Some Recent Views

Abstract

One common objection to the position I have outlined hitherto is this. It is supposed that if we are in some way directly aware of ourselves and of our experience in having it, then we can never be mistaken or deluded about ourselves. This is a point that has been very vigorously put by the most celebrated critic of Cartesian dualism in our own time, namely Professor Gilbert Ryle, in The Concept of Mind. He draws attention to the fact that there are many things which our friends, or sometimes an expert like a psychiatrist, may discover about us which we do not know ourselves. We may think that we are very modest or easily frightened, but others who know us closely may judge otherwise. No one, I imagine, would wish to deny this and it is usually sound advice to try ‘to see ourselves as others see us’. But, it is then argued, on the theory of some alleged ‘private access’ to ourselves, we ought not to be at any time under any misapprehensions about ourselves.