Seminar: “Self-Knowledge”
Who: Prof. John Perry (Stanford Philosophy)
When: 4:30pm – 6pm Thursday, April 18th
Where: Alway M106 (Stanford Medical School).
LINK TO VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrNNN-CfRR4&
Abstract:
In this talk I will distinguish three kinds of “self-knowledge” and explain their relations. A story Ernst Mach told about himself will motivate the distinctions. Mach once entered a large crowded bus in Vienna by the back door. Looking towards the front, he noticed a disheveled looking man. “What a shabby pedagogue he is” Mach said to himself. But in a bit he realized that he was seeing himself in the mirror that conductors use to keep track of things in the rear of the bus. At first, Mach believed that a certain person was disheveled, and that person was him. I call this knowledge of the person one happens to be. After he realized what was happening, he had what I call ordinary self-knowledge. He would have said “I am a shabby pedagogue.” I’ll claim we need to recognize a third variety, what I call primitive self-knowledge, to explain the difference. I call it primitive because animals can have it that don’t have ordinary self-knowledge — roughly, animals that don’t pass the “mirror test.” After explaining how these three varieties of self-knowledge are related, I’ll say a few things about what the great philosophers have said about self-knowledge and the self.
May 12th, 2019 at 5:32 am
very very goooood.