You can be convinced that something is true but still desire to see it for yourself. A trusted critic makes some observations about a movie, now you want to watch it with them in mind. A proof demonstrates the validity of a formula, but you are not satisfied until you see how the formula works. In these cases, we place special value on knowing by what Sosa (Epistemic explanations: A theory of telic normativity, and what it explains, Oxford University Press, 2021) calls “firsthand insight” a truth that we might already know in some other way such as by testimony, the balance of evidence, or proof. This phenomenon raises two questions. First, what is the nature of firsthand insight? Second, what value motivates us to pursue firsthand insight when other kinds of knowledge are readily available? In the two central parts of this paper, I develop answers to these questions. I argue that firsthand insight that a proposition is true is knowledge based on experience of what makes that proposition true, and I argue that desires for firsthand insight are motivated by concerns with alienation. In a concluding section, I briefly illustrate how the resulting view of the nature and value of firsthand insight might bear on broader topics in the theory of value.

您可能确信某件事是真实的，但仍然渴望亲眼目睹。一位值得信赖的评论家对一部电影提出了一些评论，现在您想在观看电影时牢记这些评论。证明证明了公式的有效性，但只有看到公式的工作原理，您才会满意。在这些情况下，我们特别重视通过 Sosa（认知解释：目的规范性理论及其解释，牛津大学出版社，2021 年）所称的“第一手洞察”来了解我们可能已经以其他方式知道的真理例如通过证词、证据平衡或证明。这种现象提出了两个问题。首先，第一手洞察的本质是什么？其次，当其他类型的知识唾手可得时，什么价值促使我们追求第一手的洞察力？在本文的两个中心部分中，我给出了这些问题的答案。我认为，一个命题真实性的第一手洞察力是基于使该命题真实性的经验的知识，并且我认为对第一手洞察力的渴望是出于对疏远的担忧而激发的。在结论部分，我简要说明了由此产生的关于第一手洞察力的本质和价值的观点如何影响价值理论中更广泛的主题。