Self‐Knowledge and Rational Agency

A Defense of Empiricism

Dados Bibliográficos

ID10348686
AutoresBrie Gertler (University of Virginia, autor correspondente)
Ano2016
Volume96
Fascículo1
Páginas91-109
Data de publicação2016-03-24
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0031-8205 • E-ISSN: 1933-1592
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/phpr.12288
OpenAlexW2304996983
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas6
Referências citadas11

How does one know one's own beliefs, intentions, and other attitudes? Many responses to this question are broadly empiricist, in that they take self‐knowledge to be epistemically based in empirical justification or warrant. Empiricism about self‐knowledge faces an influential objection: that it portrays us as mere observers of a passing cognitive show, and neglects the fact that believing and intending are things we do , for reasons . According to the competing, agentialist conception of self‐knowledge, our capacity for self‐knowledge derives from our rational agency—our ability to conform our attitudes to our reasons, and to commit ourselves to those attitudes through avowals (Burge 1996; Moran 2001; Bilgrami 2006; Boyle 2009). This paper has two goals. The first is exegetical: to identify agentialism's defining thesis and precisely formulate the agentialist challenge to empiricism. The second goal is to defend empiricism from the agentialist challenge. I propose a way to understand the role of agency in reasoning and avowals, one that does justice to what is distinctive about these phenomena yet is compatible with empiricism about self‐knowledge

Agency (philosophy · Commit · Economic Justice · Economics · Empiricism · Epistemology · Philosophy of science · Political science · Self-knowledge · Warrant · Computer Science · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment