Deference and Self-knowledge

1 Deference and Self-Knowledge It has become increasingly popular to suggest that non-individualistic theories of content1 undermine our purported a priori knowledge of such contents because they entail that we lack the ability to distinguish our thoughts from alternative thoughts with different contents. However, problems relating to such knowledge of ‘comparative’ content tell just as much against individualism as non-individualism. Indeed, the problems presented by individualistic theories of content for self-knowledge are at least, if not more, serious than those presented by nonindividualistic theories. Consequently, considerations of self-knowledge give one no reason to embrace individualism. If anything, they give one reason to reject it. That there should be a tension between non-individualistic theories of content and selfknowledge is not surprising. If features of our (physical and) social environment contribute to the contents of our thoughts,2 and we don’t have a priori access to these features, then it would seem that we should lack a priori access to the content of our own thoughts.3 An influential reply to this sort of worry was provided by Tyler Burge, who stressed that our judgments about our thoughts have their contents determined by the very same external factors that determine the content of our ‘first-level thoughts’. Consequently, ‘second level’ thoughts such as “I am thinking that water is wet” will always be true.4 Since the very same factors that determine the contents of our thoughts also determine the content of our judgments about these thoughts, the fact that we may not be authoritative about these factors does not prevent our judgments about the contents of our thoughts from being authoritative.