Introspective Self-Knowledge and Reasoning: An Externalist Guide
Thomas Grundmann
Universität zu Köln
Prof. Dr. Thomas Grundmann
Philosophisches Seminar
Universität zu Köln
Albertus-Magnus-Platz
D-50923 Köln
Phone: 0221/470-4477
Email: [email protected]
Fax: 0221/470-5006
8.580 words
Introspective Self-Knowledge and Reasoning: An Externalist Guide
Abstract. According to the received view, externalist grounds or reasons need not be introspectively accessible.
Roughly speaking, from an externalist point of view, a belief will be epistemically justified, iff it is based upon
facts that make its truth objectively highly likely. This condition can be satisfied, even if the epistemic agent
does not have actual or potential awareness of the justifying facts. No inner perspective on the belief-forming
mechanism and its truth-ratio is needed for a belief to be justified. In my view, this is not the whole story. While
I agree that introspective access to our reasons is a defining feature of justification for the access internalist, not
the externalist, I will argue that even for the latter, some kind of introspective access is an epistemic desideratum.
Yet, even given that I am right, the desirable might not be achievable for us. Recent psychological research
suggests that we do not dispose of reliable introspection into the sources of our own beliefs. This seems to
undermine the claim that we can introspectively know about the reasons upon which our beliefs are based. In this
paper I will therefore additionally show why these results do not threaten the kind of introspective access
desirable from an externalist point of view.
In the first section, I provide definitions of the core concepts I am going to use in my
argument. In section two, I argue briefly why all versions of epistemic internalism run into
deep trouble. Section three takes a closer look at recent suggestions made by externalists of
various camps to explain why introspective access to our reasons is important. I argue that
none of these suggestions is completely persuasive. In section four I therefore present my own
externalist argument for introspective self-knowledge with respect to reasons. Section five
shows that recent psychological evidence, which calls such self-knowledge into question is in
fact not as straightforward as one might be tempted to think.
1. Definitions
Epistemic justification of a person’s belief is a rather complex matter. In order to be justified
someone’s belief has to accompanied by a reason. But not all reasons are epistemically good
reasons. An epistemically good reason sufficiently supports the belief in question. But
someone might well possess a good reason for a belief without that belief being justified. She
must also believe what she believes because she has a good reason, i.e. the good reason must
be the basis or source of her belief. The following definition summarises these aspects of
epistemic justification (cf. Alston 1989a):
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S’s belief that p is (prima facie) justified iff
(i)
S possesses a reason,
(ii)
the belief is based upon S’s reason,
(iii)
and the reason is a good one.
This abstract scheme needs to be interpreted, a task which is approached differently by
epistemic externalists on the one hand and epistemic internalists on the other. According to
externalism, a reason may either be a contentful mental state or a psychological process or
even be a fact in the external world.1 On this view, a reason is good, iff it makes the truth of
the belief sufficiently probable in an objective sense. In addition, externalists understand the
basing relation causally. Hence, we get the following definition of externalism:
Epistemic externalism:
S’s belief that p is (prima facie) justified iff
(i)
there is a fact F appropriately related to S,
(ii)
S’s belief that p is caused by F (in a non-deviant way),
(iii)
and F makes the truth of this belief objectively highly likely.
Epistemic internalism has many different faces. But there is one common feature of all
internalist positions. They all assume that the epistemic agent has an inner perspective on the
justifying facts. More precisely, generic internalism holds that the epistemic agent has
introspective epistemic access or reflexive awareness of the justifying facts. In short:
Generic internalism claims that epistemic agents possess introspective access to their
justifiers or reasons. And this is a necessary condition in the definition of internalist
justification.
Finally, I need to say something about first person authority, introspection and their relation.
Two different conceptions must be carefully distinguished (see Byrne forthcoming). (1.) We
are inclined to say that a person has first person authority over certain facts about herself, if
she is in an extremely good position to know or to justify beliefs about these facts or, at least,
3
in an epistemic position better than anybody else’s with respect to these facts. On this
conception, first person authority is basically an epistemic privilege or, to put it other words, a
matter of the greater strength of the reason. Traditionally, this privilege has been understood
in a very strong sense. Beliefs based on first person authority would then be either infallible
or incorrigible or, at least, incorrigible by others than the person herself (Alston 1971). I am
afraid that there is nothing like this special epistemic privilege. Beliefs about our own mental
life are always fallible, subject to our own, and under appropriate conditions also other
peoples' corrections. But there is also a weaker understanding of epistemic privilege. Beliefs
based on first person authority would then just be more reliable than anyone else’s beliefs
about the same subject matter. It seems quite plausible that people may possess such kind of
epistemic privilege with respect to beliefs about their own mental states. But this kind of
privilege may also have a quite trivial explanation. People just spend more time in observing
themselves than observing other people and therefore are more reliable informants about
themselves than about anyone else. (Ryle 1949, p.171) No matter how one construes the
claim of epistemic privilege exactly, in my argument it does not play any crucial role. (2.)
