Self-Knowledge and Knowledge of Content

Abstract

The question of content externalism's compatibility with a plausible account of self-knowledge has been the subject of much debate in recent years. If the very content of my thoughts depends on external factors beyond me, factors that can only be known a posteriori, what happens to the traditional assumption that we know our own thoughts directly, without having to rely on any empirical investigations of the environment?Two decades ago, Tyler Burge presented what has become the standard compatibilist reply to this challenge. Burge focused on a certain class of judgments, what he calls ‘basic self-knowledge,’ such as I think (with this very thought) that water is wet. Exploiting the fact that reflexive judgments of this sort reemploy the content of the first-order thought, such that no ‘content mistakes’ are possible, Burge argued that externalism is perfectly compatible with the traditional view that we know our own thoughts directly and authoritatively.