Dans le cadre du debat sur l'autoattribution et l'argument de la terre jumelle, l'A. montre que la connaissance de soi est un engagement qui s'avere compatible avec l'approche externaliste du contenu des attitudes propositionnelles.

Knowing One’s Own Mind

Is Self-Knowledge an Entitlement? And Why Should We Care?*

Abstract One powerful and influential approach to mental representation analyses representation in terms of biological functions, and biological functions in terms of histories of natural selection. This “teleosemantic” package, however, faces a familiar challenge. Surely representation depends only on the present-day structures of cognitive systems, and not on their historical provenance. “Swampman” drives the point home. Suppose a bolt of lightning creates an intrinsic duplicate of a human being in a steamy tropic swamp; will not this creature be representing its surroundings, despite its lack of any selectional history? In this paper I shall answer this challenge by showing how a proper appreciation of the structure of natural kinds in general, and of mental representation in particular, implies that selectional histories are indeed built into the nature of mental representation. In particular, I shall address a recent argument by Peter Schulte against this general line of argument. 

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11229-022-03966-7.pdf

Swampman, teleosemantics and kind essences


 This book offers an account of perceptual experience—its intrinsic nature, its engagement with the world, its relations to mental states of other kinds, and its role in epistemic norms. One of the book’s main claims is that perceptual experience constitutively involves representations of worldly items. A second claim is that the relevant form of representation can be explained in broadly biological terms. After defending these foundational doctrines, the book proceeds to give an account of perceptual appearances and how they are related to the objective world. Appearances turn out to be relational, viewpoint dependent properties of external objects. There is also a complementary account of how the objects that possess these properties are represented. Another major concern is the phenomenological dimension of perception. The book maintains that perceptual phenomenology can be explained reductively in terms of the representational contents of experiences, and it uses this doctrine to undercut the traditional arguments for dualism. This treatment of perceptual phenomenology is then expanded to encompass cognitive phenomenology, the phenomenology of moods and emotions, and the phenomenology of pain. The next topic is the various forms of consciousness that perceptual experience can possess. A principal aim is to show that phenomenology is metaphysically independent of these forms of consciousness, and another is to de-mystify the form known as phenomenal consciousness. The book concludes by discussing the relations of various kinds that perceptual experiences bear to higher level cognitive states, including relations of format, content, and justification or support.

Perceptual Experience

Il existe une tradition, remontant a David Hume, qui nie que la pensee consciente requiert l'existence d'un sujet. Cette these, que nous appelons la these de la pensee sans sujet, est bien illustree par la remarque de Lichtenberg selon laquelle Descartes ne pouvaitpretendre avoir etabli la certitude de «Je pense» mais uniquement celle de «Il y a de la pensee» (Es denkt). Le philosophe americain Bernard Williams a propose un argument qui montrerait l'incoherence de la these de la pensee sans sujet. Mon but principal est de defendre la these de la pensee sans sujet en proposant une interpretation qui surmonte le probleme pose par Williams.

Knowing One’s Own Mind

Citations

Is Self-Knowledge an Entitlement? And Why Should We Care?*

Swampman, teleosemantics and kind essences

Perceptual Experience

La pensée sans sujet pensant

From mimesis to synthesis

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