefs are individuated in part by their relations to other states
and/or the
 environment.[3]
 For example, a desire for lemonade partly consists in being disposed
to go to the refrigerator when one believes that there is lemonade
there, and to feeling happy at the prospect of drinking lemonade.
Believing *there is lemonade in the refrigerator* partly
consists in being disposed to go to the refrigerator when one desires
lemonade, and to feeling surprise if one finds the refrigerator empty.
More generally, dispositional (or "standing") beliefs and desires
consist, partly or wholly, in dispositions to reason, behave, and
affectively react in certain ways, relative to circumstances
 (see the entry on belief).
 Boghossian's puzzle concerns how we could have privileged
access to our relationally-individuated mental states. He considers
three ways that self-knowledge could be achieved: (a) on the basis of
inner observation, (b) on the basis of inference, or (c) on the basis
of nothing. He argues that (a) would not allow for knowledge of
relationally-individuated states, and that (b) and (c) do not provide
for access that is truly privileged. The result is a trilemma
regarding self-knowledge.



Philosophers have responded to Boghossian's trilemma in a
variety of ways. Some deny the assumption that recognizing a
relationally-individuated state requires identifying the relational
properties that make it the state that it is (Burge 1988; Heil 1988).
Others argue that self-knowledge can be privileged even if it rests on
inference (Dretske 1994; Byrne 2005; Lawlor 2009). And some maintain
that we can know our attitudes through introspective observation, and
that this weakens the case for relational construals of attitudes
(Pitt 2004).


### 2.2 Doubts based on empirical results



Empirical work in psychology constitutes another source of doubt about
the epistemic status of self-ascriptions. In a widely cited paper,
Nisbett and Wilson (1977) present studies showing that subjects
routinely misidentify the factors that influenced their reasoning
processes. For instance, subjects in one study explained their
preference for a product by its apparent quality, when in fact the
products were all precisely alike: the subjects' preferences
were apparently driven by the product's spatial position
relative to its competitors seemed to drive the preferences.



> 
> 
> The accuracy of subject reports is so poor as to suggest that any
> introspective access that may exist is not sufficient to produce
> generally correct or reliable reports. (1977: 33)
> 
> 
> 



While these studies are instructive, Wilson acknowledges that their
results are limited in that they apply only to the unconscious sources
of decisions; they are silent as to our privileged access to our
current states. 



> 
> 
> [T]o the extent that people's responses are caused by the
> conscious self, they have privileged access to the actual causes of
> these responses; in short, the Nisbett and Wilson argument was wrong
> about such cases. (Wilson 2002: 106)
> 
> 
> 



Schwitzgebel (2002) has marshalled other sorts of empirical evidence
to show that introspective reports are unreliable. But he has also
suggested that our attitudes about introspection may be particularly
obstinate. This conclusion is borne out by his collaboration with a
psychologist on a study of introspection using a method called
Experience Sampling (Hurlburt and Schwitzgebel 2007). Strikingly,
their careful analysis of the study's results does not resolve
their differences about the reliability of introspection: Hurlburt
remains "optimistic" about introspection's
reliability while Schwitzgebel remains "a skeptic").



This outcome suggests that not only careful empirical work, but also
difficult conceptual work, is required for determining the scope and
degree of introspection's reliability--solving what Goldman
aptly terms "the problem of calibration" (Goldman 2004:
14). Some targets of introspection, such as sensations, can be
identified only through introspection itself: third-personal methods
(for instance, identifying pain via a brain scan) depend on prior
correlations between third-personal and introspective data. Goldman
notes that, for this reason, we can fix the range of introspective
reliability only by *using* introspection and evaluating its
results for internal coherence and for consistency with other sources.
But since there is no clear consensus as to how to evaluate the
results of introspection, or how to weigh its results against other
sources of evidence about mental states, the problem of calibration is
especially thorny and complex as it relates to introspection. Spener
(2015) proposes that we calibrate introspection by reference to
abilities that we could not possess unless introspection were reliable
(relative to certain circumstances, and about certain states). For
example, our ability to focus binoculars on a distant object suggests
that introspection is reliable in identifying when things look
blurry.


## 3. Accounts of Self-Knowledge



Accounts of self-knowledge vary across a number of dimensions,
including: how self-knowledge is achieved; the kind and degree of
epistemic security that self-ascriptions possess; the nature of our
(epistemic) privilege and (social-linguistic) authority relative to
our mental states; and the role of our observational, rational,
agential, and expressive powers in explaining first-person privilege
and authority.



These accounts also differ as to their scope. Acquaintance theorists
mainly aim to explain how we know what we're currently thinking
and feeling (our "occurrent" states). Reasons theorists and
Agentialists are exclusively concerned with self-knowledge of those
attitudes that represent our commitments, such as beliefs and
intentions. Proponents of the Inner Sense, Self-Interpretation,
Empiricist Transparency, Rationalist, and Expressivist accounts differ
as to the scope of these accounts. Each of these is taken, by at least
one of its proponents, to apply to all kinds of mental states. This
variety means that hybrid views are possible. For instance, one might
think that an Acquaintance account explains how we know our sensations
while Agentialism best explains self-knowledge of beliefs.



In what follows, I proceed from broadly empiricist accounts, which
take self-knowledge to be a form of empirical knowledge, to accounts
that emphasize the role of *a priori* reasoning in
self-knowledge, and finally to accounts that take the special features
of self-knowledge to derive from our capacity for agency or
self-expression.


### 3.1 Acquaintance Accounts



The idea that we know our mental states through *acquaintance*
with them is usually associated with Russell (1917), but such accounts
trace their lineage at least to Descartes (see the entry on
 knowledge by acquaintance vs. description).
 According to these accounts, our awareness of our mental states is
sometimes peculiarly *direct* in both an epistemic sense and a
metaphysical sense. It is epistemically direct in that I need not rely
on awareness of something else in order to be aware of my mental
state. It is metaphysically direct in that no event or process
mediates between my awareness and the mental state itself. By
contrast, my awareness of last night's rain is epistemically
indirect in that I achieve it only through being aware of something
else (such as the wet pavement). This awareness is metaphysically
indirect in that various factors, including the wet pavement and
perhaps my visual experience thereof, mediate between my awareness of
the rain and the rain itself.



Acquaintance accounts hold special appeal for epistemic
foundationalists, who claim that all of our knowledge rests on a
foundation of beliefs that are justified, but not justified by other
beliefs.



The claim that introspective access is both epistemically and
metaphysically direct is most plausible for sensations like pain. This
is because how a sensation appears--how it *seems* to the
subject--and how it actually *is* (its nature) are,
according to many philosophers, one and the same. That is,
"there is no appearance/reality distinction in the case of
sensations" (Hill 1991: 127; compare Kripke 1980:
152-3).



