Externalism, Memory, and Self-Knowledge

Externalism holds that the individuation of mental content depends on factors external to the subject. This doctrine appears to undermine both the claim that there is a priori self-knowledge, and the view that individuals have privileged access to their thoughts. Tyler Burge’s influential inclusion theory of self-knowledge purports to reconcile externalism with authoritative self-knowledge. I first consider Paul Boghossian’s claim that the inclusion theory is internally inconsistent. I reject one line of response to this charge, but I endorse another. I next suggest, however, that the inclusion theory has little explanatory value.