 The accounts of self-knowledge canvassed thus far treat self-knowledge as a largely epistemic phenomenon. But as noted in  Section 1,  some philosophers deny that the special character of self-ascriptions is primarily epistemic. One version of this denial charges that by focusing on our access to our mental states, standard accounts of self-knowledge portray the introspective thinker as passive, a mere spectator (or detector) of a cognitive show. Agentialists contend that the special character of self-knowledge stems from the fact that we exercise agency over our mental states, and hence are responsible for them. 