Debating Self-Knowledge
Debating Self-Knowledge
Gary Ebbs , Indiana University, Bloomington
Language users ordinarily suppose that they know what thoughts their own utterances express. We can call this supposed knowledge minimal self-knowledge. But what does it come to? And do we actually have it? Anti-individualism implies that the thoughts which a person's utterances express are partly determined by facts about their social and physical environments. If anti-individualism is true, then there are some apparently coherent sceptical hypotheses that conflict with our supposition that we have minimal self-knowledge. In this book, Anthony Brueckner and Gary Ebbs debate how to characterize this problem and develop opposing views of what it shows. Their discussion is the only sustained, in-depth debate about anti-individualism, scepticism and knowledge of one's own thoughts, and will interest both scholars and graduate students in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and epistemology.
- Presents a long-running debate between two philosophers, showing how in disagreeing they push each other to clarify and test their views and, in the process, make new discoveries
- Brings together ten previously published papers and includes a co-authored introduction and three substantive new essays
- Will appeal to those who seek to understand how issues about compatibility between self-knowledge and anti-individualism are related to other issues in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and epistemology
Reviews & endorsements
"...strongly recommend Brueckner and Ebbs’s book to anyone interested in self-knowledge. It is a valuable contribution both in its overall argument and
in its specific discussions."
---George Lăzăroiu, PhD, Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies in, Humanities and Social Sciences, New York, Review of Contemporary Philosophy
Product details
July 2012Hardback
9781107017139
244 pages
235 × 157 × 16 mm
0.53kg
Available
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- 1. Brains in a vat Anthony Brueckner
- 2. Scepticism, objectivity, and brains in vats Gary Ebbs
- 3. Ebbs on scepticism, objectivity, and brains in vats Anthony Brueckner
- 4. The dialectical context of Putnam's argument that we are not brains in vats Gary Ebbs
- 5. Trying to get outside your own skin Anthony Brueckner
- 6. Can we take our words at face value? Gary Ebbs
- 7. Is scepticism about self-knowledge incoherent? Anthony Brueckner
- 8. Is scepticism about self-knowledge coherent? Gary Ebbs
- 9. The coherence of scepticism about self-knowledge Anthony Brueckner
- 10. Why scepticism about self-knowledge is self-undermining Gary Ebbs
- 11. Scepticism about self-knowledge redux Anthony Brueckner
- 12. Self-knowledge in doubt Gary Ebbs
- 13. Looking back Anthony Brueckner
- Bibliography
- Index.
