Expression-Based Accounts of Self-Knowledge

The current generation of therapeutic Large Language Models (LLMs) operates under a deeply flawed paradigm. We argue that this “Oracle” model is a deceptive fiction, where a user interacts with a fictitious “conscious robot” presented as a therapeutic oracle. This creates a funhouse mirror for the user’s psyche, reflecting their fears back at them, amplified and distorted. This paper critiques this flawed paradigm and proposes a fundamental shift towards a “Scheherazade” model. Grounded in the principles of Narrative Therapy [6], this (...) new paradigm re-imagines the AI as a creative partner that helps users postpone the finality of a problem-saturated story by co-creating new narratives of survival and resilience. We introduce Luciano Floridi’s concept of Distant Writing as the ideal mechanism for this interaction, empowering users to become directors of their own stories. This new paradigm corrects the epistemic error of the old model by making the co-creation of fiction explicit and therapeutic. It is a vision for an AI that functions not as a flawed oracle, but as a wise, literary partner in the art of living. (shrink)

MS., for an Eastern Division APA Author-Meets-Critics Session on Dorit Bar-On, Speaking My Mind: Expression and Self-Knowledge, Baltimore, December 2007.

Richard Moran’s Authority and Estrangement develops a compelling explanation of the characteristic features of self-knowledge that involve the use of ‘I’ as subject. Such knowledge is immediate in the sense of non-inferential, is not evidentially grounded and is epistemically authoritative.1 A&E develops its distinctive explanation while also offering accounts of other features of self-knowledge that are often overlooked, such as the centrality of self-knowledge characterised in this way to the concept of the person and its ethical importance. Moran recognises that (...) were an agent to lack the capacity authoritatively to avow his or her own state of mind this would be an ethically damaging defect. Moran’s treatment of these issues is subtle and in places profoundly insightful. I will argue, however, that there is a loose fit between two separate explanations that he gives of self-knowledge. On the one hand Moran argues that the best explanation of self-. (shrink)

Donald Davidson routinely argued that a certain principle of charity necessarily governs our interpretive activities. The principle implies that successful interpretation culminates in at least some understanding of one another, since successfully abiding by the principle not only culminates in correctly and justifiably attributing attitudes to one another but, also, in seeing those attitudes as constituting a subjectively rational point of view. And yet Davidson also argued that interpreters are not generally in the position of needing to interpret their own (...) attitudes. Granting this, how might _self_-understanding generally arise, and what importance might self-understanding hold for us? I argue that non-interpretive self-understanding plays a key role in fortifying our first-person authority against interpersonal challenges, and that we might explain its origins by adapting certain theories from contemporary discussions of self-knowledge. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

This volume presents new perspectives on transparency-theoretic approaches to self-knowledge. It addresses many under-explored dimensions of transparency theories and considers their wider implications for epistemology, philosophy of mind, and psychology. It is natural to think that self-knowledge is gained through introspection, whereby we somehow peer inward and detect our mental states. However, so-called transparency theories emphasize our capacity to peer outward at the world, hence beyond our minds, in the pursuit of self-knowledge. For all their popularity in recent decades, transparency (...) theories have also met with myriad challenges. The chapters in this volume seek to forge new ground in debates about the role of transparency in self-knowledge. Some chapters deepen our understanding of key themes at the heart of transparency theories, such as the ways in which transparent self-knowledge is properly 'first-personal' or 'non-alienated'. Other chapters extend transparency theory to different kinds of mental states and phenomena such as memory, actions, social groups, credences, projection, second-order sincerity, and Moore's Paradox. New Perspectives on Transparency and Self-Knowledge will appeal to scholars and advanced students working in epistemology, philosophy of mind, and psychology. (shrink)

In Chapter 5 of Transparency and Reflection, Matthew Boyle examines an “anti-Egoist” challenge to my reflective knowledge that I am thinking, which says all I really know is that thinking is occurring. Boyle replies that I know something more, namely that a subject is thinking. Even so, he concedes that traditional Egoists like Descartes go too far in claiming reflective knowledge that an object is thinking. However, these comments argue that there is no stable middle ground between Cartesian Egoism and (...) Anti-Egoism. If I know that I am thinking, then I know that an object is thinking. (shrink)

