Shoemaker, Sydney - Self-Knowledge and Self-Identity

What we mean when we assert something to be the case cannot be different from what we know when we know that thing to be the case. If we have knowledge of things of a certain kind, and know them in a certain way, and if it is a consequence of some assertion or theory about the nature of those things that they cannot be known, or cannot be known in the ways in which we do in fact know them, then that assertion or theory must be mistaken. An important way of investigating philosophically the nature (essence, concept) of a particular kind of things is by considering how things of that sort are, or can be, known.