Brown University
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 1997
Charlottesville, Virginia, United States
  •  264
    Smithies on Self-Knowledge of Beliefs
    Analysis 81 (4): 782-792. 2022.
    This commentary focuses on Smithies’ views about self-knowledge. Specifically, I examine his case for the striking thesis that rational thinkers will know all their beliefs. I call this the ubiquity of self-knowledge thesis. Smithies’ case for this thesis is an important pillar of his larger project, as it bears on the nature of justification and our ability to fulfill the requirements of rationality. Section 1 outlines Smithies’ argument for the ubiquity of self-knowledge. Section 2 sets the s…Read more
  •  520
    Rational Agency and the Struggle to Believe What Your Reasons Dictate
    In Cristina Borgoni, Dirk Kindermann & Andrea Onofri (eds.), The Fragmented Mind, Oxford University Press. 2021.
    According to an influential view that I call agentialism, our capacity to believe and intend directly on the basis of reasons—our rational agency—has a normative significance that distinguishes it from other kinds of agency (Bilgrami 2006, Boyle 2011, Burge 1996, Korsgaard 1996, Moran 2001). Agentialists maintain that insofar as we exercise rational agency, we bear a special kind of responsibility for our beliefs and intentions; and it is only those attitudes that represent the exercise of ratio…Read more
  • Internalism, Externalism, and Accessibilism
    In Sanford Goldberg (ed.), Externalism, Self-knowledge, and Skepticism, Cambridge University Press. pp. 119-141. 2015.
    Feldman and Conee (2001) observed that the term “internalism”, as used in epistemology, is ambiguous. It sometimes denotes the view that justification supervenes on factors within the thinker (“mentalism”), whereas at other times it refers to the view that justification is accessible to the thinker (“accessibilism”). As used in the debate about mental content, “internalism” corresponds to mentalism. Strikingly, however, it is the question of accessibilism that is the target of many internalist a…Read more
  •  398
    This chapter concerns self-knowledge of our mental states, with a focus on how we know our own beliefs and intentions. It examines the agentialist approach to self-knowledge, which is driven by the idea that believing or intending on the basis of reasons is something that we DO, and hence involves agency. Agentialists maintain that, because beliefs and intentions are exercises of agency, self-knowledge of these attitudes differs fundamentally from self-knowledge of states that we simply undergo,…Read more
  •  305
    My aim here is threefold: to show that conceptual facts play a more significant role in justifying explanatory reductions than most of the contributors to the current debate realize; to furnish an account of that role, and to trace the consequences of this account for conceivability arguments about the mind
  •  176
    The relationship between phenomenality and intentionality: Comments on Siewert's The Significance of Consciousness
    PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 7. 2001.
    Charles Siewert offers a persuasive argument to show that the presence of certain phenomenal features logically suffices for the presence of certain intentional ones. He claims that this shows that phenomenal features are inherently intentional. I argue that he has not established the latter thesis, even if we grant the logical sufficiency claim. For he has not ruled out a rival alternative interpretation of the relevant data, namely, that intentional features are inherently phenomenal
  •  692
    A primary goal of this chapter is to highlight neglected epistemic parallels between dualism and physicalism. Both dualist and physicalist arguments employ a combination of empirical data and armchair reflection; both rely on considerations stemming from how we conceptualize certain phenomena; and both aim to establish views that are compatible with scientific results but go well beyond the deliverances of empirical science. I begin the chapter by fleshing out the distinctive commitments of dual…Read more
  •  93
    Functionalism’s Methodological Predicament
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 38 (1): 77-94. 2000.
  •  380
    A defense of the knowledge argument
    Philosophical Studies 93 (3): 317-336. 1999.
    This paper calls into question the viability of materialist reduction of the phenomenal. I revisit the 'Knowledge Argument', which claims that there is information about the phenomenal which is not reducible to, nor even inferable from, information about the physical. I demonstrate the failure of the two chief strategies for blocking the Knowledge Argument: analyzing phenomenal knowledge as an ability, and construing it as knowledge of facts which are ontologically reducible to physical facts. M…Read more
  •  40
    The World Without, the Mind Within (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 61 (1): 235-238. 2000.