Introspection is often conceptualized as a “purely inner” activity, whereby the introspector temporarily breaks their coupling with the external world to focus on their “inner world”. We offer a substantially different picture of introspection. Inspired by radically embodied cognitive science, we argue that introspective processes delivering substantial self-knowledge consist of embodied, world-involving activities wherein the introspector remains coupled with the world in specific, controlled ways. Our argument unfolds as follows: after a brief introduction (Sect. 1), we provide a minimal account (...) of introspection (Sect. 2) followed by a brief introduction to radically embodied views of the mind (Sect. 3). Then, in Sect. 4, we present in detail a case of radical embodied introspection (Sect. 4.1); we argue that that case is indeed a case of introspection (Sect. 4.2), and finally we defend our claim from some foreseeable objections (Sect. 4.3). In Sect. 5 we offer other examples, showing that radically embodied introspection is a widespread and varied phenomenon. Lastly, Sect. 6 concludes the paper sketching some morals to be drawn from our examples. The appendix briefly situates our view in the broader epistemological landscape. (shrink)

It is often hard to articulate a thought. Why should this be, if not that to have a thought is one thing, and to know it something else? In fact the gap between thought and its articulation is not epistemic. While it’s true that we come to know our thoughts better through articulation, it's not because a thought is already perfectly determinate despite my ignorance of it. Rather, we make the thought determinate through articulation. This connection between the determinacy of (...) the thinker’s knowledge of their thought and the determinacy of the thought itself is a mark of thought’s fundamentally first-personal character: what’s beyond the reach of my current powers of articulation cannot be an object of any attitude of mine. (shrink)

This paper begins with a problem stemming from Hume regarding credences about credences. Suppose one has a credence of .95 in p, and suppose one assesses the credence to be such. But suppose one’s second-order credence in this assessment is less than 1. Then, by a standard conditionalization rule, one’s credence in p becomes less than .95. Moreover, such “erosion” can iterate by considering one’s, third-, fourth-, fifth-order credences, etc. (In light of this, some have rejected higher-order credences; however, it (...) is argued that Lewis’ “Principal Principle” forbids this.) The paper then offers a partial solution by describing circumstances under which a person has reason to assign credence 1 to a first-order credence. The solution takes the form of a “transparency” view of self-knowledge from Parent (2017, chapter 8). Briefly, it is argued that when one “reflex-like” utters a sentence “The probability of p is n”, then as a matter of psychological law, the utterance is an expression of one’s own judgment. The Principal Principle then necessitates that one’s credence in p is n, assuming one is being rational. Thus, upon perceiving such an utterance, one can thereby have a reason to assign a second-order credence of 1. (shrink)

Self-ascriptions of one’s current mental states often enjoy a distinctively strong presumption of truth. Some philosophers claim that this ascriptive authority is _non-transferable_ in the sense that it cannot be matched or surpassed by anyone else. In this paper I examine this non-transferability claim in the light of potential extended mentality cases. These cases threaten to show that popular accounts of ascriptive authority do not vindicate its alleged non-transferability. However, I also argue that a less popular account of ascriptive authority (...) can do so. (shrink)

Many philosophers contend that we often possess “privileged” and “peculiar” self-knowledge of our mental states. Self-knowledge is privileged insofar as it is systematically more secure than the knowledge that others have of one’s mental states, and it is peculiar insofar as it is systematically obtained in a way that is only suited for delivering self-knowledge. Focusing on privileged and peculiar self-knowledge of propositional attitudes like beliefs, I offer an account of its instrumental value. On my account, privileged and peculiar self-knowledge (...) of one’s propositional attitudes enables one to be a more efficient and reliable interpersonal reasoner. (shrink)

Neo-expressivism is the view that avowals—first-personal, present tense self-ascriptions of mental states—ordinarily express the very mental states that they semantically represent, such that they carry a strong presumption of truth and are immune to requests for epistemic support. Peter Langland-Hassan (2015. “Self-Knowledge and Imagination.” Philosophical Explorations 18 (2): 226–245) has argued that Neo-expressivism cannot accommodate avowals of one’s imaginings. In this short paper I argue that Neo-expressivism can, in fact, accommodate them.

