Self-Knowledge, Theoretical Knowledge and Scien

As part of his celebrated attack on the "Myth of the
Given� Wilfrid Sellars argues for a radical alternative to the
orthodox, neo-Cartesian conception of our knowledge of
our own minds – self-knowledge, for short (Sellars 1997;
unless otherwise indicated all references are to this work).
The orthodox conception finds a particularly elaborate
expression in traditional empiricism. On this conception, it
is with our own mental states that we hold the most
intimate and direct epistemic relation. Therefore, selfknowledge
is a paradigm, indeed the paradigm, of noninferential
and non-theoretical knowledge. In contrast,
Sellars claims that self-knowledge is akin to theoretical
knowledge in science. Indeed, in his view self-knowledge
illustrates the continuity of science with ordinary thinking
(97). At the same time he takes self-knowledge to illustrate
the fact that the distinction between the theoretical and the
non-theoretical is merely methodological (84). These
general points are made fairly clearly by Sellars. However,
the argument that he offers on their behalf is rather
obscure. The main purpose of this paper is to provide a
clear reconstruction of Sellars' argument. But I shall also
provide a brief diagnosis of a crucial weakness in the
argument due to which it is, ultimately, unsuccessful.