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Infallibilism about Self-Knowledge

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Abstract

Descartes held the view that a subject has infallible beliefs about the contents of her thoughts. Here, I first examine a popular contermporary defense of this claim, given by Burge, and find it lacking. I then offer my own defense appealing to a minimal thesis about the compositionality of thoughts. The argument has the virtue of refraining from claims about whether thoughts are “in the head;” thus, it is congenial to both internalists and externalists. The considerations here also illuminate how a subject may have epistemicially priviledged and a priori beliefs about her own thoughts.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of North Carolina, Caldwell Hall, CB# 3125, Chapel Hill, NC, 27510, USA

    T. Parent

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  1. T. Parent
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Parent, T. Infallibilism about Self-Knowledge. Philos Stud 133, 411–424 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-005-6327-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-005-6327-x

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