Limiting acquaintance accounts to self-knowledge of
sensations--or, more strictly, to self-knowledge of mental states
individuated by phenomenology--does not entirely fix their scope,
as philosophers disagree as to which kinds of mental states are
individuated by phenomenology. Recently, the idea that
*thoughts* have a distinctive phenomenology has received
renewed attention (see the entry on
 consciousness and intentionality).
 Pitt (2004) uses the fact that we seem able to know what we're
thinking in a direct, highly secure way--one that is best
explained by an acquaintance model of introspection--to argue
that thoughts have distinctive phenomenological properties with which
we are acquainted. Some philosophers also argue that conscious
attitudes, such as judgments, have distinctive phenomenologies.



The purported epistemic and metaphysical directness of introspection
does not imply that we are either infallible or omniscient about our
own states, since it is an open question whether all of our states are
introspectible. But if introspection involves epistemically and
metaphysically direct access to one's phenomenal states, then
its proper use may allow the relevant self-attributions to achieve a
high degree of certainty. And some philosophers have drawn on the
concept of acquaintance to argue that at least some mental states,
such as intense sensations, may be "luminous": that is, that being in
a state of that kind may ensure that one can know that one is
(Weatherson 2004; Duncan 2018). These arguments are responses to
Williamson's (2000) "anti-luminosity" argument, which seeks to
establish that no mental states are luminous.



The idea that we know (even some of) our sensations by acquaintance
remains highly controversial. The idea that we know our beliefs or
other attitudes by acquaintance is even more controversial. As James
(1884) observed, self-knowledge requires more than even direct contact
with a mental state: it requires that one properly conceptualize the
state, classifying it as e.g. *pain* or *coldness*. The
greatest challenge for acquaintance accounts is to explain how this
conceptualization occurs. In particular, they must show that awareness
of a mental state that is direct and immediate can also be an
epistemically substantial grasp of the state *as* a state of a
certain kind.



One approach to this challenge draws on the phenomenon of
demonstrative reference (Gertler 2001; Chalmers 2003). Demonstrative
reference often involves literal pointing: by pointing to my desk, I
can demonstratively refer to it as "that (desk)". When it
comes to experiences, we don't pick them out by pointing but,
instead, by *attending to* them. As Sosa aptly observes,
"Selective attention is the index finger of the mind"
(2003: 279). By attending to how an experience feels (or appears), one
can use this appearance--e.g., the itchiness of an itch--to
refer to the feature demonstratively, as "*this*
quality". One can then register the presence of the itch by
thinking "I'm now experiencing *this*
quality" Since reference is secured by attending to the
itchiness, one grasps the feature in question, *as* itchiness.
Chalmers refers to this grasp of phenomenal features as a
"direct phenomenal concept".



> 
> 
> The clearest cases of direct phenomenal concepts arise when a subject
> attends to the quality of an experience, and forms a concept wholly
> based on the attention to the quality, "taking up" the
> quality into the concept. (Chalmers 2003: 235)
> 
> 
> 



One worry about acquaintance accounts stems from the observation that
we sometimes err about our experiences. However, most acquaintance
theorists will concede that we can be wrong about our own phenomenal
states. The theory implies only that, under certain conditions, an
experience's phenomenal reality--the "quality" in
Chalmers' terms--*constitutes* how it appears to the
thinker--the "concept" of that quality (see also Horgan and
Kriegel 2007; Gertler 2012). When those conditions are met, we are
aware of the experience in a way that could not occur in the absence
of that experience, and so our self-ascription of the experience will
be true.



Some critics charge that acquaintance accounts construe introspective
beliefs as too close to their objects to qualify as genuine knowledge
(Wittgenstein 1953; Stalnaker 2008). In effect, this objection denies
that direct introspective attention to an instance of a phenomenal
quality can provide an epistemically substantial grasp of that
quality.


### 3.2 Inner Sense Accounts



While acquaintance accounts construe introspection as fundamentally
different from perception in its epistemic and metaphysical
directness, inner sense accounts take the opposite tack: they construe
introspection as similar to perception in crucial respects.



Locke, an early inner sense theorist, described the introspective
faculty as follows.



> 
> 
> This Source of Ideas, every Man has wholly in himself ... And
> though it be not Sense, as having nothing to do with external Objects;
> yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be call'd
> internal Sense. (Locke 1689/1975: II.1.iv.)
> 
> 
> 



Inner sense accounts construe introspection as similar to perception
in that it involves a monitoring mechanism or "self-scanning
process" (Armstrong 1993: 324) that takes mental states as input
and yields representations of those states as output. The monitoring
mechanism involved in inner sense forms representations of the mental
states it takes as input. This process is reliable, according to some
inner sense accounts, because the mechanism "redeploys"
the content of the input state in the representation of those states
that is its output (Nichols and Stich 2003; Goldman 2006). On such
accounts, and in contrast to acquaintance accounts, the connection
between the introspected state (the input) and the introspective state
(the output) is causal and contingent. But inner sense accounts allow
that introspection also differs from perception in significant ways.
Perception is achieved through dedicated organs such as eyes and ears,
whereas there is no (literal) organ of introspection. Perception
ordinarily involves sensory experiences, whereas "No one thinks
that one is aware of beliefs and thoughts by having sensations or
quasi-sense-experiences of them" (Shoemaker 1994: 255).



Because inner sense accounts construe introspection as a causal
process, they are particularly well-suited to reliabilist (or, more
broadly, epistemically externalist) approaches to self-knowledge. For
example, Armstrong characterizes the introspective process as "a
mere flow of information or beliefs" (Armstrong 1993: 326). The
causal connections involved in self-monitoring need not be known by
the subject in order to deliver self-knowledge, and inner sense
accounts generally regard knowledge based in introspection as
non-inferential. Inner sense is a first-personal method because the
relevant scanners or monitoring mechanisms are directed only towards
one's own states. Strikingly, however, this asymmetry of access
is merely contingent. It is possible, in principle, for one's
"inner sense" mechanism to be linked to someone
else's mental states, thereby allowing for "direct [read:
non-inferential] awareness of the mental states of others",
through a kind of telepathic scanning (Armstrong 1993: 124).



