How to know one’s experiences transparently

Abstract

I would like to propose a demonstrative transparency model of our immediate, introspective self-knowledge of experiences. It is a model entirely in line with transparency. It rests on three elements: mental demonstration, the capacity to apply (non-mental) concepts to what is given in experience, and ordinary inference. The model avoids inner sense, acquaintance, and any special kind of normativity or rationality. The crucial and new ingredient is mental demonstration. By mental demonstration we can refer indexically to the contents of our own experiences in a unique way. This allows for the application of ordinary, non-mental concepts in order to arrive at a judgment about what it is that one is experiencing. In a transparent way one can then move inferentially to the self-ascription of an experience with such a content. I compare the demonstrative model with other accounts of introspective self-knowledge.