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This volume attempts to solve a grave problem about critical self-reflection. Psychological studies indicate not just that we are bad at detecting our own "ego-threatening" thoughts; they also suggest that we are ignorant of even our ordinary thoughts. However, self-reflection presupposes an ability to know one's own thoughts. So if ignorance is the norm, why attempt self-reflection? While admitting the psychological data, this book argues that we are infallible in a limited range of self-discerning judgments-that in some cases, these judgments are self-fulfilling or self-verifying.
List of contents
Part I: Preliminaries
Preamble: Is Philosophy Anti-Scientific?
1. Introduction: How is Rational Self-Reflection Possible?
2. The Empirical Case against Infallibility
Part II: Knowledge of Thought
3. Infallibility in Knowing What One Thinks
4. Objection 1: It’s Apriori that Water Exists
5. Objection 2: Thought Switching
6. Content Externalism Does Not Imply Wayward Reflection
Part III: Knowledge of Judging
7. Infallibility in Knowing What One Judges
8. Infallibility in Knowing What One Expresses
9. Objection 1: It’s Apriori that the Mental Exists
10. Objection 2: Attitude Switching
11. Attitude Confabulation Does Not Imply Wayward Reflection
Part IV: Denoument
12. Conclusion: How Rational Self-Reflection is Possible
About the author
T. Parent is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the philosophy department at Virginia Polytechnic and State University. He came to Virginia Tech in August 2009, also the month the Ph.D. was granted (UNC, Chapel Hill). Primarily, he works on the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and meta/ontology. His publications on such topics have appeared in Philosophical Studies, the Journal of Philosophy, and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, among others. He lives with his wife in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Summary
This volume attempts to solve a grave problem about critical self-reflection. The worry is that we critical thinkers are all in "epistemic bad faith" in light of what psychology tells us. After all, the research shows not merely that we are bad at detecting "ego-threatening" thoughts à la Freud. It also indicates that we are ignorant of even our ordinary thoughts—e.g., reasons for our moral judgments of others (Haidt 2001), and even mundane reasons for buying one pair of stockings over another! (Nisbett & Wilson 1977) However, reflection on one’s thoughts requires knowing what those thoughts are in the first place. So if ignorance is the norm, why attempt self-reflection? The activity would just display naivety about psychology. Yet while respecting all the data, this book argues that, remarkably, we are sometimes infallible in our self-discerning judgments. Even so, infallibility does not imply indubitability, and there is no Cartesian ambition to provide a "foundation" for empirical knowledge. The point is rather to explain how self-reflection as a rational activity is possible.
