The aim of this thesis is to offer up a structure of what I call Emotional Self-Knowledge—roughly, knowledge of one’s own emotions. I begin with a broad understanding of an emotion event, according to which emotion events include a set of bodily feelings in response to some object. I then argue that knowledge of the object and the feeling of the emotion are required parts of knowing one’s own emotions if we expect emotional self-knowledge to be prudentially useful. I then outlining three levels of emotional self. The first requires knowledge of the feeling on is experiencing; the second requires that knowledge plus knowledge of the emotionally-salient object. The final level is knowledge of one’s emotional dispositions, and as such is the most robust form of emotional self-knowledge. I conclude by examining some cases in which emotional self-knowledge can be usefully applied towards an agents own prudential goals.

Thesis (doctoral)--Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [159]-161).

This work examines some of the epistemological and ontological conditions of the deep self-knowledge that is demanded by the Delphic motto gnothi seauton (know thyself!). The guiding questions are: what is the 'self' that deep self-knowledge is of? What are we such that we can ask deep and puzzling questions about our life-plans, our self-conceptions and the meaning of our lives? Can we know ourselves as we really are, or only under a certain description which conceals as much as it reveals? What is the nature of the relation between self-knowledge and (personal or inner) reality? The central thesis that is defended is that a person is to a certain extent a self-defining and self-forming being by virtue of his self-knowledge; fundamental changes in how he knows himself, and conceives his way of life, his life-history, emotions, final ends, death etc. particularly in light of fundamental practical questions ('Who am I?' 'What should I do with my life?') necessarily occasion changes in what he is. What he is at any one moment in his life is in part constituted by his self-knowledge. To account for the complex 'inter-relation' between self-knowledge and its object, and the possibility of self-formation, a broadly Kantian theory of constituting activity is developed, as well as a theory of the empirical 'under-determination' of self-knowledge. The peculiarity of self-knowledge is that the knower is the known, and that he is active (meaning-giving, or sinn-gebung) with respect to the object known (himself); the object of knowledge and the knowing subject change and extend their range together. This complicates some of the claims of realism and the correspondence theory of truth: self-knowledge is not a matter of the strict conformity of beliefs or conceptions to an independent, determinate and unchanging reality. In Kantian terms, the object of self-knowledge conforms to the conditions of knowledge. This broadly Kantian approach is brought to the analysis of Hampshire and Sartre's theories, which are studied as illustrations of the general ontological and epistemological conditions of self-knowledge. Hampshire's Spinozist theory of reflexive knowledge, which emphasizes the importance of rationality and the understanding of the causes of one's mental states, is contrasted with Sartre's existentialist theory, which emphasizes the importance of choice, and the non-theoretical understanding of one's way of being. Sartre, who is critical of the foundational status generally given to rationality and knowledge, rejects deliberation, detachment, self-observation, reasoned self-criticism and the other rational activities that Hampshire and Spinoza consider essential for self-knowledge. Other issues that are discussed include the problem of truth conditions in deep self-knowledge, the agent-observer dualism in self-inquiry, the relational model of the self, and Iris Murdoch's critique of Hampshire and Sartre.

Thesis (doctoral)--Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [159]-161).

When you enjoy a conscious mental state or episode, you can knowledgeably self-ascribe that state or episode, and your self-ascription will have a special security and authority (as well as several other distinctive features). This thesis argues for an epistemic but nonintrospectionist account of why such self-ascriptions count as knowledge, and why they have a special status. The first part of the thesis considers what general shape an account of self-knowledge must have. Against a deflationist challenge, I argue that your judgments about your own conscious states and episodes really do constitute knowledge, and that their distinctive features must be explained by the epistemic credentials that make them knowledge. However, the most historically influential non-deflationist account—according to which such self-ascriptive judgments are based on introspective experiences of your conscious states and episodes— misconstrues the unique perspective that you have on your own conscious mind. The second part of the thesis argues that the occurrence in your consciousness of a state or episode of a certain type, with a certain content, can itself suffice for you to have a reason to judge that you are enjoying a state or episode of that type, with that content. Self-ascriptions made for such reasons will count as knowledge. An account along these lines can explain the special status of self-knowledge. In particular, I show that a self-ascription of a content, made for the reason you have in virtue of entertaining that content, will be true and rational, partly because it is an exercise of a general capacity, which I call “grasp of the first-/third-person distinction”, that is fundamental to our cognition about the world. A self-ascription of a particular type of conscious state or episode, made for the appropriate reason, will be true and rational in virtue of features distinctive of states or episodes of that type—features that contribute to determining which judgments are rational for a subject, without themselves being reasons that the subject has. I consider in detail the cases of perceptual experience and of judgment. The thesis concludes by arguing that this kind of account is well placed to explain how selfknowledge fulfills its central role in the reflective rationality that is characteristic of persons.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2004. Graduate Programme in Philosophy. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 234-241). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ99135

