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Self‐Knowledge: Rationalism vs. Empiricism
Author(s) -
Zimmerman Aaron Z.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
philosophy compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.973
H-Index - 25
ISSN - 1747-9991
DOI - 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2008.00125.x
Subject(s) - empiricism , self knowledge , rationalism , perception , epistemology , descriptive knowledge , psychology , sort , philosophy , computer science , information retrieval
Recent philosophical discussions of self‐knowledge have focused on basic cases: our knowledge of our own thoughts, beliefs, sensations, experiences, preferences, and intentions. Empiricists argue that we acquire this sort of self‐knowledge through inner perception; rationalists assign basic self‐knowledge an even more secure source in reason and conceptual understanding. I try to split the difference. Although our knowledge of our own beliefs and thoughts is conceptually insured, our knowledge of our experiences is relevantly like our perceptual knowledge of the external world.