Perhaps the chief benefit of inner sense accounts is that they are
especially conducive to a broadly naturalistic picture of mentality.
By assimilating introspection to perception, inner sense accounts
construe mentality as epistemically continuous with the nonmental, and
thus allow a single overarching epistemology to apply to both
self-knowledge and knowledge of external things. Since most of the
leading arguments for mind-body dualism depend on the claim that our
epistemic relations to mental states diverge in crucial ways from our
epistemic relations to physical objects, the claim that the mental is
epistemically continuous with the nonmental paves the way for
assimilating mentality to the nonmental realm ontologically as
 well.[4]



Shoemaker (1994) offers a sustained critique of inner sense accounts.
His main objection centers on the charge that, in construing the
capacity for self-knowledge as similar to sensory capacities like
vision, inner sense accounts imply that the capacity for
self-knowledge is one that a rational person might lack. As he puts
this, they imply that a rational creature could be
"self-blind", unable to recognize its own mental states.
But, he says, self-blindness is impossible in a rational creature (at
least, one with ordinary mental states and who possesses mental state
concepts). Shoemaker's discussion has been as influential for
its positive suggestion--that our capacity for self-knowledge is
closely tied to rationality (see
 3.6
 and
 3.7)--as
 for its critical treatment of inner sense accounts.



Kind (2003) contends that the possibility of self-blindness does not
directly threaten inner sense accounts. Even if Shoemaker is right
that rational creatures will generally be capable of self-awareness,
this conclusion is silent as to *how* such awareness occurs. So
it does not rule out the possibility that it is achieved through inner
sense. Gertler (2011a: ch. 5) argues that the inner sense theorist can
block Shoemaker's objection by stipulating that no creature
qualifies as *rational* if it is self-blind. "No rational
creature is self-blind" would then be a *de dicto* truth and,
as such, is compatible with the inner sense account. Shoemaker's
challenge to inner sense views requires a stronger thesis, namely that
the capacity for self-knowledge is a *de re* necessary
characteristic of rational beings: that is, rational beings must be
capable of self-knowledge in order to exist at all.



Another objection to inner sense accounts targets their epistemic
externalism. Inner sense accounts are not likely to appeal to those
who take self-knowledge to involve internal or accessible reasons for
belief (Peacocke 1999: 224). 


### 3.3 Self-Interpretation Accounts



Some philosophers maintain that grasping our beliefs and
desires--and perhaps also our emotions--requires engaging in
a process of self-interpretation (Lawlor 2009; Carruthers 2011; Cassam
2015). Self-interpretation accounts are one response to a point
mentioned earlier (sec.
 2.1):
 that our attitudes are partly defined by their causal roles,
including how they dispose us to reason, behave, and affectively react
(see the entries on
 belief
 and
 desire).
 Whether a given state plays the relevant causal role seems not to be
knowable simply by introspective observation. (This point echoes the
first horn of Boghossian's trilemma. See also Peterson 2019.) We
can know this only by interpreting our current thoughts or feelings,
explaining them as manifestations of a particular belief, desire, or
other attitude. Since this interpretive process relies on inference,
self-interpretation accounts are sometimes labelled "inferentialism".
But inferentialism is a broader category, encompassing some
transparency accounts (sec. 3.4).



Lawlor uses the following example. A woman named Katherine finds
herself thinking "have another" as she stands by her son's crib.
Hearing those words (in "inner speech") does not, on its own, provide
her with knowledge about whether she wants to have another child. She
must interpret this thought: is it a genuine longing or just an idle
daydream? The best interpretation is the one that best explains the
introspected thought. Arriving at this explanation will often involve
imaginative exercises: e.g., Katherine may imagine a newborn baby in
her arms and, noticing that this leads her to feel happy, infer that
she desires another child. Lawlor's approach is supported by
research suggesting that "people can detect their nonconscious
dispositions and motives by vividly imagining a future situation and
attending to how it would make them feel." (Wilson and Dunn 2004,
describing a study by Schultheiss and Brunstein (1999).)



Carruthers' (2011) Interpretive-Sensory Access account similarly
takes self-knowledge to require self-interpretation. Rejecting the
idea that there is an "inner sense", a cognitive faculty dedicated
specifically to self-knowledge, Carruthers proposes that a single
"mindreading" system detects both one's own mental
states and the mental states of others. In fact, he hypothesizes that
our "mindreading" system "evolved for outward-looking
social purposes" and was only later co-opted for self-knowledge
(2011:69). This system takes sensory data as input; interprets these
data by drawing on situational facts and background information; and
yields representations of mental states as output.



Like the inner sense view, Carruthers' account takes the output
of these states to qualify as knowledge on epistemically externalist
grounds--roughly, because of the system's reliability. By
contrast, Lawlor's account is friendly to epistemic internalism.
Self-interpretation is based on internal, accessible evidence
including thoughts and feelings, as well as evidence from one's
own behavior.



The idea that we must engage in interpretation to know our own
attitudes and emotions echoes Ryle's (1949) view that our means
of achieving self-knowledge is broadly similar to our means of knowing
others' states. In particular, self-interpretation theorists
maintain that, just as we know others' attitudes by inference
from what they say, self-knowledge often involves inference from inner
speech. (I'm indebted here to Byrne 2012a.) Ryle suggests that
the experience of inner speech is a maximally effective type of
"eavesdropping".



> 
> 
> We eavesdrop on our own voiced utterances and our own silent
> monologues. ... [T]here is nothing intrinsically proprietary about
> this activity. I can pay heed to what I overhear you saying as well as
> to what I overhear myself saying, though I cannot overhear your silent
> colloquies with yourself. (Ryle 1949: 184)
> 
> 
> 



Self-interpretation accounts do recognize differences between
self-knowledge and other-knowledge. Most crucially, in our own case we
have access to introspective evidence (about our experiences), whereas
our only evidence for others' states is their behavior,
prominently including their verbal behavior. 



Is our access to introspective evidence also inferential, in a way
that threatens a regress? Self-interpretation theorists maintain that
even understanding what you're currently feeling will require
self-interpretation. Cassam explains this using Lawlor's
example: "When you identify your feeling as the yearning for another
child what you are doing is *interpreting* it" (Cassam 2015:
163). Cassam argues that this process is holistic, as you rely on
knowledge of your recent mental life (e.g., recently feeling envy
about others' pregnancies) and perhaps your recent behavior
(going out of your way to visit a friend with a newborn) to interpret
your current feelings.



The self-interpretation view is compatible with the idea that we know
*some* of our states non-inferentially. Carruthers argues that
interpretation is not required for knowledge of any state that can be
recognized solely on the basis of raw sensory data, since sensory data
are the inputs to the mindreading system. Cassam is more circumspect
about this possibility, pointing out that even knowledge of basic
sensations like pains sometimes requires cognitive effort (2015:
164).



