Externalism and the resolution of self-knowledge

Abstract

This paper suggests a new way for defending semantic externalism from what we take to be the most serious attack against it in the context of the discussion of the a priori nature of self-knowledge. We shall argue that the resolution of our a priori knowledge of our beliefs on the assumption that their contents are externally determined is identical to the resolution that it makes sense to attribute to our knowledge of our beliefs independently of any assumption about content-determination. We shall also suggest what might be the source of the conviction that supposedly externally-determined beliefs violate some general epistemological principle.