Content Externalism and the Problem of Self-Knowledge

The thesis examines the worry that celebrated developments in Anglophone philosophy that fall under the labels ‘semantic externalism’, ‘content externalism’, ‘anti'individualism’, etc. are incompatible with a purported long-held notion regarding self-knowledge. The thesis examines the worry that the developments that fall under the labels ‘semantic externalism’, etc. may be incompatible with the notion that we know a priori what the content of our thoughts are. Although the thesis finds that the most prominent arguments for such incompatibility in the existing philosophical literature prove to be unconvincing, it does present an original argument for such incompatibility, and does treat the prospect of such incompatibility as a live possibility. The thesis argues that although the developments may indeed be incompatible with the notion that we know a priori what the content of our thoughts are, that need not also mean that they will be incompatible with the notion that we have a privileged epistemic access to the content of our own thoughts. The thesis suggests that what has motivated the worry is a conflation of those two things. It seems to be incontrovertible that we have a privileged epistemic access to the content of our own thoughts. It need not, however, seem as incontrovertible that we must be able to know a priori what the content of our own thoughts are. It is more feasible to reject the latter notion, and – the thesis ventures – we can do so without rejecting the former.