Peter Carruthers and Eric Schwitzgebel

Peter Carruthers (left) and Eric Schwitzgebel (right) on self-knowledge of attitudes.

According to an intuitively plausible and widely accepted view, we have direct, privileged, and highly reliable access to our own beliefs. In the first part of this conversation, Carruthers and Schwitzgebel both reject that view, while disagreeing about the exact implications of empirical studies that are commonly cited in debates on privileged access. But their positions raise a nagging question: If we lack privileged access to our own beliefs, then why does it seem to us that we have such access? They defend different views (starting at 29:31) about the best answer to that question.

Related works

by Carruthers:

TOC and Preface of The Opacity of Mind (forthcoming)

with Mark Engelbert: “Descriptive Experience Sampling: What Is It Good For?” (2010)

“Introspection: Divided and Partly Eliminated” (2010)

“How We Know Our Own Minds: The Relationship Between Mindreading and Metacognition” (2009)

by Schwitzgebel:

“Acting Contrary to Our Professed Beliefs” (forthcoming)

“Self-Ignorance” (forthcoming)

“Mad Belief?” (draft)

with Russell Hurlburt: Describing Inner Experience? Proponent Meets Skeptic (2007)

Blog: The Splintered Mind

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