Judging One's Own Case: Rational Implications of Self-awareness

"This book studies the question of how awareness of oneself as a believer-and in particular, the ability to reflect on the quality of one's own thinking-affects what it is rational for one to believe. Evidence that bears on the quality of one's thinking has become known as "higher-order evidence." The book argues that what one is rational to believe about the quality of one's own thinking often has significant effects on what one is rational to believe about things in general. It defends this general idea, makes it more precise in several different ways, and explores some important consequences of this approach. In particular, the approach leads to: recognizing epistemic dilemmas (in which epistemic requirements conflict); allowing rational epistemic akrasia (where subjects are rational to have beliefs that they rationally take to be irrational); a kind of "self-undermining" (where the correct theory of rationality has the consequence that rational subjects doubt that it is correct); and a mild kind of skepticism about philosophy (according to which philosophers are often not rational to be confident in the views that seem right to them when they consider them directly)"-- Provided by publisher.