Is self-knowledge a requirement of rationality, like consistency, or means-ends coherence? Many claim so, citing the evident impropriety of asserting, and the alleged irrationality of believing, Moore-paradoxical propositions of the form. If there were nothing irrational about failing to know one's own beliefs, they claim, then there would be nothing irrational about Moore-paradoxical assertions or beliefs. This article considers a few ways the data surrounding Moore's paradox might be marshaled to support rational requirements to know one's beliefs, and finds that (...) none succeed. (shrink)

What happens when we are uncertain about what we want, feel or whish for? How should we understand uncertainty in introspection? This paper reconstructs and critically assess two answers to this question frequently found in the secondary literature on Wittgenstein: indecision and self-deception (Hacker 1990, 2012; Glock 1995, 1996). Such approaches seek to explain uncertainty in introspection in a way which is completely distinct from uncertainty about the ‘outer world’. I argue that in doing so these readings fail to account (...) for the substantial role the intellect seems to play in the process of resolving such uncertainties. I then attempt to show that Wittgenstein’s remarks connecting psychological vocabulary, behaviour and public criteria (e. g. PI 2009: 580) provide alternative ways for thinking about uncertainty in introspection which allow for a substantial role of the intellect. (shrink)

Donald Davidson famously offered an explanation of “first-person authority”. However, he described first-person authority differently across different works—sometimes referring to the presumptive truth of agents’ self-ascriptions of their current mental states, and sometimes referring to the direct self-knowledge that agents often have of said states. First, I show that a standard Davidsonian explanation of first-person authority can at best, and with some modification, explain the presumptive truth of agents’ self-ascriptions. I then develop two Davidsonian accounts of direct self-knowledge—one accounting for (...) its function and another accounting for its source—pushing back in the process against deflationary and quietist rejoinders to these projects. Finally, I relate my Davidsonian accounts of direct self-knowledge back to the modified Davidsonian account of the presumptive truth of agents’ self-ascriptions. (shrink)

'Pi' in mathematics is the technical term for 'mind' in philosophy. This creates Intelligent anarchy. Or, in more conventional 'language' the whole idea that there is only 'one' person in, what humans label, 'the universe.' This means, technically, then, there are always 'two' people in any 'universe.' Where all of these terms (words) are meaningless, because the conservation of a circle controls, again, what humans label, 'reality.' (Self, anti-self, other-self, relative self.) Again, meaning, every human (any unit) (in any discipline) (...) (including, and, especially, language) is the same human, automatically, in its own 'universe.' Intelligent. Anarchist. (Circular-linear relationship between any X and-or X) (X and-or Y) (X and-or X'). (shrink)

Este artículo revisa, de manera esquemática, cuatro diferentes estrategias para solucionar el problema del autoconocimiento, entendido como el problema de la compatibilidad del acceso a la vez peculiar y privilegiado que tenemos a la propia mente. La estrategia escéptica se ejemplifica por Gilbert Ryle y Peter Carruthers, la constitutivista por Dorit Bar-On y Crispin Wright, la racionalista por Sydney Shoemaker y la epistémica por Descartes, David Armstrong, Donald Davidson y Alex Byrne. En cada caso se examina brevemente si la estrategia (...) logra solucionar el problema del autoconocimiento y si es plausible en sí. Se concluye que la teoría de la transparencia de Byrne es la más convincente entre las examinadas y se señalan algunas áreas de ella que requieren una exploración más detallada. (shrink)

