Knowing Our Own Minds

Self-knowledge is the focus of considerable attention from philosophers: Knowing Our Own Minds gives a much-needed overview of current work on the subject, bringing together new essays by leading figures. Knowledge of one's own sensations, desires, intentions, thoughts, beliefs, and other attitudes is characteristically different from other kinds of knowledge, such as knowledge of other people's mental attributes: it has greater immediacy, authority, and salience. The first six chapters examine philosophical questions raised by these features of self-knowledge. The next two look at the role of our knowledge of our own psychological states in our functioning as rational agents. The third group of essays examine the tension between the distinctive characteristics of self-knowledge and arguments that psychological content is externally--socially and environmentally--determined. The final pair of chapters extend the discussion to knowledge of one's own language. Together these original, stimulating, and closely interlinked essays demonstrate the special relevance of self-knowledge to a broad range of issues in epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language.

1 - Self-Knowledge: The Wittgensteinian Legacy
2 - Response to Crispin Wright
3 - Conscious Attitudes, Attention, and Self-Knowledge
4 - An Eye Directed Outward
5 - Externalism and Authoritative Self-Knowledge
6 - Self-Knowledge: Special Access versus Artefact of Grammar--A Dichotomy Rejected
7 - Self-Knowledge and Resentment
8 - Reason and the First Person
9 - What the Externalist Can Know A Priori [**this chapter previously published**]
10 - Externalism, Twin Earth, and Self-Knowledge
11 - Externalism, Architecturalism, and Epistemic Warrant
12 - First-Person Authority and the Internal Reality of Beliefs
13 - The Simple Theory of Colour and the Transparency of Sense Experience
14 - On Knowing One's Own Language
15 - On Knowing One's Own Language