    In self-attributing beliefs and desires, we exploit a method that is different from our methods for attributing such states to others. On one traditional diagnosis, this difference stems from the subject’s exclusive access to introspective evidence. Gallois rejects the “access to evidence” model of the epistemic difference between self-knowledge and other-knowledge; in this ambitious book he provides a non-introspectivist alternative account of first-person authority. His intriguing proposal is …Read more
  •  571
    Self-Knowledge
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2015.
    "Self-knowledge" is commonly used in philosophy to refer to knowledge of one's particular mental states, including one's beliefs, desires, and sensations. It is also sometimes used to refer to knowledge about a persisting self -- its ontological nature, identity conditions, or character traits. At least since Descartes, most philosophers have believed that self-knowledge is importantly different from knowledge of the world external to oneself, including others' thoughts. But there is little agre…Read more
  •  205
    Conscious states as objects of awareness: on Uriah Kriegel, Subjective consciousness: a self - representational theory Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-9 DOI 10.1007/s11098-011-9763-9 Authors Brie Gertler, Corcoran Department of Philosophy, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA Journal Philosophical Studies Online ISSN 1573-0883 Print ISSN 0031-8116
  •  1222
    The definitive statement of the Knowledge Argument was formulated by Frank Jackson, in a paper entitled “Epiphenomenal Qualia” that appeared in The Philosophical Quarterly in 1982. Arguments in the same spirit had appeared earlier (Broad 1925, Robinson 1982), but Jackson’s argument is most often compared with Thomas Nagel’s argument in “What is it Like to be a Bat?” (1974). Jackson, however, takes pains to distinguish his argument from Nagel’s. This entry will follow standard practice in focusin…Read more
  •  1377
    Renewed Acquaintance
    In Declan Smithies & Daniel Stoljar (eds.), Introspection and Consciousness, Oxford University Press. pp. 89-123. 2012.
    I elaborate and defend a set of metaphysical and epistemic claims that comprise what I call the acquaintance approach to introspective knowledge of the phenomenal qualities of experience. The hallmark of this approach is the thesis that, in some introspective judgments about experience, (phenomenal) reality intersects with the epistemic, that is, with the subject’s grasp of that reality. In Section 1 of the paper I outline the acquaintance approach by drawing on its Russellian lineage. A more de…Read more
  • An Introspectivist View of the Mental
    Dissertation, Brown University. 1997.
    My dissertation has three interrelated aims: to defend introspectivism, the view that the deliverances of introspection should be basic data for philosophical theories of the mind, from pivotal objections which inspire the currently prevailing anti-introspectivist approach to mentality; to advance a substantive account of introspection; and to lay the groundwork for a more general theory about the mental. ;I begin by analyzing a host of philosophical problems about the mind; in each, I isolate t…Read more
  •  279
    Goldberg (2003) defends externalism from Boghossian's (1998) version of the "armchair knowledge" objection. I argue here that, while Goldberg's challenge blocks a different version of this objection, it does not directly block Boghossian's version. And Goldberg's approach is not promising as a response to Boghossian's version of the armchair knowledge objection.
  •  570
    Acquaintance, Parsimony, and Epiphenomenalism
    In Sam Coleman (ed.), The Knowledge Argument, Cambridge University Press. pp. 62-86. 2019.
    Some physicalists (Balog 2012, Howell 2013), and most dualists, endorse the acquaintance response to the Knowledge Argument. This is the claim that Mary gains substantial new knowledge, upon leaving the room, because phenomenal knowledge requires direct acquaintance with phenomenal properties. The acquaintance response is an especially promising way to make sense of the Mary case. I argue that it casts doubt on two claims often made on behalf of physicalism, regarding parsimony and mental causat…Read more
  •  18
    Simulation theory on conceptual grounds
    ProtoSociology 20 261-284. 2004.