First person authority consists in nothing but the fact that a belief about oneself is based on a
peculiar source, namely introspection.2 On this conception, beliefs about oneself are not
always based on external perception of one’s own behaviour (or theories built upon external
perception of one’s own behaviour). There is a different way of knowing or justifying beliefs
about one’s own mental life – a way that is fairly directly available to the epistemic agent
herself. For example, if I want to know what I experience right now, I need not rely on my
perception of what is going on in my surroundings and speculate about the effects these
external facts have on me. I have immediate access to my own experiences. This is the only
way in which first person authority plays a role throughout this paper. I will always talk about
introspective self-knowledge
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S possesses introspective access with respect to facts about her own mental life iff she
is in a position to know or justify beliefs about these facts on the basis of a peculiar
introspective source that does not depend on perception.
2. Why epistemic internalism is in deep trouble
Some epistemic internalists believe that justifying facts supervene on the mental perspective
of the epistemic agent. The mental perspective includes beliefs, experiences, memories etc.
One might call this position supervenience internalism (see Foley 1985, Cohen 1984,
Feldman & Conee 2001). It has the following important implication: Necessarily, any two
epistemic agents who share their mental perspectives will be justified in the same beliefs, no
matter what the world looks like. Or, to put the same point differently, there cannot be any
difference in the justificatory status of the beliefs of any two epistemic agents in any two
possible worlds without a difference between their mental perspectives. Obviously, on
supervenience internalism, the truth of the mental perspective does not play any role for
justification. A brain in a vat which shares my mental perspective would be justified in the
same beliefs that I am justified in, even though its perspective would be completely mistaken.
But if the connection between internalist justification and truth is contingent, then the
question arises why we should be interested in this kind of justification at all.3 After all, truth
is our primary epistemic goal.
Another strand of internalism puts a strong metacognitive constraint on justification. Access
internalists claim that nothing counts as a good reason for one’s belief unless one is justified
in believing that it makes the truth of that belief probable. So any justification requires
metajustification. It is quite easy to see that this view runs into a vicious regress. (Cf. Alston
1989a, p. 211; Fumerton 1995, p. 64) Defenders of access internalism like BonJour try to
avoid this regress by assuming that some kinds of reasons (such as conscious states or self5
evident propositions) are able to establish the probability of their own truth without further
justifying reasons. I cannot go into the details of BonJour’s suggestion here, but I do not see
how these special reasons can stop the regress. (Casullo 2003, p. 105f) Even if we grant
BonJour an infallible self-awareness of conscious mental states, this does not imply that the
epistemic agent herself has a reason to believe in this infallibility. And even if there were selfevident propositions which cannot be considered without being held true by the epistemic
agent, this by no means shows that her reason for holding the proposition true is reliable. In
short, I do not see how the regress can be terminated, as long as we presuppose access
internalism. On the other hand, if we weaken the access condition in such a way that only
potential awareness of the justifying facts is required, then the main motivation for
internalism seems to be lost: the justifying facts should be aware from the inside (Bergmann
2006, Ch. 1).
For reasons like these, Richard Fumerton proposes a restricted version of access internalism
which he calls “inferential internalism” (Fumerton 2004). According to him, we have to
distinguish between basic reasons and inferential reasons. Basic reasons do not require metajustification. But if we support a belief through an inferential reason, we need a further reason
which justifies that the inferential relation is such, that if the premises are true, the conclusion
will probably be true. This kind of internalism avoids the regress of access internalism since
these inferential chains ultimately terminate in basic reasons and the inferences themselves
are also justified by basic reasons. However, again an objection is looming in the background.
The restriction of the access requirement to inferential reasons is rather arbitrary. Why should
we not ask for further reasons in the case of non-inferentially justified (basic) reasons?
Inferential internalism seems to amount to a kind of dogmatism. These are in short the reasons
why I think that the prospects of epistemic internalism look rather dim.4
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3. Externalism without introspective self-knowledge and some dissident views
If humans have introspective access to their own mental life, then they will have some kind of
introspective self-knowledge of their reasons. But this might just be a contingent aspect of
human life. The much more interesting question is whether introspective self-knowledge of
one’s own reasons plays an important epistemic role. Given that it exists, is this kind of
knowledge an important part of our cognitive enterprise? While the average internalist's
answer to this question is 'yes', the externalist says 'no'. Whereas access internalism puts an
accessibility constraint on justifying facts which implies that reasons have to be
introspectively accessible to the epistemic agent to count as good reasons, externalism
remains neutral on accessibility. There is nothing in the standard externalist definition of
justification that would require introspective access to reasons. Therefore, it seems reasonable
to suppose that externalist reasons need not be introspectively accessible, even if in fact they
are. On the externalist view, the accessibility of reasons seems to play no epistemic role. If the
externalist wants to defend that the accessibility of reasons is epistemically relevant
nevertheless, then there seems to be only one promising strategy. She has to demonstrate that
having accessible reasons is an epistemically desirable feature which is not implied by the
beliefs’ being justified. She has to show that this feature of our reasons has a positive value
for our cognitive enterprise of maximizing true and minimizing false beliefs. The externalist
should claim that possessing introspective knowledge of our reasons is epistemically
desirable, but not constitutive of being justified. Otherwise she would turn into an internalist.5
Recently, some externalists have repeatedly stressed that human reasons are essentially
accessible to the epistemic agent. According to Alston (1989b), the concept of being justified
does not require presenting reasons for one’s belief to others or defending one’s belief against
their challenges. Very often beliefs are simply justified by reliable evidence, no matter
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whether we present this evidence to others or not. Nevertheless, Alston thinks that the ability
of giving and asking for reasons is central to the dialectical dimension of human justification.
