Self-Knowledge and Resentment

Description

In Self-Knowledge and Resentment, Akeel Bilgrami argues that self-knowledge of our intentional states is special among all the knowledges we have because it is not an epistemological notion in the standard sense of that term, but instead is a fallout of the radically normative nature of thought and agency. Four themes or questions are brought together into an integrated philosophical position: What makes self-knowledge different from other forms of knowledge? What makes for freedom and agency in a deterministic universe? What makes intentional states of a subject irreducible to its physical and functional states? And what makes values irreducible to the states of nature as the natural sciences study them? This integration of themes into a single and systematic picture of thought, value, agency, and self-knowledge is essential to the book's aspiration and argument. Once this integrated position is fully in place, the book closes with a postscript on how one might fruitfully view the kind of self-knowledge that is pursued in psychoanalysis. Title Copyright Contents Preface ONE: What Makes Self-Knowledge Special? TWO: The Conceptual Basis for Transparency I: A Normative Conception of Agency THREE: The Conceptual Basis for Transparency II: Evaluation, Agency, and the Irrelevance of Cause FOUR: The Conceptual Basis for Authority I: Agency, Intentionality, and the First Person Point of View FIVE: The Conceptual Basis for Authority II: Intentionality, Causality, and the Duality of Perspectives SIX: Conclusion: Philosophical Integrations Appendix I: When Self-Knowledge Is Not Special (with a Short Essay on Psychoanalysis) Appendix II: Does the Debate about Internal versus External Reasons Rest on a Mistake? Notes Index