Critics of self-interpretation accounts contend that it neglects the
profound asymmetry between self-knowledge and other-knowledge: that
our rationality guarantees that we have non-inferential access to our
own attitudes (Shoemaker 1994) or that the need to engage in
self-interpretation implies that we are alienated from our attitudes
(Moran 2001). These claims form the basis for some rationalist and
agentialist views (see 3.6 and 3.7).


### 3.4 Empiricist Transparency Accounts



Transparency accounts are inspired by the idea discussed above in
connection with Gareth Evans' famous remark: that if asked
whether you believe that there will be a third world war, you answer
by directly considering the likelihood of a third world war. The
metaphor of transparency expresses the notion that one "looks
through" the (transparent) mental state to directly consider
what it represents.



Some philosophers use the idea that mental states are "transparent" to
advance rationalist or agentialist accounts of self-knowledge, which
are non-empiricist (see 3.6
 and 3.7).
 The current subsection concerns transparency accounts that see
Evans' procedure as generating empirical justification or
warrant for self-ascriptions (Dretske 1994; Fernandez 2003,
2013; Byrne 2005, 2018).



Dretske describes self-knowledge as "a form of perceptual
knowledge that is obtained--indeed, can only be obtained--by
awareness of non-mental objects" (Dretske 1994: 264). E.g., I
can know that I'm thinking *it's snowing* only by
inference from my awareness of a non-mental object, such as the
falling snow. This account secures first-person privilege, since my
awareness of the snow would not similarly support an inference about
anyone else's mental state. The account requires that we rely on
background beliefs to justify the inference from seeing snow to
*I'm thinking that it's snowing*. One worry about
this account is that it's not clear that the relevant background
beliefs will be available or justified (Aydede 2003).



Fernandez's version of the transparency account avoids
this worry by taking self-knowledge to be non-inferential. He argues
that a single state can serve as the basis for both the belief that
*p* and the belief that one believes that *p*. For
example, seeing snow falling will ordinarily result in the belief that
it's snowing; this visual experience may also form the basis for
the self-ascription *I believe that it's snowing*.
Fernandez (2013) labels this "the bypass model", to
indicate that it takes self-attributions of belief to be based
directly on the basis for the first-order belief,
"bypassing" the first-order belief itself. The
self-ascription is justified in a way that is "partly
internalist" (ibid.: 44) in that I have access to the basis for
my belief that I believe that it's snowing, namely the fact that
I (seem to) see falling snow. The account is also "partly externalist"
(ibid): my self-ascription is warranted because my perceptual state
that is its basis tends to correlate with the belief that it's
snowing.



The bypass method is exclusively first-personal, since only I can base
a belief directly on *my* perceptual state. And it is more
secure than others' knowledge of my mental states. Others know
my states only by inference--from my behavior, and/or their
observations of the evidence available to me. But self-knowledge that
satisfies the bypass model is non-inferential, since the
self-ascription (e.g., the belief that I believe that it's
snowing) is not inferred from its basis (e.g., seeing falling
snow).



By contrast, Byrne's (2005, 2018) transparency account is
explicitly inferentialist. He claims that we know our beliefs by
reasoning according to the "doxastic schema" (Gallois
1996).

 

\[\frac{p}{\mbox{I believe that } p}\]


Byrne argues as follows. To reason in accord with the doxastic schema
is to infer *I believe that p* from the premise *p*; one
does not infer from a premise unless one believes the premise; so such
reasoning will yield true self-ascriptions. The doxastic schema is
thus
 self-verifying.[5]
 And it is self-verifying regardless of whether the premise is
justified, or even whether the thinker regards it as justified.



Byrne's main thesis, that self-knowledge is achieved through use
of the doxastic schema, rests on two basic claims. The first claim is
that it's independently plausible that we actually use the
doxastic schema (as Evans' remarks suggest). The second claim is
that the hypothesis that we use the doxastic schema best explains the
special security and asymmetry of self-knowledge. On his proposal, the
special epistemic security of self-knowledge is a matter of
externalist warrant: the doxastic schema is not only self-verifying
but also yields self-ascriptions that are "safe" in that
they could not easily have been
 false.[6]
 The asymmetry of self-knowledge consists in the fact that following
this schema will not yield knowledge of others' states.
Reasoning from *it's snowing* to *you/they believe
that* *it's snowing* will not reliably yield true
beliefs about others' beliefs.



One objection to transparency accounts is that answering the question
"Do you believe that *p*?" by directly considering
whether *p* may not shed light on what one believed before the
question arose (Shah and Velleman 2005). For example, to answer the
question "Do you believe that there will be a third world
war?" by considering geopolitical matters may produce a new
belief rather than revealing a pre-existing belief. In general,
reflection on accessible evidence about whether *p* may
actually change a pre-existing belief on this issue (Wilson and Kraft
1993). The transparency theorist cannot avoid this worry by
stipulating that, when considering whether *p*, one should not
draw a *new* conclusion. Avoiding new conclusions would require
already knowing one's beliefs, that is, which conclusions one
had already drawn.



Transparency theorists can respond by arguing that the objection
misconstrues the aim of these accounts. The objection charges that the
account may not explain first-person *access*: how it is that,
if you believe that *p*, you can know that you do. Transparency
accounts may be intended to address a different question, namely, what
kind of exclusively first-personal method could deliver
self-ascriptions that constitute knowledge. And even if considering
geopolitical matters produced a new belief that a third world war is
likely, the inference that Byrne describes--from *a third
world war is likely* to *I believe that a third world war is
likely*--would arguably yield self-knowledge. Still, the
objection exposes a possible limitation of transparency accounts.
Because they cannot distinguish newly-formed judgments from previous
dispositional beliefs, they cannot account for our apparent ability to
knowledgeably answer the question "Do you believe that
*p*?", where that question concerns what one believes at
the time the question is posed (Gertler 2011b).




Another objection concerns these accounts' presumption that
self-knowledge need not meet epistemically internalist conditions on
knowledge. Boyle (2011) targets Byrne's view on this point,
arguing that even if the inference from *p* to *I believe
that p* reliably yields true (and safe) self-ascriptions, this
inference cannot explain self-knowledge since it will not appear
reasonable to the thinker: after all, in general the fact
that *p* doesn't imply that I believe
that *p*. Fernandez addresses this worry, in arguing
that beliefs formed through the bypass method will seem reasonable to
the subject. Other critics argue that the transition from *p*
to *I believe that p* is not a genuine inference. Valaris
(2011) argues that, unlike genuine inferences, this transition cannot
be used in hypothetical contexts--e.g., when one reasons from a
premise one doesn't believe, to see what follows from
it. Barnett (2016) argues that this transition violates plausible,
broadly evidentialist restrictions on inferences.



