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from the dept. [article] excerpt: In the tradition inherited from Descartes, the great epistemological questions concern our knowledge of the external world --how or whether one knows one is sitting before Larry Summers, and so forth. In this tradition, knowledge of our own minds --that one is thinking of Larry-- is considered relatively unproblematic. Arguably, it is one of the singular achievements of contemporary philosophy to have shown that this has things exactly back to front. Contemporary philosophers understand the phrase "self-knowledge" as simply knowledge of one's own mental states. This sort of knowledge --our topic-- is commonplace: knowledge of what one is thinking, of what one wants or intends, of one's sensations. Intoxicating Sartrean doctrines such as "existence precedes essence" can be discussed when the calvados is finished: as we shall see, the humdrum kind of self-knowledge is puzzling enough. http://bostonreview.net/BR30.6/byrne.html < | >
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Knowing Our Minds: why some philosophers say we can't
