Abstract
ABSTRACT I propose a middle-ground between a perceptual model of self-knowledge, according to which the objects of self-awareness (one's beliefs, desires, intentions and so on) are accessed through some kind of causal mechanism, and a rationalist model, according to which self-knowledge is constituted by one's rational agency. Through an analogy with the role of the exercises of sensorimotor abilities in rationally grounded perceptual knowledge, self-knowledge is construed as an exercise of action-oriented and action-orienting abilities. This view satisfies the privileged access condition usually associated with self-knowledge without entailing an insurmountable gap between self- knowledge and knowledge of other minds.
Highlights
I am going to assume the correctness of radical enactivism about perceptual cognition and explore the possibility of developing a radically enactive approach to selfknowledge, that is, knowledge about one’s own mental states
The argument, takes the form of a reductio: (a) if self-knowledge is analogous to perceptual knowledge, because its intentional objects exist independently of our access to them, it implies the possibility of someone being self-blind
Even if Shoemaker’s main argument does not succeed, there are ways to vindicate his fundamental intuition, namely: that there is a constitutive relation between self-knowledge and its intentional constituents
Summary
Radical enactivism about perceptual cognition is the view that our perceptual access is primarily constituted by our activities in our environments (Noë, 2004; Hutto & Myin, 2013). Maybe a more accurate description is that elderly and arthritic piano teacher is currently prevented from exercising her abilities, given some external constraints, but not that she lacks those abilities If her condition is permanent, so that she cannot perform a piano piece, we may say that she does not have the relevant abilities, but the only way for her to manifest her know-how would be by invoking a very detailed description of how to play said piece. On the other hand, we do not expect her to successfully perform in the future, her success in Φing at her first attempt was not the exercise of an ability, but sheer luck She was able, in that particular circumstance, to accomplish Φ, but this is a very weak sense of ‘being able’ and there is very little credit in her performance. We cannot ascribe the possession of an ability to an individual solely by observing an isolated case of putative achievement, because cases like this may be positively affected by luck, whereas having an ability to Φ has a normative character: we expect a consistent behavior of someone who is able to Φ, namely, successfully Φing in similar circumstances.
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