And he argues further that we can only present and defend our reasons in front of others, if
they are accessible to us in the first place:
I am not suggesting that being justified is a matter of engaging in, or successfully
engaging in, the activity of justifying. (…) What I am suggesting is that those facts of
justification would not have the interest and importance for us that they do have if we
were not party to a social practice of demanding justification and responding to such
demands. (…) But then it is quite understandable that the concept should include the
requirement that the justifier be accessible to the subject. For only what the subject can
ascertain can be cited by that subject in response to a challenge (Alston 1989b, p. 236).
From this quote, Alston’s argument for accessibility can be reconstructed as follows:
(P1)
The concept of being justified has developed against the background of and is
adequate to the social practice of giving and asking for reasons.
(P2)
The concept of being justified is adequate to this practice only if it implies that as a
rule reasons are accessible to the epistemic subject.
Therefore,
(C1)
It is conceptually true that as a rule human reasons are accessible to the epistemic
agent.
To begin with, it is very surprising that Alston puts forward this argument as a declared
epistemic externalist. It looks more like a perfect argument for access internalism. The
seeming difference is that Alston restricts the required access to reasons only. Whether a
reason is a good reason, or whether the belief in question is in fact based upon it does not
have to be accessible to the agent. Alston thus proposes a mixture of internalism (with respect
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to the reasons themselves) and externalism (with respect to their evaluation and the basing
relation) which he calls 'Internalist Externalism' (Alston 1989). This seems to be an unstable
position. If Alston is right, an epistemic agent can defend her justification against the
challenges of others only if the justifying facts are accessible to her. Since challenges can be
directed against any aspect of justification, e.g. the reason, its adequacy or the basing relation,
the justifying facts have to be fully, not only partially disclosed to her. An argument originally
presented to defend a refined version of externalism thus ultimately forces Alston to argue in
favour of access internalism.
However, I think that the argument in itself is not sound. It may be true that the
intersubjective dimension of exchanging and assessing reasons for one's beliefs is an
important aspect of human reasoning and that our concept of justification has developed
against this background. But premise (P2) is deeply problematic. On one reading, it claims
that the epistemic agent must have meta-cognitive (introspective) access to her own reasons in
order to be able to articulate them in conversation with others. This is the reading Alston
needs to establish an internalist element in justification.6 On the other reading, (P2) simply
claims that the reasons within a cognitive system must be poised for further cognitive
processing within that system, e.g. through verbal articulation. This second reading does not
imply that the epistemic agent possesses introspective access to her reasons.7 I may articulate
or express the content of my belief or perception without reflective knowledge of the mental
state I am entertaining. It seems pretty obvious that I need not have introspective access to my
own reasons in order to be able to articulate these reasons within public debate. Let us assume
that the prosecuting attorney claims in court that the gardener is the murderer. In response, his
advocate says: “No, he isn’t guilty. His alibi is watertight. The respectable Mr Jones saw him
two-hundred miles away at the time of the crime.” With these words the advocate expresses
what he believes and what he heard before. And this is surely possible without having the
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introspective belief that this is what he believes or remembers from before. Therefore,
Alston’s argument does not establish the introspective accessibility of reasons.8
The second dissident, Burge (1996), famously claimed that humans are critical reasoners and
that critical reasoning presupposes (introspective) self-knowledge of one’s own reasons.9
“(C)ritical reasoning (…) requires thinking about one’s own thoughts. But it further requires
that that thinking be normally knowledgeable. To appreciate one’s reasons as reasons – to
check, weigh, criticize, confirm one’s reasons – one must know what one’s reasons, thoughts,
and reasonings are” (Burge 1996, p. 100f). Burge’s basic argument for introspective selfknowledge of one’s own reasons relies on a modus tollens:
(P3)
If we did not possess self-knowledge, we would not be critical reasoners.
(P4)
We are critical reasoners.
Therefore,
(C2)
We possess self-knowledge.
Again, two different readings of being a critical reasoner exist. On the weak reading, critical
reasoners are able to revise their beliefs and their former reasons in the light of new evidence.
They are sensitive to defeating evidence. On the strong reading, critical reasoners are able to
take a reflective stance on their reasoning, not only revising former beliefs and reasons but
also evaluating them from a meta-cognitive perspective. Whereas the strong reading clearly
implies introspective self-knowledge of one’s own reasons, this is not as clear in case of the
weak reading. Suppose that someone believes that all swans are white on an inductive basis.
One day she encounters a couple of black swans. If she is rational, she will avoid
contradictions and revise her belief in light of the new experience. There is no point at which
this process of rational revision presupposes meta-cognitive thoughts.10 Critical reasoning in
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the weak sense involves only thoughts and experiences of the world, not our mental states.