Fernandez limits his account to explaining self-knowledge of
beliefs and desires, while Byrne extends his account to encompass
self-knowledge of all of our mental states. Critics express skepticism
about extending the transparency account beyond beliefs: to desires
(Ashwell 2013a, 2013b), to thoughts or intentions (Samoilova 2016), or
to beliefs held with less than 100% confidence (Tang 2017).


### 3.5 Reasons Accounts



Above, we saw that on standard views of beliefs and desires, these
attitudes are at least partly constituted by dispositions to reason,
behave, and affectively react. This is one basis for thinking that
self-knowledge of attitudes must be inferential. After all,
dispositions seem to be linked with counterfactual truths, and such
truths can be known only through inference.



The *reasons* account of self-knowledge, first advanced by
Peacocke (1999), says that we can sometimes know our beliefs without
relying on inference. While beliefs are dispositional states,
judgments are occurrent: a judgment that *p* is an
*event*. Peacocke argues that judging *it's
snowing* (say) provides you with a reason to think that you have
the dispositions associated with the belief that it's
snowing--e.g., to put on boots when leaving the house (if you
desire dry feet). In other words, Peacocke thinks that judging
*it's snowing* gives you reason to believe that you
believe that it's snowing.



Notably, on this view the judgment can serve as a reason for the
corresponding self-ascription of belief so long as the judgment is
conscious. You need not be *aware of* the judgment. An analogy
may illuminate the basic idea here. An itch can serve as a reason for
scratching even if there is no further conscious state (distinct from
the itch) that constitutes an awareness *of* the itch. Peacocke
argues that, in a broadly similar way, a conscious judgment that
*p* can serve as a direct reason for my self-ascribing the
belief that *p*, without my introspecting the judgment and
inferring that I believe that *p*, or even having any distinct
awareness *of* that judgment. (Compare Silins 2012.)



The non-inferential transition from judging that *p* (a
conscious, occurrent state) to believing that one believes that
*p* (that is, to self-ascribing a belief) is a rational one, on
this view, because judging is conceptually linked with believing:
making a judgment "is the fundamental way to form a
belief" (Peacocke 1999: 238). Similarly, since remembering that
*p* is conceptually linked with believing that *p*, a
conscious memory that *p* can justify the belief that one
believes that *p*. And anyone in a position to self-ascribe a
belief will possess the concept of belief, and so will grasp--or
at least, manifest cognitive dispositions appropriately
reflecting--these conceptual
 truths.[7]



Drawing on Peacocke, Paul (2012) develops a reasons account of how we
know our intentions. On this account, the transition from deciding to
do something (or remembering that one has so decided) to believing
that one intends to do that thing is rational, since it is a
conceptual truth that deciding normally suffices for intending.



Silins (2020) presents a different argument for the reasons account as
applied to belief. He thinks that judgments like *it's
snowing but I don't believe that it is*--known as
"Moore-paradoxical judgments"--are plainly irrational. But if the
judgment that *p* didn't provide justification for
self-ascribing the belief that *p*, these judgments could be
perfectly rational. Silins concludes that judging that *p*
provides (propositional) justification for self-ascribing the belief
that *p*. This explains why Moore-paradoxical judgments are
irrational: in making such a judgment "you flout the justification
given to you by your judgment that p" (Silins 2020: 334).



Coliva (2008) objects that judgments cannot rationalize
self-ascriptions of belief in the way the reasons theorist contends,
because they are not suitably accessible. Her argument rests, in part,
on a claim reminiscent of the self-interpretation view: that the
phenomenology of a conscious thought--such as "things will
look up"--does not indicate whether this is the content of
a judgment or, instead, of a wish. McHugh (2012) responds on behalf of
the reasons account, arguing that there is a "phenomenology
characteristic of judging that *p*" that is present in
cases where ordinary self-knowledge is possible (2012: 148). This
dispute suggests that the prospects for the reasons account, as an
account of self-knowledge of the attitudes, may depend in part on
whether attitudes have "proprietary phenomenology" (Pitt
2004). (For more on that question, see the entry on
 consciousness and intentionality.)


### 3.6 Rationalist Accounts



Rationalist accounts of self-knowledge maintain that our status as
rational thinkers guarantees our capacity for self-knowledge. Some
agentialist accounts (discussed in the next subsection) agree with
that claim, but on agentialist views this guarantee stems from the
agency exercised in rational deliberation. I reserve the term
"rationalist" for accounts that focus on rationality and
are independent of claims about agency.

 As we saw in
 3.2,
 Shoemaker (1994) contends that no rational thinker (who possesses the
relevant mental state concepts) could be "self-blind", that is,
incapable of self-knowledge. He reasons as follows. A self-blind
person would (i) fall into certain conceptual errors, such as making
irrational Moore-paradoxical judgments like *it's snowing but
I don't believe that it is*; (ii) be unable to communicate
their beliefs, and hence to engage in cooperative endeavors; (iii)
regard themselves "as a stranger", e.g. in observing themselves taking
aspirin without grasping that they were in pain. Yet a rational
thinker would not commit these errors, be incapacitated in this way,
or suffer this kind of self-alienation. So rational thinkers cannot be
self-blind.


Shoemaker explains the link between rationality and self-knowledge
with his "constitutivist"
 [8]
 thesis, namely: for rational thinkers with the appropriate conceptual
repertoire, being in certain mental states *constitutes*
knowledge that one is in them. What it is for a rational creature to
feel pain is, in part, for that creature to believe that they are in
pain; what it is for a rational creature to believe that *p*
is, in part, for it to believe that it believes that *p*; etc.
Shoemaker cashes out this idea with a functionalist analysis of mental
states, proposing that in rational creatures, the causal role defining
a mental state are also sufficient for belief that one is in that
mental state (Shoemaker 1994: 287-9).



Inspired in part by Shoemaker's arguments, Stoljar (2018, 2019)
has recently proposed an ambitious, systematic explanation of the
(supposed) fact that rational thinkers are necessarily capable of
self-knowledge. Stoljar posits that what it means to be
*rational* is to be guided by the rules of rationality, which
include the following "introspective principle":



> 
> 
> If one is in a conscious state C, ... one will believe that one is in
> C. (Stoljar 2019: 405; ellipsis in original)
> 
> 
> 



(The ellipsis indicates that further conditions must be added; the
details are not crucial here.) If rationality partly consists in
following this principle, then no rational creature will be
self-blind. Stoljar (2019) argues that his proposal also explains why,
as Evans claimed, we can know that we believe that *p* by
considering *p*. He proposes that a belief is conscious, in the
relevant sense, when one attends to its content--e.g., to
*it's snowing*. Together with the introspective principle
above, this means that a rational person who believes that *p*,
and who attends to *p*, will believe that they believe that
*p*.



