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Single Idea 3518

[filed under theme 16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 3. Limits of Introspection ]

Full Idea

I may be the final authority on whether my shoe pinches, but I am manifestly not the final authority on whether I understand some mathematical theorem.

Gist of Idea

I'm not the final authority on my understanding of maths

Source

Keith T. Maslin (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2001], 1.7)

Book Ref

Maslin,Keith: 'An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind' [Polity 2001], p.23

A Reaction

However, it doesn't follow that his teachers are the final authority either, because he may get correct answers by an algorithm, and bluff his way when demonstrating his understanding. Who knows whether anyone really understands anything?

The 23 ideas with the same theme [what may be unknowable by introspection]:

5886 Like the eye, the soul has no power to see itself, but sees other things [Cicero]
1316 Introspection always discovers perceptions, and never a Self without perceptions [Hume]
5551 I have no cognition of myself as I am, but only as I appear to myself [Kant]
12115 Introspection is pure illusion; we can obviously observe everything except ourselves [Comte]
24144 A cognitive mechanism wanting to know itself is absurd! [Nietzsche]
2932 'Know thyself' is impossible and ridiculous [Nietzsche]
7157 We think each thought causes the next, unaware of the hidden struggle beneath [Nietzsche]
5689 Freud and others have shown that we don't know our own beliefs, feelings, motive and attitudes [Freud, by Shoemaker]
20429 Most of us are too close to our own motives to understand them [Fry]
5380 In perceiving the sun, I am aware of sun sense-data, and of the perceiver of the data [Russell]
7116 When we are unreflective (as when chasing a tram) there is no 'I' [Sartre]
7124 The Ego never appears except when we are not looking for it [Sartre]
1353 Reporting on myself has the same problems as reporting on you [Ryle]
1354 We cannot introspect states of anger or panic [Ryle]
5661 We identify experiences by their owners, so we can't define owners by their experiences [Ayer]
15815 Sartre says the ego is 'opaque'; I prefer to say that it is 'transparent' [Chisholm]
3468 I cannot observe my own subjectivity [Searle]
3363 We often can't decide what emotion, or even sensation, we are experiencing [Kim]
3412 How do we distinguish our anger from embarrassment? [Kim]
3102 Why don't we experience or remember going to sleep at night? [Magee]
5674 We can't introspect ourselves as objects, because that would involve possible error [Cassam]
6671 It seems impossible to get generally applicable mental concepts from self-observation [Lowe]
3518 I'm not the final authority on my understanding of maths [Maslin]