In The Metaphysics of Morals, Kant claims that “the first command” of all self-regarding duties is to know our “heart.” Kant ostensibly identifies our heart with our moral disposition. Strangely, this appears to be precisely the sort of knowledge that, elsewhere, Kant claims is epistemically inaccessible to us. While the more sophisticated attempts to resolve this difficulty succeed in situating an injunction to know the quality of one’s disposition within a Kantian epistemic framework, no account is wholly successful in explaining why Kant takes self-knowledge to be a necessary condition of virtue. To make sense of the priority Kant assigns to the pursuit of self-knowledge, I argue that it is essential to understand the role of what has been called “generic” self-knowledge in Kant’s moral philosophy. I proceed to defend the place Kant grants moral self-knowledge in his moral philosophy, primarily by developing a Kantian account of such “generic” self-knowledge.

Philosophers have long thought that practical authority is morally problematic. The most familiar explanation is that exercising authority (for example, by the giving of commands) interferes with a subject’s responsiveness to the reasons that apply to her; in this sense, authority is thought to be irrational or somehow inconsistent with autonomy. This explanation of the problem presupposes an account of what it is to exercise authority: to exercise authority over a subject is to intentionally change the reasons that apply to that subject. In this paper, I begin to develop a new account of authority’s problematic nature by focusing on the relation between the content of authoritative directives and an agent’s intention in obeying. In cases of personal authority, the issuing of a command involves the giving of an intention to act to the subject; I argue that this breaks down the self-other asymmetries which theorists of self-knowledge assume exist with respect to the ‘privileged access’ one is said to have of one’s own mind. This understanding of the problem is missed if we think about authority primarily in terms of reasons and reason-giving, as in the case of Raz’s service conception. / text

This study demonstrated that the notions of reflective practice, as advocated by Donald Schon, are applicable to student-teachers in practica settings. For Schon, a practitioner is reflective when he or she becomes intrigued or curious about some element of the practice setting, frames it i n terms of the particulars of the setting, reframes it in terms of past experience and knowledge, and then develops a plan for future action. Reframing occurs as a response to the 'back talk' in the action setting where something does not happen as expected (producing the 'curious' or 'intrigued' response). A number of issues specific to student-teacher reflection emerged from the analysis of four student-teachers engaged in a thirteen week practicum. The analysis was guided by three research questions: What is it that student teachers reflect upon?; What precipitates that reflection?; and What factors enhance or constrain that reflection? The student-teachers in this study reflected upon three main issues: the ownership of their practice; pupil learning; and the different levels of their understanding of practice. From the analysis, it was possible to identify up to four different précipitants or triggers for the types of reflective activity documented: a primary and secondary precipitant at each of the framing and reframing stages. The secondary precipitant at the reframing stage was deemed to be the most significant i n terms of student-teacher reflection. Factors that either enhanced or constrained reflection have been summarized in terms of their implications for enhancing reflective practice. These factors included: exposure to a multiplicity of perspectives; intense examination of one's practice; theorizing about one's practice; and the ability to entertain uncertainty. Finally, the study contributes in three ways to Schon's conceptualization of reflection as it applies to student-teachers in practica settings. Firstly, reflection is bom of incidents but is thematic in nature. Secondly, ownership of one's practice is central to a variety of reflective concerns raised by student teachers. Finally, Schon's coaching models need to be reviewed in light of changes that occur in the relationship between student and sponsor as the action which students reflect upon moves from a virtual world of planning to the real world of performance.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2003. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 284-298). Also issued electronically via World Wide Web.