Smithies (2019) also defends the idea that rational thinkers are
necessarily capable of knowing their beliefs. His starting point is
the claim that Moore-paradoxical beliefs are always irrational. He
notes that such beliefs may *seem* rational if a thinker
doesn't know what they believe: e.g., if someone believes that
*p* but has misleading evidence suggesting that they
don't believe that *p*. Smithies concludes that, since
such beliefs are always irrational, a rational thinker will know all
of their beliefs. "Rationality requires knowing what you believe,
since otherwise you're liable to fall into an irrational Moorean
predicament" (ibid.: 174). To explain how we are able to know all of
our beliefs, he proposes a nonstandard conception of belief: "to
believe that *p* is to be disposed to judge that *p*
when you consciously entertain whether *p*" (ibid.: 175-6).
Given that conception, beliefs are necessarily accessible to the
subject, since they consist in dispositions to conscious judgments.
This means that a rational thinker who believes that *p* will
have (available) justification for believing that they believe that
*p*.



Rationalist accounts face two related challenges. First, to defend the
idea that rationality guarantees the capacity for self-knowledge,
these accounts must adopt a fairly demanding conception of what it is
to be rational. But if a conception of rationality is too demanding,
then it is questionable whether it applies to cognitively flawed
creatures like us (Kornblith 2012; Cassam 2015). Second, in order to
explain how we can meet their demanding standards for
rationality--how we can follow Stoljar's introspective
principle, or can know all of our beliefs--rationalists tend to
invoke nonstandard conceptions of "conscious" or "belief". The
challenge here is to show that the process of achieving self-knowledge
is psychologically realistic and that it applies to the kinds of
states that we actually possess.



Many philosophers share the intuition that, necessarily, no rational
thinker is self-blind. The success of rationalist accounts of
self-knowledge depends on whether there are conceptions of
rationality, consciousness, belief, etc. that are robust enough to
exclude the possibility of self-blindness yet psychologically
realistic enough to explain the cognitive achievements of actual human
beings.


### 3.7 Agentialist Accounts



The accounts of self-knowledge canvassed thus far treat self-knowledge
as a largely epistemic phenomenon. But as noted in
 Section 1,
 some philosophers deny that the special character of self-ascriptions
is primarily epistemic. One version of this denial charges that by
focusing on our *access* to our mental states, standard
accounts of self-knowledge portray the introspective thinker as
passive, a mere spectator (or detector) of a cognitive show.
Agentialists contend that the special character of self-knowledge
stems from the fact that we exercise agency over our mental states,
and hence are responsible for them. 



> 
> 
> The privilege of first-person knowledge is ... really more like the
> knowledge of a person driving a car as opposed to that of her
> passenger. The passenger may very well see where the driver is going,
> but still does not know in the immediate *executive* sense of
> the driver herself. (McGeer 1996: 505)
> 
> 
> 
> The phenomena of self-knowledge ... are themselves based as much
> in asymmetries of responsibility and commitment as they are in
> difference in capacities or in cognitive access. (Moran 2001: 64)
> 
> 
> 



Many versions of agentialism are inspired by a broadly Kantian
approach to reason and agency (Burge 1996; Moran 2001; Bilgrami 2006;
Boyle 2009). On this approach, a thinker's most basic
self-conception (as an "I") is agential: we see ourselves
as *authors* of our beliefs and intentions, rather than as an
inert thing in which attitudes merely occur. This authorial agency is
essentially rational: it is exercised when we believe or intend on the
basis of reasons. Agentialism differs from rationalism in taking our
capacity for self-knowledge to derive from our agency and not (just)
from our rationality. Agentialists maintain that our rational agency
guarantees that we are capable of--or even that we
possess--self-knowledge.



Agentialists differ as to the precise link between agency and
self-knowledge. I begin with Burge, who argues that our responsibility
for our beliefs *entitles* us to belief self-ascriptions. Burge
uses the following reasoning. Our rational agency confers on us the
obligation to (try to) satisfy certain rational norms: that
one's beliefs should conform to one's evidence; that a
belief set should be internally consistent; etc. In order to satisfy
these rational norms--e.g., to assess our beliefs for conformance
with our evidence, or for consistency with other beliefs--we must
rely on judgments as to which beliefs we have. So our responsibility
to satisfy rational norms epistemically entitles us to those judgments
about our beliefs (and other attitudes) that are crucial for
satisfying those norms.



> 
> 
> [I]f one lacked entitlement to judgments about one's attitudes,
> one could not be subject to rational norms governing how one ought to
> alter those attitudes given that one had reflected on them. (Burge
> 1996:
>  101)[9]
> 
> 
> 



This appears to be a version of "ought implies can" reasoning. The
upshot is that being responsible for one's attitudes requires,
and thereby implies, that we can know those attitudes. 



Burge's reasoning has a distinctly transcendental flavor (see the
entry on
 transcendental arguments).
 Transcendental reasoning also fuels Moran's agentialism. But
while Burge uses it to establish a general entitlement to
self-ascriptions, Moran deploys it to show that self-knowledge can be
achieved in a specific way, namely by reflection on reasons. He
reasons as follows. We could not engage in rational thought unless we
had the "epistemic right" to the assumption that our attitudes are
shaped by our reasons. (This is "something like a Transcendental
assumption of Rational Thought" (Moran 2003: 406).) So we do
have the epistemic right to that assumption. And our right to that
assumption gives us the epistemic right to use the transparency method
associated with Evans' famous remarks: to answer the question
"do you believe that *p*?" by considering reasons bearing
on *p* (ibid.) So the self-ascriptions produced by the
transparency method constitute knowledge.



Moran's agentialist transparency account differs markedly from
empiricist transparency accounts
 (3.4).
 For empiricists, the transparency method provides for self-knowledge
because it is reliable or generates self-ascriptions that could not
easily be false. For agentialists, our entitlement to use the
transparency method is rooted in a normative fact: that we are
*responsible* for our attitudes.



Some worry that Moran's account is too demanding. O'Brien
argues that I am not justified in self-attributing the belief that
there will be a third world war, on the basis of considering
geopolitics, unless I recognize that my reasons for expecting a third
world war constitute evidence that I believe it will occur. But this
recognition in turn requires a reflective grasp of the nature of
deliberation that seems unnecessary for ordinary self-attributions
(O'Brien 2003: 379-81).



Other philosophers have supplemented Moran's argument by
claiming that the agentialist transparency account is needed to make
sense of various phenomena. Keeling (2018) cites the fact that we
confabulate reasons for our attitudes (Nisbett and Wilson 1977) as
showing that, as rational agents, we take ourselves to be obligated to
know the rational basis for our attitudes, and hence to be justified
in taking our attitudes to reflect our reasons. Marcus and Schwenkler
(2019) argue that we cannot satisfy the honesty norm for assertions
unless we have non-empirical knowledge of what we believe, of the sort
provided by the transparency method.



