Online research in philosophy

Richard Moran’s Authority and Estrangement develops a compelling explanation of the characteristic features of self-knowledge that involve the use of ‘I’ as subject. Such knowledge is immediate in the sense of non-inferential, is not evidentially grounded and is epistemically authoritative.1 A&E develops its distinctive explanation while also offering accounts of other features of self-knowledge that are often overlooked, such as the centrality of self-knowledge characterised in this way to the concept of the person and its ethical importance. Moran recognises that were an agent to lack the capacity authoritatively to avow his or her own state of mind this would be an ethically damaging defect. Moran’s treatment of these issues is subtle and in places profoundly insightful. I will argue, however, that there is a loose fit between two separate explanations that he gives of self-knowledge. On the one hand Moran argues that the best explanation of self-.

In this paper I deal with Richard Moran's account of self-knowledge in his book Authority and Estrangement. After presenting the main lines of his account, I contend that, in spite of its novelty and interest, it may have some shortcomings. Concerning beliefs formed through deliberation, the account would seem to face problems of circularity or regress. And it looks also wanting concerning beliefs not formed in this way. I go on to suggest a diagnosis of these problems, according to which they would arise out of a view of agents too strongly dependent on the will. /// Este trabajo se ocupa de la concepción del autoconocimiento en el libro de Richard Moran Authority and Estrangement. Tras presentar las líneas maestras de dicha concepción, sostengo que ésta, a pesar de su novedad e interés, podría adolecer de defectos importantes. Así, con respecto a las creencias formadas mediante la deliberación, la propuesta de Moran parece enfrentarse a problemas de circularidad o de regreso. Y parece también insatisfactoria acerca de creencias no formadas de ese modo. Finalmente, sugiero un diagnóstico de estos problemas, según el cual éstos surgirían de una concepción de los agentes excesivamente dependiente de la voluntad.

Richard Moran's Authority and Estrangement offers a subtle and innovative account of self-knowledge that lifts the problem out of the narrow confines of epistemology and into the broader context of practical reasoning and moral psychology. Moran argues convincingly that fundamental self/other asymmetries are essential to our concept of persons. Moreover, the first- and the third-person points of view are systematically interconnected, so that the expression or avowal of one's attitudes constitutes a substantive form of self-knowledge. But while Moran's argument is wide-ranging and compelling, he relies throughout on an overly intellectualized conception of first-person attitudes as attitudes of reflection or deliberation. That conception is at once implausible and unnecessary to the main current of his argument, whose goal is to demonstrate that our self-conception as persons depends on both the distinctness and the interconnectedness of our first- and third-person perspectives on ourselves.

Drawing on certain themes from Wittgenstein, Sartre, and others, the book explores the extent to which what we say about ourselves is a matter of discovery or...