Belief, Inference, and the Self-Conscious Mind

Reviews / Votes

The argument of the text is clearly outlined, skillfully crafted, and forcefully written with careful consideration of differing views. * L. C. Archie, CHOICE * The idea that there is a kind of mind that is distinctively rational, one whose acts necessarily involve a certain self-awareness and self-intelligibility, has a venerable history in philosophy, but its meaning has never been easy to make clear. As our scientific understanding of human minds has grown, it has become ever more contested. Eric Marcus's book offers an exceptionally lucid, forceful, and up-to-date defense of this idea, one grounded in the thought that rational belief and inference are possible only in virtue of a kind of mental unity that is constituted by self-consciousness. Marcus's theses are bold; his arguments subtle and clear-headed; his engagement with opposing views charitable and rigorous. I expect the book to become a touchstone in discussions about the nature of rational mindedness, an issue that underlies diverse debates in the philosophy of mind and epistemology. * Matthew Boyle, University of Chicago * Some of the most significant moments in the history of philosophy are those moments in which we find ourselves hard-pressed to make sense of something obvious and ordinary. Marcus's book marks such a significant moment: he begins from the ordinary observation that, although our beliefs are often false and inconsistent, it is nonetheless impossible to consciously believe what we know to be false. But what could explain this impossibility? Marcus shows that the only way to explain this observation is to conceive of belief as involving the believer's endorsement of it as true, and more generally to conceive of the various postures of the reasoning mind as each involving endorsement of its own correctness. The result is a compelling defense of self-consciousness as the mark of the reasoning mind. * Ram Neta, University of North Carolina *