Abstract

This chapter focuses on Davidson’s discussion regarding the phenomenon of self-knowledge and its puzzling features, and how he has placed it in a central place within his philosophy. This chapter begins by providing an overview of the concept of “psychological self-knowledge,” which is considered unlike any other form of knowledge. In contrast to our knowledge of the rest of the world or our knowledge of others’ mental states, we usually know the contents of our current mental states without recourse to observation or inference from evidence. Such self-knowledge is quite extraordinary from a philosophical standpoint, and its explanation poses considerable challenges that raise fundamental issues in epistemology, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language.