Shoemaker on Self-Knowledge and Inner Sense

Bibliographic Data

ID10348270
AuthorsCynthia Macdonald (University of Canterbury, corresponding author)
Year1999
Volume59
Issue3
Pages711-711
Publication date1999-09-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8205 • E-ISSN: 1933-1592
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.2307/2653791
OpenAlexW2012736962
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited7

What is introspective knowledge of one's own intentional states like?This paper aims to make plausible the view that certain cases of self-knowledge, namely the cogito-type ones, are enough like perception to count as cases of quasi-observation.To this end it considers the highly influential arguments developed by Sydney Shoemaker in his recent Royce Lectures.These present the most formidable challenge to the view that certain cases of self-knowledge are quasi-observational and so deserve detailed examination.Shoemaker's arguments are directed against two models of ordinary perception, the "object perception model" and the "broad perceptual model".I argue that the core theses that Shoemaker associated with them are either dubious in their own right or applicable to certain cases of self-knowledge.Overall the aim is to show that there is such a variety of patterns in each case that simple analogies or disanalogies are unhelpful.What is introspective knowledge of one's own intentional states like?Is it in any way like observation or perception?If so, how like?In this paper I hope to make plausible the view that certain cases of self-knowledge, ones in which subjects are authoritative with respect to knowledge of the contents of their own intentional states, are enough like perception to qualify as cases of quasi-observation, and so to justify the claim that authoritative selfknowledge is a form of inner observation.In doing this I am going against the current trend in philosophical literature, which is decidedly hostile to observational models of self-knowledge (Shoemaker 1994, McDowell 1994, Peacocke 1996, 1998, Wright 1998).However, I think that much of this hostility is voiced against the background of assumptions concerning the socalled observation model itself, and specifically, assumptions about what ordinary perception involves, which themselves are questionable.If the perceptual model upon which the analogy with self-knowledge is based is itself a faulty paradigm for ordinary perception, the fact that cases of selfknowledge do not conform to it is neither here nor there.One cannot establish that self-knowledge is not a form of inner observation or perception on the basis of a paradigm that is too crude or inaccurate to fit perception itself. SYMPOSIUM 711My strategy for making plausible the claim that certain cases of selfknowledge are, broadly speaking, observational, is to focus on various models of ordinary perception and argue that the ones that cause trouble for an observational account of self-knowledge are either unsatisfactory paradigms for ordinary perception, or, where they are not, are applicable to certain cases of self-knowledge.I shall proceed by examining two models that Sydney Shoemaker (1994) discusses extensively, the "object perception model" and the "broad perceptual model", and the reasons he advances for thinking that introspective self-knowledge does not conform to either of these.In the case of the first, I shall argue that the core theses that Shoemaker associates with the paradigm are either dubious in their own right with regard to ordinary perception, or applicable also to certain cases of self-knowledge.In the case of the second, I shall argue that Shoemaker's claim that first-order and secondorder intentional states do not, whereas perceptual states and their objects do, meet the condition of existing, or being capable of existing, independently of one another, is false.Certain cases of self-knowledge, viz. the so-called cogito-type ones, I argue, can be construed as meeting the independence condition.My overall aim is to show that there is such a variety of patterns in each case that simple analogies or disanalogies are unhelpful.If this is right, then the contrast between perception and introspection distorts both modes of awareness.Before embarking on this enterprise, I should make clear what the point of the exercise is and why it is significant.The class of intentional states with which I am concerned is, in the first instance at least, a very restricted but important one.I am interested in what Tyler Burge (1985, 1988, 1996) has referred to as the cogito-type states; states in which one is currently consciously thinking about a thought (with a given propositional content p) while thinking that thought.Such cases of self-knowledge are thought by many to be ones where the subject is authoritative with regard to the nature and contents of the first-order thought.Suppose, for example, that it is true that I am currently, consciously thinking that I am thinking that water is transparent, and that this reflective thought constitutes knowledge.This knowledge seems to be peculiarly immediate or direct (Burge 1985, 1988, 1996, Heil 1988).Descartes (1969) thought that the special status of such knowledge that derives from this immediate relation between subject and thought, or thinker and thought reviewed, makes for a kind of transparency of thought reviewed to the reviewing subject.He thought that it is this difference between a subject's access to the contents of her own intentional states and others' access to those contents that confers an epistemic advantage on the subject in the sense of better placing her to know what the contents of those states are, and so in giving her authority over others with regard to knowledge of such contents (see Burge 1985)

Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Psychology of self · Self-knowledge · Sense (electronics · Chemistry · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Philosophy, Science, and History · Psychology

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