Even if we critically evaluate the evidential value of our reasons we need not rely on
introspective self-knowledge. Suppose that a scientist inductively confirms a theory using
data collected with the help of certain instruments. Later she realises that these instruments
were all defective, which leads her to abandon the theory. This critical assessment of reasons
does not presuppose any self-knowledge. It involves only first-order thoughts about the world.
We may conclude that, on the weak reading, critical reasoning does not imply introspective
self-knowledge of one’s own reasons.11 But then Burge cannot support the view that this
authority has any epistemic function. He faces the following dilemma: He can understand
critical reasoning either in the weak or the strong sense. If he chooses the weak sense, then it
is reasonable to ascribe a positive epistemic value to critical reasoning. Surely, revising one’s
beliefs and reasons in the light of new evidence is a good means of approximating truth.
However, as I have shown critical reasoning in the weak sense does not imply introspective
self-knowledge. If Burge chooses the strong sense, meta-reasoning does indeed imply firstperson authority. But then it remains unclear why meta-reasoning should possess epistemic
value from a strictly externalist point of view. It might simply be a contingent feature of
human cognition with no intrinsic relation to epistemic justification.
Thirdly, Ernest Sosa (1997) argues that there are two different kinds of knowledge (or
justified belief). On the one hand, there is animal knowledge which is nothing more than
reliably produced true belief. This has to be distinguished from reflective knowledge which is
second-order knowledge (or justification). According to Sosa, reflective knowledge is typical
for humans and it is 'better' knowledge than animal knowledge from a purely externalist, i.e.
truth directed, point of view:
This reflective knowledge does require broad coherence, including one’s ability to
place one’s first-level knowledge in epistemic perspective. (…) What is so desirable,
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epistemically, about broad coherence? Broad coherence is desirable because it yields
integrated understanding and also it is truth conducive (…) (Sosa 1997, p. 422).
Even if Sosa were right about the importance of reflective knowledge (or justification),
strictly speaking this would not establish the significance of introspective self-knowledge of
one’s own reasons. Reflective knowledge refers to any second-order knowledge and not all
second-order knowledge necessarily relies on introspection. But is Sosa right about human
knowledge in the first place? First of all, it is not generally true that humans entertain
reflective knowledge. On many occasions even adults know things without further reflection.
Reflective knowledge is not even typical for humans (Kornblith 2004, p. 127). Sosa could
claim that it is nevertheless the ideal case of human knowledge. But is this true? Sosa argues
that if we do not only know things but also know that and how we know them, we get an
'integrated understanding' of the world including us. An integrated understanding, however,
does not constitute better but simply more knowledge about the world and us within it (see
Kornblith 2004, p. 131). Yet Sosa seems to claim more than this. He seems to argue that
reflection on knowledge and justification increases the likelihood of the belief’s being true.
One might say that reflection is an excellent means for error-detection and thus helps us to
correct faulty beliefs. If this were true, then a belief which has survived critical reflection
would have a higher probability of being true than a belief that has not been scrutinised.
Recently, this view has been strongly criticised by Hilary Kornblith:
(I)t does not seem generally true that reflective knowledge is more reliable than
unreflective knowledge. Sometimes reflection acts as a corrective on less reliable firstorder processes. But it can also interfere with the smooth working of more reliable
first-order mechanisms. And sometimes it just leaves things as they are (Kornblith
2004, p. 130).
Kornblith does not deny that we can detect, for example, fallacies by reflecting on our
inferences. But he stresses that the opposite might also be true. In everyday life as well as in
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scientific practice we are excellent inductive reasoners. This is generally attributed to the
reliability of our inductive strategies in worlds like our actual world. Nevertheless, as soon as
we start reflecting on the method of induction itself, we are no longer able to demonstrate its
reliability. Reflection undermines our inductive practice. And there are other situations in
which reflection does not help us to approximate truth but, on the contrary, provides us with
strategies to maintain our cognitive biases. Psychological literature on the 'confirmation bias'
shows that we tend to evaluate reasons brought forward against our most cherished beliefs in
a way that enables us to preserve these beliefs despite contrary evidence. This suggests that
reflection cannot be said to generally improve our pursuit of truth.
The above considerations lead to the following conclusion: if we adopt a strictly externalist
(truth directed) perspective, then it may be desirable to communicate our reasons, discuss
them with others or evaluate them through critical reasoning. But neither of these epistemic
desiderata does imply that our reasons must be introspectively accessible. Not even reflective
knowledge which need not be based on introspection is desirable from a strictly externalist
perspective. So far, there is no reason to believe that introspective access to one’s own reasons
is recommendable to the externalist.
