The language game of ascribing intentional states such as belief and desire to oneself and others requires, as a background condition, that self-ascriptions have special authority within that game.

Transcendental arguments for the accuracy of certain sorts of self-knowledge offer a different sort of epistemic guarantee—“transcendental arguments” being arguments that assume the existence of some sort of experience or capacity, then develop insights about the background conditions necessary for that experience or capacity, and finally conclude that those background conditions must in fact be met. Burge (1996; see also Shoemaker 1988) argues that to be capable of “critical reasoning” one must