Like Burge and Moran, Bilgrami (2006) regards self-knowledge as
intimately tied to the phenomenon of rational agency. But his view is
not merely that, as rational agents, we are necessarily capable of
knowing our attitudes. He argues that we could not exercise the agency
involved in believing unless we *actually knew* our beliefs.
Beliefs are necessarily known by the thinker because they are
commitments.



> 
> 
> [C]ommitments [such as beliefs] ... are states that, were we not
> to live up to them, we should be prepared to criticize ourselves and
> be prepared also to try and do better, by way of living up to them
> ... We cannot therefore have commitments without believing that
> we have them. ... Thus the very condition for having a commitment
> presupposes that one has a second-order belief that one has that
> commitment. (2006: 287)
> 
> 
> 



Boyle also thinks that our responsibility for our attitudes means that
we must be generally aware, at least tacitly, of our conscious
beliefs. The capacity to deliberate about whether *p* requires
an awareness of how *p* is being represented: e.g., awareness
that it is represented as a settled matter, as opposed to a hypothesis
to be examined (Boyle 2019: 1034). This means that a rational thinker
who consciously believes that *p* has a tacit awareness of that
belief. Importantly, for Boyle this awareness is not higher-order: the
belief that *p* is not an *object* of a separate state
of awareness. Instead, it is an in-built awareness:



> 
> 
> [F]or a person who consciously believes that *p*, being aware
> of her own belief and seeing the world from the perspective of
> *p*-believer are two aspects of the same awareness. (ibid.:
> 1018)
> 
> 
> 



The agentialist views discussed thus far have been inspired by the
Kantian idea that we are responsible for our beliefs and intentions
because, in believing or intending, we exercise a distinctive type of
agency, viz. *rational agency*. Whether positive this
distinctive type of agency is needed to explain the epistemic and
normative aspects of self-knowledge invoked by agentialists is a
matter of controversy (Gertler 2018; Sorgiovanni 2019).



Some agentialist views are independent of the idea that our attitudes
are exercises of rational agency. McGeer's (1996) view, a
pioneer of empiricist agentialism, takes self-ascriptions to be
"commissive": in self-ascribing an attitude, we commit to behaving in
ways that fit that attitude.



> 
> 
> [W]e are *actors* as well as observers and so can be good, even
> excellent, "predictors" of our future behavior because *we*
> have the power to make these "predictions" come true. ... [W]e do not
> just wait to see if our actions make sense in light of intentional
> self-attributions, but rather *make* them make sense. (McGeer
> 1996: 507)
> 
> 
> 



McGeer's account does not invoke the idea of rational agency.
This means that it does not rest on positing a distinctive agential
faculty, and allows its scope to extend beyond reasons-sensitive
attitudes such as beliefs and intentions. For example, saying (or
judging) "I want to go to the beach" commits one to act in ways that
make sense given that desire: e.g., to go to the beach when an
opportunity presents itself. The normativity of this commitment stems
not from the requirements of rationality but, instead, from our
ordinary practical obligations. In expressing an attitude, we provide
others with ways of explaining and predicting our behavior; this
obligates us to behave in ways that fit the attitudes we express or
self-ascribe (or to convey that our attitudes have changed). 



Coliva (2012a) develops a related view concerning self-ascriptions of
commitments--which for her include not only beliefs and
intentions but also rationally held conative attitudes, such as
desires. Provided that a thinker is rational and has the relevant
concepts, their self-ascriptions of commitments will be true because
they will *create* the attitudes ascribed.



> 
> 
> [A] judgement (or a sincere assertion) such as 
"I
> believe/desire/intend/wish/hope that P" is like a
> *performative*, namely like "I promise to buy you an
> ice-cream"... : it makes a certain thing *happen*,
> for it does create the first-order propositional attitude as a
> commitment. ... [J]udging "I
> believe/desire/intend/wish/hope that P" becomes just an
> alternative way of undertaking the same commitments one would make by
> judging that *P* (is worth pursuing or having)... (Coliva
> 2012a: 235-6)
> 
> 
> 



The agency operative in Coliva's account is our power to
undertake commitments through self-ascriptions. This contrasts with
the kind of agency at work in Kantian agentialist views, which is
exercised simply in having beliefs or intentions. However,
Coliva's account still has a rationalist element in that
self-ascriptions involve committing to there being good
*reasons* for the attitude.



We now consider the prospects for agentialism generally. The
agentialist's primary burden is to explain the epistemic
dimension of self-knowledge. After all, most cases of knowledge
involve a belief being controlled by what is known: e.g., I know my
dog's location only if my belief about his location is
controlled by (sensitive to) his actual location. By contrast, the
agential approach focuses on our control *over* what is known.
Agentialism is not a genuine competitor to the accounts of
self-knowledge unless it explains how agency relative to our attitudes
provides for self-knowledge. (Parrott's (2015) non-epistemic
version of agentialism is explicitly not a competitor to those
accounts, as its aim is to explain why it is reasonable to defer to
others' self-ascriptions.) Because the various versions of
agentialism differ as to the way that agency secures justification or
warrant for self-ascriptions, their responses to this challenge will
differ.



A possible drawback of agentialism is its limited application. Most
versions of agentialism apply only to attitudes are sensitive to
reasons. (McGeer's is an exception.) But arguably,
non-instrumental desires and some other types of attitudes are
insensitive to reasons: this is part of the motivation for
self-interpretation accounts (3.3). And some beliefs and intentions
are insensitive to reasons. Beliefs that are deeply entrenched (such
as superstitions) or comforting (as in wishful thinking) sometimes
persevere in the face of counter-evidence. Intentions that run counter
to one's goals (e.g. akratic or self-sabotaging intentions)
sometimes withstand practical deliberation.



Agentialists generally hold that we can know such recalcitrant
attitudes, but only through a process of self-observation, which they
regard as problematic. (McGeer is again an exception.) Agentialists
argue that if I can know about my own attitude only through
observation, then I am "alienated" (Moran 2001) from that
attitude; my relation to it, qua agent, is "brute, contingent,
non-rational" (Burge 1996); and I can view it only from a
"third-person perspective" (Bilgrami 2006) and not
"*as* my own" (Boyle
 2009).[10]
 Some of agentialism's critics maintain that knowing an attitude
through an observational process does not preclude a thinker from
regarding it as *her own* in the relevant sense (Reed 2010;
Borgoni 2015). Some even claim that a detached perspective on
one's own attitudes can be especially enlightening: it can help
us to recognize and combat recalcitrant attitudes (McGeer 2008; Levy
2016), and it may be necessary for genuine self-understanding (Doyle
2019). 


