Authority and Authorship: Models on Self-Knowledge

LAWLER, DIEGO

Madrid

Workshop; Workshop on Recent Perspective on Self-Knowledge and Agency; 2012

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

In this presentation I want to explore an intuition that suggests that to understand the phenomenon of self-knowledge we must appeal to the phenomenon of cognitive and practical self-determination. I am particularly interested in exploring the consequences of this insight in relation to cognitive self-determination; namely, how the manner in which we determine our beliefs allows us to know them with authority from a first-person point of view. The intuition I wish to explore could alternatively be formulated in this way: we know our opinions or beliefs because they are our business, i.e. because we have helped to mold them rationally. And what I want to show is that the same skills or abilities that we carry out to self-determine ourselves are those which enable us to know the contents of our minds in an immediate manner; that is, with first-person authority.