Abstract
The topic of this article is the dependency or, maybe, the interdependency of rationality and self-knowledge. Here two questions may be distinguished, viz. (1) whether being rational is a necessary condition for a creature to have self-knowledge, and (2) whether having self-knowledge is a necessary condition for a creature to be rational. After a brief explication of what I mean by self-knowledge, I deal with the first question. There I defend the Davidsonian position, according to which rationality is, indeed, a necessary condition for self-knowledge. In addition, I distinguish two aspects of rationality which I call basic and local rationality. After that I concentrate on the second question for the remaining larger part of this article. Here I proceed in two stages: first I examine whether self-knowledge is necessary for basic rationality, and then whether it is necessary for local rationality.
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Notes
Cf. Castañeda (1966).
Cf. Alston (1971).
For an investigation of the epistemic privileges concerning our knowledge of our reasons for acting cf. Stoecker (2003).
For an account which strongly denies either epistemic privilege, cf. Ryle (1949, ch. 6).
According to most theories of knowledge, knowing that p entails believing that p and, of course, beliefs are propositional attitudes, too.
To be sure, if one follows this line of thought, the fact that having self-knowledge is sufficient for being rational does not depend on any of the special aspects of self-knowledge which I mentioned above but only on the rather unspectacular fact that having self-knowledge entails having a propositional attitude.
In his writings Davidson sometimes oscillates between these two theses.
These two objections are, of course, just like two sides of the same coin.
Analogously Davidson claims: “the more things a believer is right about, the sharper his errors are. Too much mistake simply blurs the focus.” (2001h, p. 168)
I shall address non language users later.
In this section I draw on material from Spitzley (2004).
Note that this is contrary to, e.g. Wittgenstein’s considerations concerning rule-following; cf. Wittgenstein (2001, §§ 185–242).
One must not confuse this thesis with the claim that sometimes a speaker does not know what a word that he uses means in a language like English or French. Rather, there are supposed to be cases in which a speaker does not know what a word that he uses means in his own idiolect. Alas, to my knowledge, Davidson does not offer an example.
Cf. “Speechless creatures lack the conceptual framework which supports propositional attitudes.” (Davidson 2004d, p. 137)
It does not even fit any of the two other classes of knowledge which I distinguished at the beginning of sect. 1 and which, at least with a certain right, may be called “self-knowledge”.
What Davidson does not say though, is how a speaker knows, or indeed how he can know, that he holds a given sentence to be true.
Alas, he doesn’t elaborate on this.
But let me emphasize again that Davidson’s thesis concerning the individuality of language is needed to establish a dependency of rationality on self-knowledge.
The need for this qualification will soon become clear.
Cf. “Minimal rationality is a prerequisite for playing the rationality game.” (Dretske 2006, p. 109)
According to this view it doesn’t matter whether I am aware of any reasons that speak against my doing φ. It is only important that these reasons don’t outweigh my reasons for doing φ.
This desire need not be a particular one, “any one of several different desires would fill the bill” (Velleman 1992, p. 478).
In my opinion though, Frankfurt’s position is too strong and based on too many assumptions which are not sufficiently justified. In addition, I should take it to be not very satisfying, if the relation between self-knowledge and local rationality were solely a matter of definition.
Although McGinn here does not use the term “self-knowledge” but rather “self-consciousness”, the end of the quoted sentence makes it clear that what he means by that term is self-knowledge. Cf. similarly Shoemaker (1991, p. 131).
Strictly speaking, not knowledge but only belief is required.
Cf. Evans (1982, p. 225): “[I]n making a self-ascription of belief, one’s eyes are, so to speak, or occasionally literally, directed outward—upon the world.”
Because of the similarity between deciding rationally and rational belief adjustment I concentrate here on beliefs. However, Stüber would, of course, also claim that to decide rationally one must know not only one’s beliefs but one’s desires, too. With respect to desires, though, mutatis mutandis the same holds true as with respect to beliefs: I do not need to know that I wish to drink a glass of water, but only that drinking a glass of water is desirable. As in the case of beliefs, I need to know what the state of the world outside my mind is, viz. what is good and what is bad, what is desirable and what is not, yet there is no need for me to know anything about what is inside my mind.
Mutatis mutandis the same holds true with respect to our wishes and desires.
It could be claimed that what is needed is in fact memory of what one used to believe and then the answer to the question of whether we need self-knowledge for rational belief revision would depend on the status of memory, yet I shall not go into this topic here.
Similarly, when I believe that I am worthless, knowing this belief might be my reason for asking for psychological treatment (cf. Bittner 2001, p. 109).
Cf. Shoemaker (1991, p. 132).
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Acknowledgments
I am very grateful to two anonymous reviewers for this journal, to Thomas Grundmann, Oliver Petersen, Helen Steward, and especially to Ralf Stoecker for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.
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Spitzley, T. Self-Knowledge and Rationality. Erkenn 71, 73–88 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-009-9174-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-009-9174-x