4. The externalist argument for the epistemic value of introspective self-knowledge from the
possibility of undercutting defeaters
While I have shown that critical responsiveness to new evidence can in general be accounted
for without reference to an introspective component, attempts to explain reactions to a
particular kind of defeating evidence, namely undercutting defeaters indeed require
introspective self-knowledge. Let me introduce the argument with a very general, truthdirected consideration. Epistemic agents aim at true belief. Beliefs are however generated
through fallible processes, at least as far as humans are concerned. In order to improve the
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reliability of these processes, the rational agent has to detect and correct errors in light of
defeating evidence. This is not strictly necessary for acquiring justified beliefs, but it will help
to improve the overall reliability of the epistemic enterprise over time. It therefore is desirable
from an epistemic point of view.12 Two types of defeating evidence can be distinguished:
rebutting and undercutting defeaters (Pollock, 1986). They trigger two different reactions
from part of the rational agent who seeks to correct her errors: (1.) Some belief-producing
processes are reliable, but occasionally result in false beliefs, i.e. they perform badly. Beliefs
based on these potentially malperforming processes have to be checked against newly
acquired information about their referents. If we acquire such a piece of information we are
confronted with a rebutting defeater. The formerly justified belief is no longer justified, and
should be rationally revised. Inductive reasoning provides again for a case in point: Several
times we have observed that As are B. Hence, we are inductively justified in believing that the
next A will also be B. But then we observe that, this time, the A is not B. This is a rebutting
defeater of our inductively acquired belief that the next A will be B. Our ability to discover
and correct false inductive generalisations when we observe singular (deviant) cases does not
depend on introspection. The inconsistency between the new evidence and our inductive
belief leads us directly to revise the latter.
(2.) Some belief-producing processes are (under certain conditions) unreliable. Beliefs based
on them are not justified (even if they are accidentally true). Since there is a likely chance for
this to happen, the causally relevant processes have to be checked against new evidence. If it
turns out that the process is not reliable, we must abstain from our belief. In finding out that
the process is unreliable we acquire an undercutting defeater suggesting that the belief in
question is not justified. If the epistemic agent were systematically blind to this source of
error, her overall reliability would be seriously affected. To recognise an undercuttting
defeater one need to not only possess the information that a certain process is unreliable but
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also that this is the process on which one’s belief is based. I will now argue, that the
acquisition of the latter is best explained by introspective access to the causal sources of one’s
own beliefs.
Here is the core argument:
(P5)
In order to pursue truth in an optimal manner, the epistemic agent must have an easy
and sufficiently extensive access to both types of defeaters (rebutting as well as
undercutting defeaters).
(P6)
In order to have an easy and sufficiently extensive access to undercutting defeaters,
the epistemic agent must have introspective access to those reasons that are causally
effective for her beliefs.
Therefore,
(C3)
In order to pursue truth in an optimal manner, the epistemic agent must have
introspective access to the causally effective reasons for her beliefs.
What can be said in support of (P5)? Since it is always possible that justified beliefs are false
and that beliefs originally thought to be based on a reliable process were in fact based on an
unreliable one, we need a reliable method to detect such errors and, as a consequence, adapt
our beliefs. Defeaters provide us with such a method. They constitute reasons to believe that
a previously held belief is either false (rebutting defeater) or unjustified (undercutting
defeater).
What about (P6)? In the case of an undercutting defeater, we acquire a reason to believe that
one of our beliefs is based on an inadequate reason. Take the following example. I believe
that the thing in front of me is red, since it appears red to my visual perception. Now, let us
assume that I receive the objective information that the scenery in front of me is illuminated
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with red light and moreover assume that I know in virtue of my background knowledge that
under red light, even objects that are not red appear red. This does not yet put me in the
position to conclude that my belief that the thing in front of me is red is not justified. For this,
I need the additional information that my belief is based on my visual experience of that thing
as being red. Without that information my conclusion would not be justified. Hence, a
constitutive part of the defeater is a justified meta-cognitive belief about the reason on which
the belief in question is based. This comes out clearly in the following argument:
(P7)
Under red light, even some objects that are not red appear red
(P8)
The things in front of me are illuminated with red light.
Therefore,
(C4)
My belief that the thing in front of me is red is not justified.
So far, this is not a valid inference, since (P7) and (P8) could both be true and (C4) would still
be false. Suppose I am visiting an exhibition of international flags. The label at the flag in
front of me tells me that this is the flag of Japan. On this basis I believe that the circle on the
flag in front of me is red. The justification of this belief will survive the information provided
by (P7) and (P8). Even under red illumination, the label “Japanese flag” is a good indicator
that the circle on the flag is indeed red as a matter of fact. The above inference becomes valid
only if we add a further premise concerning the basis of my belief:
(P7)
Under red light, even some objects that are not red appear red.
(P8)
The things in front of me are illuminated with red light.
(P9)
My belief that the thing in front of me is red is based on my visual experience of that
thing as being red.
Therefore,
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(C4)
My belief that the thing in front of me is red is not justified.