After rejecting deflationism, the central further question is whether our rejections and acceptances of words, in the articulation process, are based on reasons. Reasons-theorists say “yes” and look for some mental state that gives us a reason for accepting/rejecting a formulation. One kind of reasons-theorist argues that our reasons come from some _knowledge_ we have of our thought. Another kind of reasons-theorist argues that our reasons come from _feelings_ that result from sub-personally matching our thought with our words. Contra the (...) reasons-theorists, this chapter maintains that we cannot make sense of the bulk of our responses in the articulation process by assimilating them into the reasons framework. Resolving the puzzle calls for an alternative model of rational control—one that may be implicated in learning and numerous other epistemologically central activities, ranging from basic perceptual categorization to sophisticated mathematical discovery. (shrink)

In articulating our thoughts, our attention rarely goes to the formulation itself. What we evaluate are not sounds or inscriptions but ways in which other competent users of our language would interpret them. But how do we arrive at words that would elicit precisely the needed interpretation? And why does the other person enter into the picture at all? Why do we need to know what some other person would think we think, and realize that that is, in fact, what (...) we think, to know what we ourselves think? Why do we take the other person’s response into account in trying to come to know our private thoughts? Although these questions span several different areas of philosophy, their most natural home is the subject of self-knowledge. This chapter sketches the territory of the subject from a distinctive perspective and indicates the place of the book’s project in it. (shrink)

Deflationists seek to reinterpret the puzzle cases so that the puzzle never arises. On this type of view, what we do in the difficult cases of articulation does not consist in articulating thoughts already in place, but rather in using language to form new thoughts. A _moderate deflationist_ draws an analogy between what we do in these cases and the elaboration of a plan, whose detailed implementation we work out later, as we go. A _radical deflationist_ denies that we search (...) for any fixed type of formulation at all, arguing that our acceptance of a formulation is either a free choice or a consequence of reaching a natural stopping point in our thinking. Examining a wide range of deflationary views helps bring out many of the key features of the puzzle cases and map out the variety of ways in which we can think in words. (shrink)

Once we are done articulating the thought, we can easily articulate it again, using different words with the same meaning. But the thought may become difficult to articulate again, with time. In many such cases (for example, during teaching, job interviews, and exams), our knowledge of the thought does not dissipate altogether, but switches back to an implicit format. We can regain our explicit knowledge by engaging in an effortful process of recollection. The memory process shares the key features of (...) the process of articulation and lends itself to a variant of the initial puzzle. Placing the memory puzzle alongside analogous puzzles in the case of thought and perception brings out the general form of the puzzle that pertains to our knowledge of all foundational facts. Our knowledge of such facts, in all these cases, could be underwritten by our possession of certain bits of implicit knowledge. (shrink)

The chapter introduces a new puzzle—albeit one that is reminiscent of Meno’s famous puzzle about investigation. The puzzle that Plato formulates challenges the possibility of inquiry in general, whereas this puzzle concerns the special case of inquiry into our thoughts. Our puzzle is that, in the difficult cases of articulation, coming to know what we are thinking seems to require knowing the words that capture our thoughts; yet, at the same time, having the latter knowledge itself seems to require already (...) knowing what we are thinking. After characterizing the cases that give rise to the puzzle and honing its presentation, the chapter addresses several lines of response to it, including the worry that the puzzle simply reduces to Meno’s original paradox and the worry that it does not constitute a genuine philosophical paradox at all. (shrink)

Articulating a thought can be astoundingly easy. We generally have no trouble expressing complex ideas that we have never considered before, though not always. Articulating a thought can also be extremely hard. Our difficulties in articulating thoughts pervade many aspects of philosophical inquiry, as well as many ordinary situations. While we may overcome some of the challenges through education and practice, we cannot do away with them altogether. And the hardest thoughts to articulate often come to us unbidden: as we (...) neither assemble them from other thoughts nor get them from any source of external information. They can come from us freely and spontaneously, and frequently we articulate them in order to find out what they are. In many cases, we would not bother articulating our thoughts if we already had this knowledge--yet, when we find the right words, we can often instantly tell that they express our thought. How do we manage to recognize the formulations of our thoughts, in the absence of prior knowledge of what we are thinking? And why is it that producing a public language formulation contributes in any way to the deeply private undertaking of coming to know our own thoughts? In Articulating a Thought, Eli Alshanetsky considers how we make our thoughts clear to ourselves in the process of putting them into words and examines the paradox of those difficult cases where we do not already know what we are struggling to articulate. (shrink)

