Self-knowledge and commitments

Annalisa Coliva

pp. 365-375

in: Jesper Kallestrup, Duncan Pritchard (eds), The philosophy of Crispin Wright, Synthese 171 (3), 2009.

Abstract

In this paper I provide an outline of a new kind of constitutive account of self-knowledge. It is argued that in order for the model properly to explain transparency, a further category of propositional attitudes—called “commitments”—has to be countenanced. It is also maintained that constitutive theories can’t remain neutral on the issue of the possession of psychological concepts, and a proposal about the possession of the concept of belief is sketched. Finally, it is claimed that in order for a constitutive account properly to explain authority, it has to take a rather dramatic constructivist turn, which makes it suitable as an explanation of self-knowledge only for a limited class of mental states.