Abstract

LAZOS, Efraín. Self-Knowledge: A Tense Idea. Diánoia [online]. 2008, vol.53, n.61, pp.169-188. ISSN 0185-2450.

This essay explores self-knowledge and some related ideas (self-consciousness, self-attribution, personal authority). Its main conjecture is that self-knowledge is a tense idea, in so far as it contains two competing demands, namely detachment and involvement. The former asks that we see ourselves impartially, or at least like any other person might see us. The latter requires that we see ourselves like no one else could. Having in view models and authors from the modern and contemporary philosophical traditions, the essay shows various ways in which, when one demand is favored over the other, some aspect of human subjectivity is distorted. In the final parts of the essay, and following an idea of R. Moran (2001), the author suggests that it is possible to do justice to both demands if we adopt a deliberative perspective on the authority that persons have over their own inner lives.

Keywords : self-consciousness; self-attribution; transparency; authority.

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