Transparency and Self-Knowledge

Alex Byrne sets out and defends a theory of self-knowledge-knowledge of one´s mental states. Inspired by Gareth Evans´ discussion of self-knowledge in his The Varieties of Reference, the basic idea is that one comes to know that one is in a mental state M by an inference from a worldly or environmental premise to the conclusion that one is in M. (Typically the worldly premise will not be about anything mental.) The mind, on this account, is ´transparent´: self-knowledge is achieved by an ´outward glance´ at the corresponding tract of the world, not by an ´inward glance´ at one´s own mind. Belief is the clearest case, with the inference being from ´p´ to ´I believe that p´. One serious problem with this idea is that the inference seems terrible, because ´p´ is at best very weak evidence that one believes that p. Another is that the idea seems not to generalize. For example, what is the worldly premise corresponding to ´I intend to do this´, or ´I feel a pain´? Byrne argues that both problems can be solved, and explains how the account covers perception, sensation, desire, intention, emotion, memory, imagination, and thought. The result is a unified theory of self-knowledge that explains the epistemic security of beliefs about one´s mental states (privileged access), as well as the fact that one has a special first-person way of knowing about one´s mental states (peculiar access).