    I will present a conceptual argument for a simulationist answer to (2). Given that our conception of mental states is employed in attributing mental states to others, a simulationist answer to (2) supports a simulationist answer to (1). I will not address question (3). Answers to (1) and (2) do not yield an answer to (3), since (1) and (2) concern only our actual practices and concepts. For instance, an error theory about (1) and (2) would say that our practices and concepts manifest a mistaken …Read more
  •  2770
    Externalism about mental content is now widely accepted. It is therefore surprising that there is no established definition of externalism. I believe that this is a symptom of an unrecognized fact: that the labels 'mental content externalism' -- and its complement 'mental content internalism' -- are profoundly ambiguous. Under each of these labels falls a hodgepodge of sometimes conflicting claims about the organism's contribution to thought contents, the nature of the self, relations between th…Read more
  •  746
    Self-Knowledge and the Transparency of Belief
    In Anthony Hatzimoysis (ed.), Self-Knowledge, Oxford University Press. 2008.
    In this paper, I argue that the method of transparency --determining whether I believe that p by considering whether p -- does not explain our privileged access to our own beliefs. Looking outward to determine whether one believes that p leads to the formation of a judgment about whether p, which one can then self-attribute. But use of this process does not constitute genuine privileged access to whether one judges that p. And looking outward will not provide for access to dispositional beliefs,…Read more
  •  56
    Agency and self-awareness: Issues in philosophy and psychology (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. 2004.
    Johannes Roessler and Naomi Eilan (eds.), Agency and Self-Awareness: Issues in Philosophy and Psychology , Oxford, 2003, 400pp, $29.95 (pbk), ISBN 019924562..
  •  179
    The mechanics of self-knowledge
    Philosophical Topics 28 (2): 125-46. 2000.
    It is often said that we can know our own thoughts more directly or with more certainty than anyone else can know them. And this disparity is usually taken to be principled, in that we would not be the rational, reflective beings that we are without it. My aim is to trace the consequences of a principled disparity between self-knowledge and other-knowledge for what may be termed the “mechanics ” of self-knowledge . I use a new thought experiment to show that if introspective states are merely ca…Read more
  •  30
    Review of John Perry, Knowledge, Possibility, and Consciousness (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2002 (1). 2002.
  •  249
    Introspection
    In Patrick Wilken, Timothy J. Bayne & Axel Cleeremans (eds.), The Oxford Companion to Consciousness, Oxford University Press. pp. 76-111. 2009.
    Alas, things are not quite so simple. As James implies, the term ‘introspection’ literally means ‘looking within’, but of course we do not visually inspect the interiors of our crania. What unites proponents of introspection is the claim that we can recognize our own mental states through some sort of attention—a non-visual ‘looking’—whose immediate objects are thoughts or sensations within oneself, in a non-spatial sense of ‘within’. (The term ‘introspection’ is occasionally given an ecumenical…Read more
  •  862
    Self-Knowledge for Humans, by Quassim Cassam (review)
    Mind 125 (497): 269-280. 2016.
    With this provocative book, Quassim Cassam aspires to reorient the philosophical study of self-knowledge so as to bring its methodology and subject matter into line with recognizably human concerns. He pursues this reorientation on two fronts. He proposes replacing what he sees as the field’s standard subject, an ideally rational being he calls Homo Philosophicus, with a more realistic Homo Sapiens. And he proposes shifting the field’s primary focus from ‘narrow epistemological concerns’ to issu…Read more
  •  36
    Tienson’s Challenge to Content Externalism
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 45 (S1): 60-65. 2007.
    In this commentary, I examine John Tienson’s argument that reflection on the epistemic situation of the Cartesian meditator suggests that intentional content is narrow. My aim is to show how his argument is closely connected to another prominent objection to externalism—the McKinsey argument