Before discussing Alex Byrne’s book Transparency and Self-Knowledge, let me tell you about myself. I believe that Byrne’s book is a tour de force—one of the most important contributions to the philosophical understanding of self-knowledge in the last few decades. I admire its meticulous canvassing and surgical analyses of the relevant literature. I intend to draw frequently on it in future teaching and research, and when I see the striking cover art by Felix Byrne, I feel a pang of aesthetic pleasure.
One may wonder whether I have sufficient expertise to know that the book is excellent or the artwork skillful. But the question raised by Byrne is a different one: How do I know that I have those beliefs, intentions, visual experiences, admirations, and pleasures? This is not a topic on which any special expertise is required to speak knowingly. A natural thought is that such self-knowledge must...