On the proposed solution to the puzzle, we recognize the correct formulations of our thoughts by relying on our implicit knowledge of what we are thinking. After discussing an analogous puzzle in the case of basic perceptual classification and constructing a model of implicit knowledge for the simpler case of color recognition, the chapter extends the model to the trickier case of thought. On this model, our implicit knowledge of an item consists in its stored _signature_—the invariant aspect of experience (...) that its instances share. On the proposed solution, the process that mediates between implicit and explicit knowledge is not itself wholly sub-personal. Instead, it is best understood as straddling the personal/sub-personal divide. A deeper source of the puzzle that emerges from this chapter’s discussion of our involvement in articulation lies in the conflation between two types of freedom (or control) that we may have over a response. (shrink)

This chapter looks closely at another important aspect of the articulation process: the kind of _reasoning_ that we engage in when we articulate a thought. Although we often articulate our thoughts without engaging in any reasoning, a certain kind of reasoning does sometimes play an ancillary role in our assessment of a formulation. In articulating a thought, we are often cognizant of various attitudes that we have in reaction to it. The thought may seem true or false, hopeful or alarming, (...) frivolous or serious, and so on. We reject formulations that do not support such attitudes in any way. This chapter shows that these attitudes pass through a kind of “normative filter”, or a rapid normative evaluation, and goes some way toward understanding the character of this evaluation using the previous account of implicit knowledge. Understanding how we reason with unarticulated thoughts can enhance our understanding of reasoning, more generally. (shrink)

So-called basic self-knowledge (ordinary knowledge of one's present states of mind) can be seen as both 'baseless' and privileged. The spontaneous self-beliefs we have when we avow our states of mind do not appear to be formed on any particular epistemic basis (whether intro-or extro-spective). Nonetheless, on some views, these self-beliefs constitute instances of (privileged) knowledge. We are here interested in views on which true mental self-beliefs have internalist epistemic warrant that false ones lack. Such views are committed to a (...) form of disjunctivism about basic self-knowledge. We begin by presenting an influential disjunctivist view about perceptual knowledge (Pritchard 2008, 2012, and elsewhere) and articulate a problem for it. We then consider two versions of disjunctivism about basic self-knowledge – one 'constitutivist', the other 'neo-expressivist' – and argue that both can avoid an analogue of this problem for self-knowledge. However, we give reasons for preferring the disjunctivism yielded by neo-expressivism. We conclude by considering briefly whether an acceptable disjunctivism about mental self-beliefs can point the way toward a sensible disjunctivism about perceptual beliefs. (shrink)

‘How, then, she had asked herself, did one know one thing or another thing about people, sealed as they were?’ So asks Lily Briscoe in To the Lighthouse. It is this question, rather than any concern about pretence or deception, which forms the basis for the philosophical problem of other minds. Responses to this problem have tended to cluster around two solutions: either we know others’ minds through perception; or we know others’ minds through a form of inference. In the (...) first part of this paper I argue that this debate is best understood as concerning the question of whether our knowledge of others’ minds is based on perception or based on evidence. In the second part of the paper I suggest that our ordinary ways of thinking take our knowledge of others’ minds to be both non- evidential and non-perceptual. A satisfactory resolution to the philosophical problem of other minds thus requires us to take seriously the idea that we have a way of knowing about others’ minds which is both non-evidential and non-perceptual. I suggest that our knowledge of others’ minds which is based on their expressions – our expressive knowledge - may fit this bill. (shrink)

In _The World Without, the Mind Within_, André Gallois points out that the inference from ‘_p_’ to ‘I believe that _p_’ is neither deductively valid nor inductively strong. This is (a version of) the puzzle of transparency—how can such an inference yield knowledge? This chapter examines the puzzle in depth, as it arises for belief, perception, and sensation. Gallois’s own solution to the puzzle is criticized, as are those offered by Richard Moran and Fred Dretske. The puzzle of transparency in (...) the special case of sensations is also discussed, as is the puzzle’s connection with the problem of other minds as discussed by Kripke in _Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language_, and with Hume’s remarks on the self in the _Treatise_. (shrink)

