Jakub Kańtoch
Jagiellonian University, Doctoral School in the Humanities
In his recent book M. Boyle (2024) argues against common approaches to the problem of transparency of self-knowledge. The problem of transparency concerns an explanation of a curious mental phenomenon: as G. Evans (1982) observes, answers to questions about our world-directed mental states (like beliefs) are transparent to our answers to questions about corresponding worldly states of affairs. Boyle, following Moran (2001) argues that a satisfying theory of self-knowledge has to account for a “non-spectatorial” character of such knowledge, which comes down to the thesis that such self-knowledge should be non-accidentally available for the subject of relevant mental states and not for other subjects. Boyle convincingly argues that many contemporary approaches to transparent self-knowledge do not meet this criterion. According to his diagnosis, the common root of both Byrne’s and Peacocke’s theories is their inferentialism, according to which self-knowledge consists in an inference from either worldly facts or judgments. Such inferential self-knowledge results in separate mental states with separate contents, which renders it viciously spectatorial. Boyle’s alternative reflectivist approach grounds self-knowledge in an implicit self-consciousness of first-order mental states, securing its distinctive status.
Against Boyle I want to argue that (1) his reflectivist account does not live up to expectations, and (2) an inferentialist theory actually can explain transparency as resolutely non-spectatorial self-knowledge. Though implicit self-consciousness in Boyle’s theory grounds the first-personal character of possible self-knowledge, nevertheless the reflective conceptualisation necessary for explicit self-knowledge results in a distinct mental state with distinct content from the grounding state. Yet S. Rödl’s (2018) account of self-knowledge – while inferential – explains judgments as inherently self-knowledgeable. I claim that through Rödl’s theory we can explicate the real source of the apparent problem with transparency, which is not inferentialism, but rather the two-state doctrine of self-knowledge, which Boyle is also guilty of.
Boyle, Matthew (2024). Transparency and reflection: a study of self-knowledge and the nature of mind. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Evans, Gareth (1982). The Varieties of Reference. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Edited by John Henry McDowell.
Moran, Richard (2001). Authority and Estrangement: An Essay on Self-Knowledge. Princeton University Press.
Rödl, Sebastian (2018). Self-Consciousness and Objectivity. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Chair: Freya von Kirchbach
Time: September 11th, 15:30 – 16:00
Location: SR 1.003
SOPhiA 2026 