John Martin A.

Diao
MA – Philo 1
Advanced Epistemology 2019

Look at yourself in a mirror. Think to yourself, “That person looks so fine.” But do
you really know, on the basis of what you see, that you are thinking? You see a face
staring back at you. How do you know that it is thinking, let alone that it is thinking
what you are thinking? “Ah, but I know ‘from within’ that I am thinking,” you might
say. Nevertheless, do you know that the face you see is a reflection of yours? Maybe
yours is quite different. Have you ever seen your face other than by using something
reflective, like a mirror? How do you know that mirrors do not seriously distort? If
this a way in which you can fail to know that you are thinking?

In order to answer this puzzle, I will divide it into two: 1st if I know that what is reflected
in the mirror is thinking or is thinking the same thing as what I am thinking, and 2nd if I know that
what/who is being reflected in the mirror is my own reflection, or rather if the reflection is me. I
find it necessary to satisfy the second in order to satisfy the first. To be able to know that what/who
is reflected in the mirror is thinking or is thinking the same as what I am thinking, I have first to
be certain if what is reflected in the mirror is me.
In his The Problem of Criterion1, Roderick Chisholm expounded on the idea of a criterion
that will enable us to sort out things to which we consider as knowledge and those to which we do
not. Chisholm holds on the idea of “self-presenting [sensible] properties”2 wherein there are
various ways objects appear to us through our senses, e.g. seeing, hearing, et cetera. He is coming
from the idea that there are things to which human beings, through their rationality, know to be
true; perhaps, when you tell a person of the data that you are able to gather through your senses,
Chisholm tells us, that what you will share is correct unless there is a reason to doubt that it is not.
There can be instances in which the senses will provide a deceitful data, possibly because of
circumstances that influences it, but Chisholm contends that it does not follow that our senses, i.e.
you and me, are deceiving us at the same time. In case that I am intoxicated (provided that this is
the factor that affects my sense-data gathering) and sees two table immediate to me, it does not
follow that what a sober person perceives is also two tables (unless there really are two tables).
Quoting St. Augustine, Chisholm say that the wisest thing (provided that things are right, and there
is no reasonable doubt that it is not) is to trust the data given by the senses.
Going back to the second division, provided that everything seems all right, i.e. my senses
are not deceiving me so as there are no factors that affects my senses, I am certain that it is me in

1
Roderick Chisholm, “The Problem of the Criterion,” The Foundations of Knowing, (Sussex: Harvester
Press, 1982), 61-75.
2
See A.P. Martinich and David Sosa ed., “Roderick Chisholm (1916-1999),” A Companion to Analytic
Philosophy, (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 283.
the reflected in the mirror. Assuming that before I looked myself at the mirror I saw a very recent
live picture of mine, I am able to confirm that both “subjects” (that in the live picture and mirror)
are similar. To strengthen further, provided that the senses of my friend seems alright, and there
are no other conditions that affects his /her senses, the testimony of my friend for his confirmation
that it is me in the live picture and in mirror gives me more justification that it is me being reflected
in the mirror. All of this claim, I hold to be true unless there is a reason that my senses is guilty of
providing me wrong data. In regard to the mirror if it distorts, I will hold that by comparison I will
be able to tell that the mirror reflects distorted images of the subject.

To address the first division, in so far as I am certain that it is me reflected in the mirror I
am certain that I am thinking. Although the reflection showed is only that of my physical body and
not whatever activity I am doing internally, e.g. thinking, the subject as a representation of my
whole being, exemplifies whatever I am eternally doing. Seeing back myself in the mirror allows
me to perceive that the person reflected is me, my identity is reflected in a mirror. Thus, it does
not follow that I fail to know that I am thinking, since intrinsically I know that I am. Even during
the conception of seeing my reflection in the mirror is already thinking (mental activity).

Unless I am knowledgeable that my senses are defective, I must trust whatever sense-data
is given to me by senses. One may perhaps say that G.E. Moores “this is a hand” argument may
also be applied, but I find his topic more on to the explanation of the external world. Furthermore,
his epistemology is unsatisfactory since he is not able to account for the possibility of “sleeping”
on the time of conception of “this is a hand.” However, the common-sense argument of Moore
argues against external world skepticism/the certainty that there exists in the external world.3

3
A.P. Martinich and David Sosa ed., “G.E. Moore (1873-1958),” A Companion to Analytic Philosophy,
(Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 45-56.