Self-Reflection for the Opaque Mind: An Essay in Neo-Sellarsian Philosophy

Author:   T. Parent
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
ISBN:  

9780367878184


Pages:   296
Publication Date:   10 December 2019
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Our Price $81.99 Quantity:  
Add to Cart

Share |

Self-Reflection for the Opaque Mind: An Essay in Neo-Sellarsian Philosophy


Add your own review!

Overview

"This volume attempts to solve a grave problem about critical self-reflection. The worry is that we critical thinkers are all in ""epistemic bad faith"" in light of what psychology tells us. After all, the research shows not merely that we are bad at detecting ""ego-threatening"" thoughts à la Freud. It also indicates that we are ignorant of even our ordinary thoughts—e.g., reasons for our moral judgments of others (Haidt 2001), and even mundane reasons for buying one pair of stockings over another! (Nisbett & Wilson 1977) However, reflection on one’s thoughts requires knowing what those thoughts are in the first place. So if ignorance is the norm, why attempt self-reflection? The activity would just display naivety about psychology. Yet while respecting all the data, this book argues that, remarkably, we are sometimes infallible in our self-discerning judgments. Even so, infallibility does not imply indubitability, and there is no Cartesian ambition to provide a ""foundation"" for empirical knowledge. The point is rather to explain how self-reflection as a rational activity is possible."

Full Product Details

Author:   T. Parent
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Weight:   0.453kg
ISBN:  

9780367878184


ISBN 10:   0367878186
Pages:   296
Publication Date:   10 December 2019
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

Part I: Preliminaries Preamble: Is Philosophy Anti-Scientific? 1. Introduction: How is Rational Self-Reflection Possible? 2. The Empirical Case against Infallibility Part II: Knowledge of Thought 3. Infallibility in Knowing What One Thinks 4. Objection 1: It’s Apriori that Water Exists 5. Objection 2: Thought Switching 6. Content Externalism Does Not Imply Wayward Reflection Part III: Knowledge of Judging 7. Infallibility in Knowing What One Judges 8. Infallibility in Knowing What One Expresses 9. Objection 1: It’s Apriori that the Mental Exists 10. Objection 2: Attitude Switching 11. Attitude Confabulation Does Not Imply Wayward Reflection Part IV: Denoument 12. Conclusion: How Rational Self-Reflection is Possible

Reviews

Parent has shown significant ingenuity in addressing the tension between our commitment to the value of critical self-reflection and evidence from empirical psychology, and there is much of interest in this book, in particular, the discussion of the philosophical arguments from content externalism to skepticism about self-knowledge. --Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews Philosophical reflection on self-knowledge has recently bifurcated into two tendencies: on the one hand, there is increasingly strenuous effort from the armchair to resolve various a priori puzzles concerning the very possibility of self-knowledge, while on the other hand, there is an increasingly empirically informed effort to debunk our pre-scientific pretensions to self-knowledge. Parent's manuscript provides a scholarly, detailed, and ultimately successful effort to reconcile these two tendencies, while also showing why the topic of self-knowledge is a topic of urgent practical importance. This is an important book. --Ram Neta, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA


Author Information

T. Parent is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the philosophy department at Virginia Polytechnic and State University. He came to Virginia Tech in August 2009, also the month the Ph.D. was granted (UNC, Chapel Hill). Primarily, he works on the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and meta/ontology. His publications on such topics have appeared in Philosophical Studies, the Journal of Philosophy, and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, among others. He lives with his wife in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions
Latest Reading Guide

ls

Shopping Cart
Your cart is empty
Shopping cart
Mailing List