But even if (P9) is an essential part of the undercutting defeater it has not yet been shown that
(P9) must typically be justified on the basis of introspection. It could also be based on an
inference to the best explanation from my publicly observable behaviour. Or it could be based
on lengthy neural research. But these kinds of sources are not easily available, whereas
introspective access to the reasons for our own beliefs is ready at hand. It is precisely because
it is so easy to access our reasons introspectively, that undercutting defeaters play such a big
role in our epistemic practice. Of course, one can also acquire knowledge about the sources of
one’s belief from others.13 They just may tell you how you arrived at a certain belief. This is
surely possible. But it takes only one moment of reflection to see that this is not the typical
way of knowing. Very often others simply do not know how you arrived at your belief, at
least as long as you do not tell them. In other cases reliable informants are not readily
available. So, testimony does not seem to be an equally rich source of information about one’s
own reasons. There is still another suggestion to explain this knowledge without appeal to
introspection. According to this view, propositions like (P9) are instances of a naïve theory of
perception acquired sometimes in childhood. During this period we learn for example that
beliefs about the colour of things in front of us are typically based upon vision. If this
explanation were true, (P9) would be an instance of general empirical background knowledge
which is always readily available. Unfortunately, most of our occasional beliefs of a certain
type do not have one single typical source. For example, beliefs about the size of an object in
front of us can be based on any of the following sources: vision, touch, testimony, memory or
inference from other beliefs. So, if we really have a naïve theory of perception or belief
acquisition it leaves the specific source of a given belief completely underdetermined. As far
as I can see, there is no substantial alternative to introspection as the source of the required
knowledge.
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I want to conclude this section by discussing three possible objections to the above argument
(P5 and P6, therefore C3). First of all, there are undercutting defeaters that do not rely on
meta-cognitive beliefs of the epistemic agent. They rather object to the belief in question that
it is based on some or other procedure in the world which is unreliable (a broken instrument, a
misleading indicator etc.). But if this is possible, then it is simply not true that undercutting
defeaters in general rely on information which is introspectively available.
I have to admit that such cases are possible and that they are not even exceptional.
Nevertheless, justification of beliefs always depends on the reliability of psychological
processes. In addition, it may also depend on the reliability of objective methods (e.g.
instruments, testimony). But the epistemic agent will believe what these objective methods
tell her only if she realises it through some psychological mechanism. The epistemic agent
must see what the instrument indicates about the world or she must hear what the testifier
tells her in order to take it at face value. If in these cases her vision or her auditory system
were unreliable, the agent would not acquire justified beliefs. We can thus distinguish
between world-directed undercutting defeaters, challenging the reliability of an external
aspect of the belief-producing process on the one hand, and self-directed undercutting
defeaters, challenging the reliability of a psychological aspect of the belief-producing process
on the other. In the light of the above objection, my claim should then be modified in the
following way: Self-directed undercutting defeaters presuppose introspective self-knowledge.
But if certain kinds of defeaters are accessible only through introspective self-knowledge,
then unrestricted access to defeaters clearly depends on introspective self-knowledge.
A second objection runs like this: In my argument I presuppose that defeaters are justified
beliefs. I then argue that, in the case of self-directed undercutting defeaters, introspective self18
knowledge is required in order to justify that the belief in question is unjustified. Yet,
Bergman's prominent conception of defeaters explicitly denies that defeaters have to be
justified (Bergmann 2006, in particular chapter 6). According to Bergmann, a 'no-defeater
condition' is an essential part of the definition of a justified belief. A belief is justified, if it
was reliably produced and the epistemic agent does not believe that the belief is defeated (or
epistemically inappropriate). As soon as the agent believes that her belief is defeated, she is
no longer justified in this belief. Now, if believing that one’s belief was defeated were
sufficient for it to be defeated, then self-directed undercutting defeaters would not require
introspective self-knowledge. They would simply not require any knowledge or justification
at all and my argument would not get off the ground.
There is a simple reply to this objection. Even if we grant Bergmann that any believed
defeater is a true defeater, this would not show that those defeaters which are important for
pursuing truth in an optimal manner are the merely believed ones. It seems clear that only
reliably produced defeaters play an important role in pursuing truth in an optimal manner. All
the other defeaters are simply misleading. Epistemically valuable defeaters have to rely on
introspective self-knowledge.
A third objection could be that my account of undercutting defeaters is a result of overintellectualisation. Taking a deflationary stance, this objection argues that we need not
explicitly believe and be justified in believing that some first-order belief is unjustified. It will
do if the cognitive system acquires some objective information that the belief in question is in
fact based on a source that is working unreliably. There is no need for the cognitive system to
additionally represent the basing relation. Suppose I have just acquired the belief that there is
a red thing in front of me on the basis of perceptual evidence. According to the deflationary
view, my cognitive system will give up this belief as soon as it receives the information that
19
my vision is not working reliably (even if in fact it is). Self-referential use of informational
input is hard-wired. It does not require additional self-knowledge.14
It seems clear that on this view, defeasibility and revision of beliefs will be contextually
bound. New information about the malfunctioning of certain belief-producing processes will
have inhibitory effects on the sustaining causes of beliefs which have just been produced by
the very same cognitive system. But this explanation covers at best a very limited number of
cases. Undercutting defeaters can be transmitted from one person to the other as well as over
time. They are not restricted to the momentary context. Assume, for example, that Fred tells
me on the phone that his boss drives a new fire-red Ferrari. I know that Fred is colour-blind. I
ask him “How do you know?” If he answers “I just saw my boss with the car”, I have
undoubtedly acquired an undercutting defeater for what he has told me. If Fred tells me
instead that his boss told him about his new car, I remain justified in believing him. In both
cases, I rely on Fred’s information about his source of knowledge. I have to presuppose that
Fred has himself reliable access to this source. Or suppose I visit an optometrist and find out
that my visual system has been malfunctioning for a couple of days. Only if I know that I
acquired a certain belief through visual evidence during these days, will I be able to rationally
revise this belief now. Again, unrestricted access to defeaters depends on introspective selfknowledge.
