Thesis defense

Primitive Introspection

Speaker(s)
Anna Giustina (IJN, ENS, PSL)
Practical information
17 December 2018
Place

Institut Jean Nicod,  29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris. Conference room of the Pavillon Jardin.

IJN

Jury:
Charles Siewert (Rice University)
Susanna Schellenberg (Rutgers University)
François Récanati (IJN)
Dorothea Debus (University of York)
M. Uriah Kriegel (IJN, Directeur de thèse) 

Abstract:

This dissertation focuses on an introspective phenomenon that I call primitive introspection. Primitive introspection is a non-classificatory kind of phenomenal-state introspection: it is a kind of phenomenal-state introspection that does not involve recognizing the introspected phenomenal state as an instance of any experience type. I defend three main claims about primitive introspection. First, it exists: there is a mental phenomenon that has the features I attribute to primitive introspection and such a phenomenon is a full-fledged introspective process. Second, its nature is best accounted for by a version of the acquaintance theory—what I call the integration account. Third, it has a distinct epistemic value: it provides the subject with knowledge of their phenomenal states. Such knowledge is a sui generis kind of knowledge: knowledge by acquaintance. Knowledge by acquaintance displays a distinctive epistemic property which is somewhat analogous to infallibility: it provides the subject with a complete and perfect grasp of the phenomenology of their experience.