
Self-Knowledge and Resentment
Akeel Bilgrami(Author)
Harvard University Press
Published on 5. March 2012
Book
Paperback/Softback
416 pages
978-0-674-06452-2 (ISBN)
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.
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.
Reviews / Votes
This is a distinctive and original treatment which covers an impressive sweep of philosophical ground, makes many original and surprising connections, and creates a whole new framework for thinking about self-knowledge and the philosophical landscape around it. -- Crispin Wright, Professor of Logic and Metaphysics and Wardlaw Professor, University of St. Andrews Bilgrami's book provides many interesting arguments woven together in an intricate approach to the notion of self-knowledge, and it provides an important and careful account of a normative and anti-naturalist approach to agency and intentionality. -- Markus Schlosser * Philosophical Quarterly * Bilgrami's book is a deep and painstaking pursuit of a project spanning some of the largest themes in philosophy, showing how they might bear on self-knowledge. Were one inclined to see self-knowledge as an isolated issue, this book is a great antidote. -- Krista Lawlor * Mind *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge, Mass
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-674-06452-2 (9780674064522)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Akeel Bilgrami is Sidney Morgenbesser Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University.
Content
Preface 1. What Makes Self-Knowledge Special? 2. The Conceptual Basis for Transparency I: A Normative Conception of Agency 3. The Conceptual Basis for Transparency II: Evaluation, Agency and the Irrelevance of Cause 4. The Conceptual Basis for Authority I: Agency, Intentionality and the First Person Point of View 5. The Conceptual Basis for Authority II: Intentionality, Causality, and the Duality of Perspectives 6. Conclusion Appendix I: When Self-Knowledge Is Not Special (with a Short Essay on Psychoanalysis) Appendix II. Does the Debate Between Internal and External Reasons Rest on a Mistake? Notes Index