Abstract

In this short book, Hilary Kornblith argues that there isn’t any reason to think reflection is more valuable than unreflective processes. This is because reflection doesn’t have any special powers above what unreflective processes have, and, in fact, reflection isn’t even different in kind from unreflective processes. We don’t learn all of this, though, until the end of the book. In the beginning, Kornblith gives two arguments against views that afford reflection a special power that unreflective processes don’t have. He then applies these arguments to four philosophical areas: knowledge, reasons, freedom, and normativity. These areas correspond to the first four chapters of his book. In the fifth chapter, Kornblith tries to put reflection into the proper perspective by arguing for the views I gave above, and by doing so he hopes to show why the philosophers who have placed so much value on reflection have gone wrong.