The above discussion of objections substantiates that a comprehensive account of selfdirected, context-independent and epistemically valuable undercutting defeaters must make
use of the assumption that we have introspective access to our reasons. In the light of this my
core argument should be slightly revised:
(P5*) In order to pursue truth in an optimal manner, the epistemic agent must have easy and
unrestricted access to defeating facts.
20
(P6*) In order to have easy and unrestricted access to undercutting defeating facts, the
epistemic agent must have introspective access to those reasons that are causally
effective for her beliefs.
(C3)
In order to pursue truth in an optimal manner, the epistemic agent must have
introspective access to the causally effective reasons for her beliefs.
This revised version of the argument differs from the original one in two crucial aspects: First,
it requires an unrestricted15 instead of sufficiently extensive access to defeaters. This
requirement seems plausible if we talk about pursuing truth in an “optimal” manner. If
unrestricted access is required, the restriction to contextually bounded or world-directed
undercutting defeaters (which might get along without introspective knowledge) is excluded.
Second, the revised version requires access to defeating facts instead of access to any kind of
defeaters. Since access to misleading belief-defeaters will not improve our overall reliability,
it is introspective knowledge that is required.
5. Do we really have the required introspective self-knowledge of our reasons?
So far, the following conditional has been established: if epistemic agents pursue truth in an
optimal manner, they must have introspective access to the causally effective reasons for their
own beliefs. To put it the other way round: without introspective access to the causally
effective reasons for their beliefs, creatures like us can not pursue truth in an optimal manner.
I will now address the question whether we really have reliable introspective access to the
sources of our beliefs.
Over the last decades, the traditional view of the mind as being completely transparent to
introspection and reflection has been shaken by results of psychological research (compare
Nisbett and Wilson 1977, Wilson 2002, Kornblith 2002). First, many unconscious causes of
our beliefs remain entirely inaccessible to our reflection, even if we try our best. This is
21
demonstrated by psychological biases such as the position effect (i.e. that our evaluation of
objects depends on their spatial position relative to us), the priming effect (i.e. that exposure to
a stimulus at time t’ influences responding to a related stimulus at time t’’) or the anchoring
effect (i.e. the tendency to rely too heavily on one piece of information when making
decisions). We are not able to make them transparent on the basis of introspection. Second,
when the real causal sources of our beliefs are inaccessible to us, we tend to refer to false, yet
conscious reasons to explain these beliefs. Hence, introspective ignorance causes
introspective illusion. This happens when we rationalise actions. But it can also be illustrated
by everyday illusions like the following (Kornblith 2002, p. 115):
Passengers on a plane are able to tell when the plane is headed up or down, right or
left. This is something, it seems, that one detects visually. The orientation of the plane,
however, is not detected by visual means at all (…). Information about the orientation
of the plane is conveyed (…) kinaesthetically: one detects the orientation of the plane
by detecting the orientation of one’s body. Careful introspection is powerless to detect
the source of information. The illusion that the orientation of the plane is detected
visually persists even when one knows that it is detected kinaesthetically.
All these results seem to suggest that introspective access to our causally effective reasons is
not reliable enough to
guide our pursuit of truth. We revise our beliefs in the light of a
critical evaluation of our reasons as we know them. Yet, in many cases our alleged reasons
are not our real reasons, and even if we find out about our real reasons, we are often not able
to evaluate them impartially.16
But the significance of these empirical findings should not be overestimated. The fact that
many causes of our beliefs are hidden from introspection is not sufficient to show that critical
reflection on our first-order reasons is unreliable. Ignorance can only explain limits of our
knowledge, not mistakes. What about the phenomenon of introspective illusions then? We
22
take conscious mental states to be the source of certain beliefs although these beliefs are in
fact causally based on other unconscious reasons. It is important to note that these illusions do
not occur across the board but most often when our beliefs have unconscious causes.17 There
is little indication that we make mistakes about conscious causes. 18 Overall reliability of our
first-person beliefs about the causes of our beliefs then depends on the extent to which beliefs
are caused by conscious events. If the majority of the causes of our beliefs are conscious, as it
seems plausible to assume, our introspective beliefs will be fallible, yet not unreliable.
6. Conclusion
I have shown existing externalist arguments for introspective self-knowledge of one’s own
reasons to be unconvincing, either because they are not sufficient to establish self-knowledge
or because they are not available to the externalist. That reasons are communicable and our
beliefs are rationally revisable in the light of new evidence does not by itself imply that we
have direct introspective access to our own reasons. On the other hand, even if critical
reflection on our reasons requires introspection, it remains unclear why the externalist should
defend critical reflection.
