The First-Person Perspective and Other Essays [Paperback]

A collection dealing with the way in which we know our own minds and the nature of our mental states.The essays in this collection deal with the way in which we know our own minds, opposing the inner sense conception of introspective self-knowledge. Among the other topics covered are the unity of consciousness, and the idea that the first-person perspective provides a privileged route to understanding the mind.The essays in this collection deal with the way in which we know our own minds, opposing the inner sense conception of introspective self-knowledge. Among the other topics covered are the unity of consciousness, and the idea that the first-person perspective provides a privileged route to understanding the mind.The essays in this collection deal with the way in which we know our own minds. Professor Shoemaker opposes the inner sense conception of introspective self-knowledge. He defends the view that perceptual and sensory states have nonrepresentational features-- qualia --that determine what it is like to have them. Among the other topics covered are the unity of consciousness, and the idea that the first-person perspective gives a privileged route to philosophical understanding of the nature of mind.Part I. Self-Knowledge: 1. Introspection and the self; 2. On knowing one's own mind; 3. First-person access; 4. Moore's paradox and self-knowledge; Part II. Qualia: 5. Qualities and qualia: what's in the mind?; 6. Qualia and consciousness; 7. Intrasubjective/intersubjective; Part III. Mental Unity and the Nature Of The Mind: 8. The first-person perspective; 9. Unity of consciousness and consciousness of unity; Part IV. The Royce Lectures: Self-Knowledge and 'Inner Sense': 10. Lecture 1: the object perception model; 11. Lecture 2: the broad perceptual model; 12. Lecture 3: the phenomenal character of experience. I believe that Shomemaker's papers on self-knowledge and the nature of phenomenal consciousness . . . constitute a deeply original and syslS}