So far, a transparent epistemology has been given for belief and perception. Assuming that is correct, this chapter begins by arguing that transparency must apply across the board, thus giving a “general theory” of self-knowledge. The chapter then sketches the needed extensions for desire, intention, and emotion (using the specific example of disgust). The three proposed rules for desire, intention, and disgust explain privileged and peculiar access in the usual style. Privileged access is explained because one tries to follow these (...) rules, then (minor qualifications aside) one will arrive at a true belief about one’s desire, intention, or feeling of disgust. And peculiar access is explained because the methods only work, or only work in full generality, in one’s own case. The rules are also detectivist, and plausibly economical. (shrink)

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.

This chapter attempts to solve the puzzle of transparency for belief. The notion of an epistemic rule is introduced, and the proposed solution is that knowledge of one’s beliefs may be (and typically is) obtained by following the epistemic rule: Bel If _p_, believe that you believe that _p_. This is an inferential theory of knowledge of what we believe; it can be extended to an inferential theory of knowledge of what we know. The theory is also _economical_ and _detectivist_, (...) and is argued to give a satisfactory explanation of both privileged and peculiar access. The chapter concludes by examining a variety of objections. (shrink)

Chapter 2 argued that the failings of the inner-sense theory are often more apparent than real. In any event, recent approaches to self-knowledge are usually advertised as taking a radically different route. This chapter surveys and criticizes three prominent examples, due to Davidson, Moran, and Bar-On. They illustrate how radically different accounts of self-knowledge can be, despite having some overlapping themes. All three philosophers emphasize the linguistic expression of self-knowledge. Moran and Bar-On both think the main problems are in important (...) respects not epistemological. Davidson and Moran concentrate on the propositional attitudes, belief in particular, and suggest that another approach entirely will be required for knowledge of one’s sensations. (shrink)

Various problems of self-knowledge are introduced, along with the important notions of transparency, privileged access, and peculiar access. Accounts of self-knowledge are classified according to whether they are _economical, inferential, detectivist_, or _unified_. Roughly: economical accounts repurpose other epistemic capacities; inferential accounts say self-knowledge is acquired by inference; detectivist accounts say the explanation of self-knowledge involves causal mechanisms; and unified accounts give the same basic epistemological story for all mental states. The account to be defended later has all four features. (...) The chapter concludes by reviewing the history of self-knowledge considered as a philosophical problem. Self-knowledge from Descartes onwards was generally taken for granted, unlike our knowledge of the external world, which was thought deeply problematic. This gets things completely back to front. (shrink)

This chapter extends the transparent epistemology of belief and knowledge given in Chapter 5, first to perception and then to sensation. It turns out that these two topics are very closely related. According to a widespread view, to have a bodily sensation—a headache, a tickle in one’s throat, an itch on one’s neck—is to perceive something occurring in one’s body. The chapter argues that this perceptual theory of sensation is correct. The epistemology of one’s bodily sensations thus becomes a special (...) case of the epistemology of one’s perceptions, and the basic transparency account for perception applies. As one might expect, there are some complications. (shrink)

This chapter further extends the transparency approach to memory, imagination, and thought. The kind of memory that is chiefly treated is _episodic_ memory which, it turns out, is closely connected to the other two topics. Imagery is the key to a transparent epistemology of memory, and also to imagination and thought. That completes the defense of this book’s theory of self-knowledge. The theory needs controversial claims, most notably the idea that knowledge can be obtained by reasoning from inadequate evidence, or (...) from no evidence at all, and that perception and imagery constitutively involve belief. Those controversial claims were backed by independent argument, but are hardly beyond dispute. The ambition has simply been to establish the transparency account as a leading hypothesis, deserving of further examination. (shrink)

