Transparent minds: a study of self-knowledge

by Fernández, Jordi

Type Book

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Full title :Transparent minds : a study of self-knowledge / Jordi Fernández.

Summary

We all seem to know what mental states we are in. At any given moment, we know, for example, what we believe, and what we want. But how do we know that? The project of Transparent Minds is to explain our knowledge of our own propositional attitudes. Fernández puts forward a view that is motivated by the so-called transparency of belief: If we are asked whether we believe that a proposition P is the case, we do not search for a state that we can identify as the belief that P in our minds. Instead, we consider whether P is the case or not. Drawing on this idea, Fernández proposes that we attribute beliefs to ourselves based on our grounds for those beliefs, and we attribute desires to ourselves based on our grounds for those desires. The book argues that this view explains our privileged access to our own beliefs and desires. Three applications are drawn from the model of self-knowledge that emerges: A solution to Moore's paradox, an account of the thought-insertion delusion, and an explanation of self-deception. The puzzles raised by all three phenomena can be resolved, Fernández argues, if we construe them as failures of self-knowledge. The resulting picture of self-knowledge challenges the traditional notion that it is a matter of introspection. For the main tenet of the book is that we come to know what we believe and desire by 'looking outward, ' and attending to the states of affairs which those beliefs and desires are about.