One externalist argument for introspective self-knowledge, however, survives scrutiny. Our
general epistemic reliability can be considerably improved if we are responsive to new
evidence in the form of rebutting and undercutting defeaters. But as I have argued,
unrestricted responsiveness to the latter depends essentially upon introspective knowledge
about the causally effective reasons for our beliefs. Although recent psychological results
indicate a massive fallibility of our introspective capacities, they do not obviously undermine
the introspective condition for our responsiveness to undercutting defeaters. Critical reflection
informed by objective knowledge about the world seems to improve our pursuit of truth after
all. If my view is correct, introspective self-knowledge has an essential epistemological
23
function, even from an externalist perspective. In defending this epistemological function I
did not address the explanatory question of how introspective self-knowledge is possible.19
References
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Alston, W. (2005). Beyond “Justification.” Dimensions of Epistemic Evaluations.
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Bergmann, M. (2006). Justification without Awareness. (Oxford: University Press)
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Byrne, A. (in press). Introspection. Philosophical Topics, 33.
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Foley, R. (1985). What’s Wrong with Reliabilism. The Monist, 68, 188-201.
Foley, R. (1993). Without a Net. A Study in Egocentric Rationality. (Oxford: University Press)
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Sosa and His Critics (pp. 126-134). Oxford: Blackwell.)
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I use the term „reason“ synonymous with „ground,“ rather than with „evidence.“ Externalists grounds need not
be psychological, contentful states, but can also be psychological processes or even non-mental facts. See e.g.
Kim 1993, p. 308.
Alston 1989 claims that reasons always have to be contentful mental states („indicators“ or „evidence“). One
might call this position “evidential reliabilism.” Goldman 1979 assumes that justifying reasons are psychological
processes which need not include any evidential states. This is “process reliabilism.” Williamson 2000 claims
that all justifying reasons are known external facts. One might call this kind of position “reason objectivism.”
This view is challenged in Grundmann 2009.
2
I take 'introspection' here as a technical term that refers to a non-perceptual way of knowing. I do not have the
model of inner sense in mind. For a compelling criticism of the inner sense model of introspection see
Shoemaker 1996.
3
Interestingly, this objection is put forward by Foley (1993, p. 133), one of the major proponents of
supervenience internalism.
4
For a more comprehensive criticism of epistemological internalism see Grundmann 2003 and Grundmann
2008, Ch. 4.4.
5
Alston 2005 calls all features which are desirable from an epistemic point of view “epistemic desiderata”, no
matter whether or not they are constitutive of being justified.
6
Alston 1989a, p. 214, claims that accessible is “what the subject can come to know just on reflection.” Hence
Alston is committed to the view that accessible reasons must be such that we can gain knowledge about them by
introspection alone.
7
In exactly this sense Block (1995) distinguishes beween 'metacognitive monitoring consciousness' and 'access
consciousness' where the latter simply means that the content of a representation is poised to be processed as a
premise within thinking, rational control of action and language control).
8
One anonymous referee has objected to my view that the epistemic subject must surely know the reasons his
conclusion is based upon in order to be able to articulate those reasons. But here knowledge does not require
more than first-order availability of the contents of those reasons. It certainly does not imply that one is able to
say what source of justification one is relying on, i.e. whether it is vision, hearsay or memory.
9
On Burge’s view the self knowledge in question has epistemic privilege (infallibility or at least immunity from
brute error) and rests on a peculiar source (it is direct and non-perceptual). It therefore can be called
“introspective” in my sense (which requires only peculiarity of its source).
1
26
10
One anonymous referee was still puzzled about how one can avoid contradiction without knowing what one
believes. Think of it this way: why can’t my first-order thinking about the world be rationally sensitive without
presupposing second-order awareness of occurring contradictions?
11
See for this line of criticism Peacocke (1996), p. 129: “much critical reasoning involves thought about the
world, rather than about attitudes. I think there is a more primitive kind of reasoning which still involves
assessment of relations of support, consequence, and evidence, and can be used by a thinker in revising his
beliefs, without the thinker actually exercising or possessing concepts of propositional attitudes.”
12
Compare Weinberg 2007 for similar considerations. Weinberg claims that being a hopeful source, i.e. a source
whose errors we can detect and correct, is of crucial epistemological significance. For Weinberg being a hopeful
is the mark of trustworthy epistemic sources (p. 327).
13
This explanation and the following one were suggested by two anonymous referees.
14
This model was suggested to me by Hilary Kornblith (in personal conversation).
15
“Unrestricted access“ here means access without in principle blind spots or cognitive closure to certain
domains. It does not imply that all relevant facts are transparent to the epistemic agent.
16
This is due to the previously mentioned confirmation bias.
17
Consciousness must here of course be understood as phenomenal or first-order access consciousness, not as
introspective knowledge. Otherwise, the claim would be trivial.
18
This point is stressed by Wilson (2002), p. 106: “to the extent that people’s responses are caused by the
adaptive unconsciousness, they do not have privileged access to the causes and must infer them (…). But to the
extent that people’s responses are caused by the conscious self, they have privileged access to the actual causes
of these responses (…).”
19
I would like to thank Quassim Cassam, Frank Hofmann, Joachim Horvath, Hilary Kornblith, Thomas Spitzley,
Tobias Starzak, Ralf Stöcker, Karsten Stüber, Woldai Wagner and Christina Zuber for helpful comments and
critical discussions.
27