
Publication details
Year: 2017
Pages: 723-741
Series: Synthese
Full citation:
, "What asymmetry?", Synthese 194 (3), 2017, pp. 723-741.


What asymmetry?
knowledge of self, knowledge of others, and the inferentialist challenge
pp. 723-741
in: Nivedita Gangopadhyay (ed), The future of social cognition, Synthese 194 (3), 2017.Abstract
There is widely assumed to be a fundamental epistemological asymmetry between self-knowledge and knowledge of others. They are said to be ’categorically different in kind and manner’ (Moran), and the existence of such an asymmetry is taken to be a primitive datum in accounts of the two kinds of knowledge. I argue that standard accounts of the differences between self-knowledge and knowledge of others exaggerate and misstate the asymmetry. The inferentialist challenge to the asymmetry focuses on the extent to which both self-knowledge and knowledge of others are matters of inference and interpretation. In the case of self-knowledge I focus on the so-called ‘transparency method’ and on the extent to which use of this method delivers inferential self-knowledge. In the case of knowledge of others’ thoughts, I discuss the role of perception as a source of such knowledge and argue that even so-called ’perceptual’ knowledge of other minds is inferential. I contend that the difference between self-knowledge and knowledge of others is a difference in the kinds of evidence on which they are typically based.
Publication details
Year: 2017
Pages: 723-741
Series: Synthese
Full citation:
, "What asymmetry?", Synthese 194 (3), 2017, pp. 723-741.