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Self-knowledge and externalism
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Brewer, Bill (2000) Self-knowledge and externalism. The Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, Vol.5 . pp. 39-47.
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Abstract
A person’s authoritative self-knowledge about the contents of his or her own beliefs is thought to cause problems for content externalism, for it appears to yield arguments constituting a wholly non-empirical source of empirical knowledge: knowledge that certain particular objects or kinds exist in the environment. I set out this objection to externalism, and present a new reply. Possession of an externalist concept is an epistemological skill: it depends upon the subject’s possession of demonstratively-based knowledge about the object or kind to which it refers. Thus, a person’s knowledge that he or she has an externalist belief, since this depends upon actually having that belief, and therefore upon possessing the relevant externist concept, presupposes knowledge about the object/kind in question, which provides a direct and perfectly empirical source of knowledge that this object/kind exists. Hence, the putatively problematic arguments do not constitute a non-empirical source of such empirical knowledge.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||
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Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Philosophy | ||||
Journal or Publication Title: | The Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy | ||||
Official Date: | 2000 | ||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | Vol.5 | ||||
Page Range: | pp. 39-47 | ||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||
Type of Event: | Conference |
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