Since Descartes, many philosophers have shared the intuition that self-knowledge is different from other kinds of knowledge and that it is transparent and authoritative. However, they rarely agree on the source of this intuition. In Self Knowledge and Resentment, Akeel Bilgrami limits self-knowledge to the knowledge of our intentional states, such as beliefs and desires, and offers an account of what makes self-knowledge unique amongst other forms of knowledge. Bilgrami, adapting a more radical approach to the problem of self-knowledge than is usually found in the philosophical literature, posits that our philosophical intuition that self-knowledge is unique in the sense that it alone carries the characteristics of transparency and authority, can only be maintained if we situate self-knowledge in a normative setting, in particular, if we adopt normative notions of agency and mind. In other words, according to Bilgrami, self-knowledge, unlike other kinds of knowledge, should not be considered an epistemological notion but rather should be treated as a normative concept, because self-knowledge of our intentional states is a product of acting accountably in the world as normative agents.

Bilgrami's challenging book makes an original contribution to the philosophical literature on the uniqueness of self-knowledge by successfully connecting the ethical notions of agency, freedom, intentionality, and responsibility, to the nature of self-knowledge. Furthermore, Self Knowledge and Resentment, by stressing the radical normative underpinnings of agency and thought, casts doubt on the aptness and practicality of the epistemological notion of 'justification' when it comes to self-knowledge. With the aim of preserving the philosophical intuition of the specialty of self-knowledge, Bilgrami removes from it all its epistemological characteristics – that it is cognitively acquired, that it issues from perception and inference, or that it is justified. Instead, he grounds self-knowledge in free and responsible agency. The only epistemological element left in Bilgrami's notion of self-knowledge is that, like any knowledge, it consists of true (self-) belief.

While Bilgrami successfully defends this original thesis by bringing together a wide range of philosophers such as P.F. Strawson, Tyler Burge, Sydney Shoemaker, Christopher Peacocke, Saul Kripke, and Robert Brandom, and responds effectively to Donald Davidson's objection to such a line of reasoning, he assumes that his audience is familiar with these philosophers' accounts of self-knowledge, and does not provide sufficient background information to those readers who may not be as familiar with their accounts as he clearly is. In addition, he tends to alienate his audience through his use of obscure jargon and lengthy but incomprehensible explanations, thereby casting a shadow on the success of what is otherwise a unique and indispensable contribution to the philosophical literature.

In Chapter 1, "What Makes Self-Knowledge Special," Bilgrami focuses on the transparency and authority of self-knowledge, arguing that inferential and perceptual accounts of knowledge do not share these characteristics. Here, he conveys the specialty of self-knowledge by contrasting it with more standard epistemological accounts that deny its transparency and authority.

In Chapters 2 and 3, Bilgrami provides a conceptual basis for transparency by implementing a normative conception of freedom and agency. Chapter 2, "The Conceptual Basis for Transparency-I," endorses a normative conception of agency by drawing upon P. F. Strawson's views on the subject. Bilgrami, remodeling Strawson's arguments to a great extent, says that the concepts of norm and agency are deeply integrated. The main focus of Chapter 3, "The Conceptual Basis for Transparency- II," is transparency. Bilgrami suggests that when we ground transparency on the view that norm and agency are deeply integrated, the concept stands in stark contrast to causal and perceptual accounts of self-knowledge which would deny its special character.

Chapters 4 and 5 provide the conceptual basis of authority. In Chapter 4, "The Conceptual Basis for Authority I: Agency, Intentionality, and the First Person Point of View," Bilgrami puts forward the argument that agency, when considered as a normative concept, is a necessary condition for intentionality. Such necessity, according to Bilgrami, stems from the conviction that a subject without agency cannot have thoughts and intentionality, and a subject with thoughts and intentionality must have states which are themselves normative states. Further, by appealing to G.E. Moore and Gottlob Frege, Bilgrami suggests that intentional states, such as beliefs and desires, are integrated with value. This argument is also used to show that philosophers like Davidson fail to see the normative nature of intentionality. In Chapter 5, "The Conceptual Basis for Authority II (Intentionality, Causality and the Duality of Perspectives)," the normative notion of agency presented in Chapter 2 is further developed. Bilgrami shows that having agency amounts to possessing normative states that make a difference to the world by 'causing' our 'doings.' Finally, Chapter 5 concludes that subjects who possess intentional states in this specific normative sense are authoritative about these intentional states. A conceptual basis for authority is then drawn from the relationship between agency, value, and thought or intentionality.

The final chapter, Chapter 6, reiterates the arguments which establish the two properties of self- knowledge, namely, transparency and authority, and discusses their implications to philosophy. One point made by Bilgrami is that, there may be other ways of establishing what is special about self-knowledge but they would not be incompatible with his integrative account.

The Appendices to the book are also important. For example, Appendix 1, "When Self-Knowledge is not Special," draws attention to psychological kinds of self-knowledge that are not the consequence of considerations of agency and responsibility. In these cases, self-knowledge is cognitively achieved: psychoanalysis is used as an example. The appendix strengthens Bilgrami's thesis by showing how psychological cases of self-knowledge, in which we are blocked from knowing our mentality and have to use cognitive and inferential reasoning to acquire knowledge, is related to the 'special' kinds of self-knowledge of our intentional states which are presented in the book. Then, in Appendix 2, "Does the Debate about Internal versus External reasons Rest on a Mistake?" Bilgrami briefly addresses the relevance of the notion of commitments to the relation between an agency and our reasons for action. In these two Appendices, Bilgrami renders his original thesis more persuasive by considering the broader implications of his argument to philosophy and psychology.

This book provides readers with a wealth of knowledge across several philosophical approaches to the problem of self-knowledge. A novel and captivating look at the subject of self-knowledge, Bilgrami's Self-Knowledge and Resentment is a worthwhile book for academic audiences.

© 2007 Serife Tekin

Serife Tekin is a PhD candidate in philosophy at York University in Toronto. Her main areas of interest are Philosophy of the Self, Philosophy of Psychology, Philosophy of Mind  and Cognitive Science. Her e-mail address is serife.tekin@gmail.com

Categories: Philosophical