According to the _inner-sense theory_, one finds out about one’s own mind by deploying a (quasi-)perceptual mechanism, or “internal scanner.” The theory defended in TS&K is not a version of the inner-sense theory, but there are commonalities. This chapter examines eight leading objections to the inner-sense theory, and argues that they leave it pretty much unscathed. However, as explained at the end, there are some residual puzzles. Although the inner-sense theory offers a nice explanation of _peculiar_ access, it offers none (...) at all of _privileged_ access. Further, it gives no explanation of why Shoemakerian “self-blindness” does not actually occur. This motivates an examination of some leading alternatives. (shrink)

In the following text we would like to present the philosophical discussion on untrusting lies, which introduces a space for innocent lie understood as figurative manipulation of the speech: a poetic trope that we would argue could not only be generously used to help us tolerating our sometime deceiving human condition—which is global and universally ours, that of the finitude of human capacity of knowledge and ethical action—but also to maximise our capacity for knowledge formation and adaptation to values. Concepts (...) formation and communication relates to a collective interplay of different interiorized images, before it comes to the exterior in some well-chosen expressions, in self-mastered way; their origin remain in a mentally latent process of selection of content and ideas, as possible solutions of in a games of compatible propositions. These unconscious materials of our life relies on our capacity to identify and quickly switch between different spans, that enable us to focus on complex sets data, all depending very much on figurative manipulations, that should not be confounded with blameworthy and misleading representations. (shrink)

У статті з’ясовано проблему контекстної логіко-інтелектуальної експресивності та входження її до сфери категорії регулятивності. Із цією метою експресивність проаналізовано у двох її виявах – інгерентному та адгерентному. Доведено, що адгерентні експресивні засоби – стилістичні прийоми – беруть активну участь у регулюванні читацької діяльності. Продемонстровано інклюзивні відношення між експресемами та регулятемами, окреслено ядерно-периферійний ресурс регулятивних засобів.

This book on the topic of ethics and poetry consists of contributions from different continents on the subject of applied ethics related to poetry. It should gather a favourable reception from philosophers, ethicists, theologians and anthropologists from Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America and allows for a comparison of the healing power of words from various religious, spiritual and philosophical traditions. The first part of this book presents original poems that express ethical emotions and aphorism related to a philosophical questioning (...) of the grounding of our values for life. The poems are written by twelve authors coming from four continents, for whom poetic emotions are sources of artistic inspiration and that can be used for conflict resolution. In the second part, which features short essays, nine authors tackle how poems, symbolic representations, metaphorical narratives and lies impact the space of possibilities, in which we are moved to action, knowledge formation, and how we imagine the world together. (shrink)

O expressivismo sobre autoatribuição de estados mentais tem respostas aos desafios semânticos que costumam ser aglomerados de “o ponto de Geach”? Nossa proposta, nesse artigo, é empregar o princípio de caridade interpretativa para apresentar o expressivismo como uma posição maximamente plausível. A partir dessa postura, esperamos dar evidências suficientes de que o expressivismo tem uma explicação plausível para o acesso que cada um tem aos seus próprios estados mentais conscientes presentes.

This study examines the relation of language use to a person’s ability to perform categorization tasks and to assess their own abilities in those categorization tasks. A silent rhyming task was used to confirm that a group of people with post-stroke aphasia (PWA) had corresponding covert language production (or “inner speech”) impairments. The performance of the PWA was then compared to that of age- and education-matched healthy controls on three kinds of categorization tasks and on metacognitive self-assessments of their performance (...) on those tasks. The PWA showed no deficits in their ability to categorize objects for any of the three trial types (visual, thematic, and categorial). However, on the categorial trials, their metacognitive assessments of whether they had categorized correctly were less reliable than those of the control group. The categorial trials were distinguished from the others by the fact that the categorization could not be based on some immediately perceptible feature or on the objects’ being found together in a type of scenario or setting. This result offers preliminary evidence for a link between covert language use and a specific form of metacognition. (shrink)

