Self-knowledge, belief, ability (and agency?)

Philosophical Explorations 21 (3):333-349 (2018)
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Abstract

Matthew Boyle has defended an account of doxastic self-knowledge which he calls “Reflectivism”. I distinguish two claims within Reflectivism: that believing that p and knowing oneself to believe that p are not two distinct cognitive states, but two aspects of the same cognitive state, and that this is because we are in some sense agents in relation to our beliefs. I find claim compelling, but argue that its tenability depends on how we view the metaphysics of knowledge, something Boyle does not consider. I argue that in the context of the standard account of knowledge as a kind of true belief – what I call the Belief Account of knowledge – the claim faces serious problems, and that these simply disappear if we instead adopt an Ability Account of knowledge, along the lines of that defended by John Hyman. I find claim less compelling, and a secondary aim of the paper is to suggest that once we reject the Belief Account of knowledge, and move over to an Ability Account, there is no explanatory role for left to play.

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Lucy Campbell
University of Warwick

Citations of this work

The puzzle of transparency and how to solve it.Wolfgang Barz - 2019 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 49 (7):916-935.
Self‐Knowledge: Expression without Expressivism.Lucy Campbell - 2022 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 104 (1):186-208.
Self‐Knowledge: Expression without Expressivism.Lucy Campbell - 2020 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 104 (1):186-208.
Mental agency and rational subjectivity.Lucy Campbell & Alexander Greenberg - 2024 - European Journal of Philosophy 32 (1):224-245.
Mental agency and rational subjectivity.Lucy Campbell & Alexander Greenberg - 2024 - European Journal of Philosophy 32 (1):224-245.

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The Varieties of Reference.Gareth Evans - 1982 - Oxford: Oxford University Press. Edited by John Henry McDowell.
Intention.G. E. M. Anscombe - 1957 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
The Varieties of Reference.Louise M. Antony - 1987 - Philosophical Review 96 (2):275.

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