Abstract:

Ch. 9 makes the connection between privileged self-knowledge, and the Neo-Expressivist view of the special security of avowals. First, the author considers a challenge, which suggests that Neo-Expressivism is committed to a deflationary view of self-knowledge. For the Neo-Expressivist, even though avowals are semantically continuous with other verbal reports, they do not seem to articulate things we genuinely know, since they are not made on any epistemic basis. In reply, the author sketches a variety of non-deflationary views of self-knowledge, and illustrates how these views are compatible with her account of avowals. The chapter also attempts to explain self-knowledge via the notion of first person privilege (as opposed to first-person epistemic authority).

Keywords: self-knowledge; deflationism; knowledge; first-person privilege

Document Type: Research article