Knowing what I'm about to do without evidence

International Journal of Philosophical Studies

Volumn 6, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 231-252

  Dunn, Robert ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG   (Australia)

Author keywords

First person perspective; Non evidential; Non observational; Self knowledge; Self prediction; Velleman

Indexed keywords

EID: 61149596397     PISSN: 09672559     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/096725598342127     Document Type: Article

References (29)

1. See The Possibility of Practical Reason', Ethics, 106 (1996), pp. 717ff.
2. Velleman still counts such cognitions as beliefs. In terms of the theory of constitutive aims that he develops in this paper, these mental attitudes have the direction of fit characteristic of cognition (one therein regards p as true) and the constitutive aim characteristic of belief (one regards p as true in an attempt to accept what really is true). What is distinctive about directive cognitions as beliefs is that the aim of truth is internal to the aim of making a proposition about one's own action true by accepting it. In reflective cases, the aim of truth is internal to the aim of accepting what's true because it's true. See Ethics, ibid., pp. 720-2.
3. Quassim Cassam distinguishes two (related) forms of self-knowledge: knowledge of what we are and particular self-knowledge. The latter concerns 'knowledge of our particular thoughts, sensations, perceptual experiences, physical properties, and actions'. Quassim Cassam, Self-Knowledge (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 1.
4. See The Possibility of Practical Reason', pp. 717ff.
5. Such a content can be summarized as 'I'll A next because I hereby intend to' or 'This is a successful intention of A-ing' (pp. 140-1).
6. Cf. Gallois on what it is for a conscious mental state to have a distinctive phenomenology. André Gallois, The World Without, The Mind Within (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), Ch. 1.
7. In these terms, my first-person knowledge that I am in pain, in such a case, is observational just in that it is evidential. It is left open whether such phenomenological self-knowledge is perceptual or quasi-perceptual. Cf. Gallois on observational/non-observational self-knowledge and on introspective evidence, André Gallois, The Mind Within, ibid., pp. 3; 21.
8. There is a problem with supposing that self-ascriptions of one's own current, propositional attitudes can be wholly phenomenological. The problem is how to explain one's knowledge of the content of one's attitude in such cases. Cf. Michael Smith, The Moral Problem (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1994), pp. 104 ff.
9. I associate the view that there is a generalizable story about non-observational self-knowledge that applies to both current, conscious propositional attitudes and future practical self-knowledge with Hampshire. See Stuart Hampshire, Freedom of the Individual (London: Chatto and Windus, 1975).
10. Gareth Evans, The Varieties of Reference (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), p. 225.
11. Hampshire thinks that the first-person indistinguishability of certain questions explains how non-observational self-knowledge is possible. In the case of belief I non-observationally know that I believe p in the following way: I decide whether I believe p by deciding whether p is true. See Hampshire, Freedom of the Individual, Chs 3 and 4.
12. See also Roy Edgley, Reason in Theory and Practice, (London: Hutchinson, 1969), pp. 89ff.
13. Gallois also exploits the notion of first-person indistinguishability in his account of non-observational knowledge of one's own beliefs. See Reason in Theory and Practice, op. cit., Ch. 3.
14. But can't I think it certain that I believe p without thinking it certain that p? (Gallois discusses a similar objection from Frank Jackson, in Reason in Theory and Practice, op. cit., Ch. 3, n. 3.) Well, yes. But the thesis is that, from a certain perspective, the issue of whether I believe p (Q1) is indistinguishable from the issue of whether p (Q2). From this perspective, the indistinguishable questions would be: 'Do I believe it is certain that p?' and 'Is it certain that p?' In fact, I cannot take up the issue of whether it is certain that I believe p in a purely first-person way with respect to whether I believe p.
15. See Donald Davidson, 'Deception and Division', in Jon Elster (ed.) The Multiple Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 85-6.
16. I discuss the distinction between reasons that support an attitude with respect to its object and reasons that support an attitude with respect to the having of it in 'Reasons, Attitudes and the Breakdown of Reasons', Philosophia, 21 (1991), pp. 53-67
17. and in 'Akratic Attitudes and Rationality', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 70 (1992), pp. 24-39.
18. Here I am borrowing Velleman's way of conceiving of direction of fit. See J. David Velleman, The Guise of the Good', Nous, 26 (1992), pp. 8ff.
19. Cf J. David Velleman, Nous, ibid., pp. 12-15;
20. Velleman, 'The Possibility of Practical Reason', pp. 707ff.
21. Velleman says that, in the case of belief one seriously regards p as true. These differences in modes of regarding p as true can be drawn in terms of differing constitutive aims and functionally characterized. Cf. Velleman, 'The Guise of the Good', pp. 14-15;
22. Cf. H. P. Grice, 'Intention and Uncertainty',Proceedings of the British Academy, 57 (1971), pp. 266-8.
23. See Freedom of the Individual, Ch. 3, pp. 53ff.
24. Cf. Stuart Hampshire and H. L. A. Hart, 'Decision, Intention and Certainty', Mind, 67 (1958), pp. 1-12.
25. Cf. Alfred R. Mele, Springs of Action (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), Chs 7-10;
26. and Michael Bratman, Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), Chs 2-3 and 7.
27. (Cf. Gallois, Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason, op. cit., Chs 1-2. Gallois distinguishes between first-person authority (as necessarily unique means of knowing or justifiably believing) and privileged access (as best position to know or justifiably believe).)
28. (Cf. Barbara Winters, 'Believing at Will', Journal of Philosophy, 86 (5) (1979), pp. 243-56.
29. I discuss related matters in 'Attitudes, Agency and First-Personality', Philosophia, 24 (3-4) (1995), pp. 296ff.) Intentional actions are naturally thought of as involving the execution of relevant prior intentions - if not the flat-out intention to perform the act, then some qualified intention like the intention to try to perform it.