### 3.8 Expressivist Accounts



Expressivist views highlight similarities between utterances like
"I'm in pain" and direct expressions of one's
mental states, such as wincing or saying "ouch!"
(Wittgenstein 1953; Finkelstein 2003; Bar-On 2004; Campbell 2020). In
particular, these views center on the idea that utterances like
"I'm in pain"--*avowals*--directly
express the mental states they ascribe. The most radical version of
expressivism--what Bar-On (2004) calls Simple Expressivism,
sometimes attributed to Wittgenstein--says that avowals, like
non-linguistic expressions of mental states such as wincing, are
neither true nor false. On that view, avowals do not express
*knowledge* any more than wincing does. Most contemporary
expressivists take avowals to express self-knowledge. Since our
concern is with self-knowledge, our discussion will be limited to
those views.



Avowals include thoughts like *I want some water* as well as
utterances like "I'm in pain". According to the expressivist,
the relation between an avowal and the mental state it expresses is
*direct* in two respects. First, no judgment to the effect that
I'm in pain or desire water intervenes between my pain or desire
and my avowal. Just as a wince flows from my pain directly, a
spontaneous avowal flows from my pain (or desire) directly, unmediated
by any judgment. Second, the knowledge expressed in such avowals is
epistemically "groundless" in that it is not based on
*evidence* that one is in pain or desires water. Obviously, the
subject can directly express only her own mental states.



Expressivist approaches differ as to the feature of avowals that they
aim to explain. Finkelstein and Bar-On focus on the social-linguistic
aspect of avowals, known as first-person authority: we ordinarily
defer to others about their own mental states, so avowals are presumed
to be true. Campbell focuses on the epistemic aspect of avowals, known
as first-person privilege: our capacity to avow our mental states
constitutes a privileged epistemic position vis-a-vis those
states.



Finkelstein allows that my avowal "I'm so happy!"
may be caused by my happiness. But he denies that this is a matter of
brute causation, as hitting someone's knee with a hammer brutely
causes his leg to kick out. Rather, what differentiates these cases is
that my happiness and my spontaneous avowal "have, we might say, a
particular kind of intelligibility" (Finkelstein 2003: 126). This does
not mean that my happiness rationalizes the avowal. (A relevant
contrast here is with the reasons account.) Instead, he says, my
avowal, like my smiling, makes sense together with my happiness in
something like the way that a dog's pain and its moaning make
sense together, in "the logical space of animate life".




Since dogs are not usually thought to possess self-knowledge, this
analogy raises the question: Does my avowal "I'm
happy" express *knowledge* that I'm happy? The
answer is complex, on Finkelstein's view. Whether the avowing
subject is to be credited with self-knowledge depends, he thinks, on
how one understands "knowledge": in particular, avowals do
not express knowledge if knowledge requires an epistemic grounding in
evidence.



Bar-On's account focuses on the fact that avowals enjoy a
presumption of truth. To use one of her examples: if I say
"I'm so happy!", it would be inappropriate (in
ordinary circumstances) for you to question whether *I* am the
one who is happy, or whether what I'm feeling is
*happiness*. This presumption of truth is explained, on
Bar-On's account, by the fact that my avowal flows directly from
my happy feeling. That is, my avowal is not based on evidence about
how I feel, and no judgment to the effect that I'm happy
mediates between my happiness and the avowal.



Bar-On maintains that avowals can represent "genuine and
privileged self-knowledge" (Bar-On 2004: 405), although the
avowing subject typically has not "formed the active judgment
[that he is happy] on some basis", and cannot offer evidence
bearing on his happiness (ibid.: 363). She is not committed to a
particular account of *how* avowals constitute knowledge, but
she presents a number of approaches compatible with her view, which
she calls Neo-Expressivism.



On one of these approaches, a conscious state can provide epistemic
warrant for a self-ascription directly, in the two senses of
directness mentioned earlier: that is, without mediation by a judgment
and without serving as evidence for the avowal. 



> 
> 
> [A]vowing subjects enjoy a special epistemic warrant, since their
> pronouncements, when true, are epistemically grounded in the very
> states they ascribe to themselves, which states also serve as the
> reasons for their acts of avowing. (Bar-On 2004: 405)
> 
> 
> 



(By "epistemically grounded", Bar-On simply means
*warranted*: such avowals are not based on evidence.)



Although both Finkelstein and Bar-On maintain that avowals may qualify
as knowledge, providing an epistemology of self-knowledge is, for
them, at most a peripheral goal. These views are concerned with
avowals that issue directly from the states they express, in something
like the way a dog's moaning issues directly from its pain. But to
some critics, this spontaneous, reflexive quality of
avowals--that they are not informed by evidence or
reasoning--means that they cannot represent to the kind of
epistemic achievement required for knowledge.



Campbell (2020) draws on the idea at the core of
expressivism--that only the subject can directly express their
mental states--to explain our special epistemic position relative
to our own mental states. Her account contrasts with
Finkelstein's and Bar-On's in taking the epistemic
dimension of avowals (first-person privilege) to be the basis for
their social-linguistic dimension (first-person authority).



Campbell proposes that an avowal like "I'm in pain" can express
not only *pain* but also *knowledge that* I'm in
pain (2020: 15). This proposal draws on her Rational Response account
of knowledge, which says that knowing that *p* is "being able
to *rationally respond to* or *operate with*, the fact
that p" (ibid.: 12). On this account, to know that *I want
water* is to have the rational capacities to act on, express, and
reason with my desire for water. I exercise these capacities when I
rationally respond to my desire in any of a variety of ways: pouring
myself a glass of water, or altering my route so that I will pass a
drinking fountain, or saying "I want some water". The utterance "I
want some water" expresses self-knowledge, of the uniquely
first-personal kind, if it is a direct, rational response to my desire
for water. This response must be *direct* in the ways described
earlier: not based on an intermediate judgment or on evidence about my
desire. The requirement that it be *rational* distinguishes
expressions of self-knowledge from brute reactions, e.g. a dog's
responding to his thirst by going to his water bowl.



This last point highlights an aspect of Campbell's account that
deserves further discussion. The account rests on distinguishing
rational responses to the fact that *p* from non-rational (or
"brute") reactions. If the account is to explain rather than
presuppose first-person privilege, what makes a response
*rational* must not be analyzed in epistemic terms. E.g., the
rationality of a response must not lie in its being justified or
warranted. This is a fruitful area for future work on this new
contribution to the self-knowledge literature.