Workshop: Self-Knowledge and First-Person Authority

Richard Moran

Department of Philosophy, Philosophy and Public Affairs, University of Amsterdam (in collaboration with ASCA)

Thursday 13th June, 15h-18h, Bungehuis 4.01

In his 2001 Authority and Estrangement, Richard Moran argues for a reconception of the first-person and its claims. Indeed, he writes, a more thorough repudiation of the idea of privileged inner observation leads to a deeper appreciation of the systematic differences between self-knowledge and the knowledge of others, differences that are both irreducible and constitutive of the very concept and life of the person. Moran develops a view of self-knowledge that concentrates on the self as agent rather than spectator. He argues that while each person does speak for his or her own thought and feeling with a distinctive authority, that very authority is tied just as much to the disprivileging of the first-person, to its specific possibilities of alienation.

The book made Moran an instant ‘authority’ on the topic of self-knowledge. The Philosophy and Public Affairs group (UvA) is therefore delighted to host this workshop that will be devoted to Moran’s more recent work on self-knowledge.

Commentators will be Julian Kiverstein (University of Amsterdam) and Katrien Schaubroeck (University of Utrecht).

The text will be distributed beforehand and there will be ample opportunity for discussion.

Please registrate by sending an e-mail to: t.r.v.nys@uva.nl