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Self-Knowledge

When you'll study it
Semester 1
CATS points
15
ECTS points
7.5
Level
Level 6
Module lead
Conor McHugh
Academic year
2025-26

Module overview

We seem to know our own minds - our beliefs, desires, intentions, thoughts, feelings and sensations - in a distinctively secure and immediate way, without having to rely on observation of our own behaviour. Such self-knowledge seems different from knowledge of other people or of the world around us, and is arguably part of what is special about persons. Though self-knowledge is familiar and effortless, it is puzzling. This course will examine a range of philosophical problems associated with self-knowledge, such as: How do we come to know our own minds? What (if any) are the differences between self-knowledge and knowledge in other domains (e.g. knowledge of other people's minds)? What explains these differences? Can the answers to these questions be reconciled with plausible accounts of the objects of self-knowledge, i.e. mental states and their contents? Do recent findings in empirical psychology show that we are more ignorant about our own minds than we suppose? How is self-deception possible?