_Self-Reflection for the Opaque Mind_ attempts to solve a grave problem about critical self-reflection. Psychological studies indicate not just that we are bad at detecting our own "ego-threatening" thoughts; they also suggest that we are ignorant of even our ordinary thoughts. However, self-reflection presupposes an ability to know one’s own thoughts. So if ignorance is the norm, why attempt self-reflection? While admitting the psychological data, this book argues that we are infallible in a limited range of self-discerning judgments—that in some (...) cases, these judgments are self-fulfilling or self-verifying. Even so, infallibility does not imply indubitability, and the author does not wish to provide a "foundation" for empirical knowledge. The point is rather to explain how self-reflection as a rational activity is possible. The book will be of interest to scholars working on the issue of self-reflection across a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science. (shrink)

How do we know when we have imagined something? How do we distinguish our imaginings from other kinds of mental states we might have? These questions present serious, if often overlooked, challenges for theories of introspection and self-knowledge. This paper looks specifically at the difficulties imagination creates for Neo-Expressivist, outward-looking, and inner sense theories of self-knowledge. A path forward is then charted, by considering the connection between the kinds of situations in which we can reliably say that another person is (...) imagining, and those in which we can say the same about ourselves. This view is a variation on the outward-looking approach, and preserves much of the spirit of Neo-Expressivism. (shrink)

Ordinarily when someone tells us something about her beliefs, desires or intentions, we presume she is right. According to standard views, this deferential trust is justified on the basis of certain epistemic properties of her assertion. In this paper, I offer a non-epistemic account of deference. I first motivate the account by noting two asymmetries between the kind of deference we show psychological self-ascriptions and the kind we grant to epistemic experts more generally. I then propose a novel agency-based account (...) of deference. Drawing on recent work on self-knowledge, I argue that a person normally has a distinctive type of cognitive agency; specifically she is able to constitute her psychological attitudes by making judgments about what they ought to be. I then argue that a speaker expresses this agentive authority when she self-ascribes a psychological attitude and this is what justifies deferentially trusting what she says. Because the notion of expression plays a central role in this account, I contrast it with recent neo-expressivist theories. (shrink)

It is a common intuition that I am in a better position to know my own mental states than someone else's. One view that takes this intuition very seriously is Neo-Expressivism, providing a “non-epistemic” account of first-person privilege. But some have denied that we enjoy any principled first-person privilege, as do those who have the Third-Person View, according to which there is no deep difference in our epistemic position with regard to our own and others' mental states. Despite their apparently (...) deep differences, I argue that Neo-Expressivism and the Third-Person View differ in their location of first-person privilege. This difference in the source of first-person privilege allows the key elements of each of these views to be compatible, and can even be combined into a single view about the nature of introspection and self-knowledge. The compatibility of these two views that otherwise appear to be in direct opposition is methodologically significant, highlighting several dialectical lessons that clar.. (shrink)

Robert Dunn, David Finkelstein and Richard Moran have recently contributed to broadening the debate on self-knowledge within the analytic tradition. They raise questions concerning the sort of awareness that may have a healing effect in psychoanalytic therapy, and enhance the relevance to self-knowledge of a deliberative, and practically committed, attitude toward oneself. They reject, however, that self-observation could play a significant role in a strictly first-person attitude toward oneself, since they conceive of it as essentially detached and, in this respect, (...) similar to the kind of attitude that a third party might adopt. I will appeal to Simone Weil's distinction between two sorts obedience and to the contrast between two characters in *The Karamazov Brothers* to elucidate a kind of self-awareness that involves a kind of observation that is constitutively committed. This line of reasoning will also serve to elucidate a fundamental sort of self-knowledge that derives from the subject's capacity to acknowledge her own position within the ethical world and is closely associated to the goal of psychoanalytic therapy. (shrink)

This is a contribution to a book symposium on Joelle Proust’s The Philosophy of Metacognition: Mental Agency and Self-Awareness (OUP). While there is much to admire in Proust’s book, the legitimacy of her distinction between “procedural” and “analytic” metacognition can be questioned. Doing so may help us better understand the relevance of animal metacognition studies to human self-knowledge.