Criticism on the Cartesian Account of Self-Knowledge in English-speaking Analytic Philosophy: A Review of the Main Strategies

Abstract

The article presents a review of the main strategies for criticizing the Cartesian account of self-knowledge in English-speaking analytic philosophy. First, I distinguish four basic aspects of the Cartesian account of self-knowledge: metaphysical, methodological, semantic, and epistemic ones. The first aspect deals with the justification of distinctive features of self-knowledge; the second aspect concerns the way the agent gains self-knowledge; the third aspect is about the content of mental states, and the last one is about formal principles of self-knowledge. Second, I examine four critical strategies. The criticism on the metaphysical aspect consists in denying the privacy of mental states thesis; the criticism on the methodological aspect refutes the perceptual model for introspection; the criticism on the semantic aspect rejects the internalism, i.e., the external factors do not determine the content of mental states; the criticism on the epistemic aspect involves the KK-principle failure. Finally, I briefly assess the efficiency of these critical strategies.