This chapter considers how Liberal Naturalism interacts with the main problems and theories in the philosophy of perception. After briefly summarising the traditional philosophical problems of perception and outlining the standard philosophical theories of perceptual experience, it discusses whether a Liberal Naturalist outlook should incline one towards or away from any of these standard theories. Particular attention is paid to the work of John McDowell and Hilary Putnam, two of the most prominent Liberal Naturalists, whose work was also very influential (...) in the philosophy of perception. There is also a section focusing on colour, an especially important topic not only for debates about perceptual experience but also for debates concerning how our ‘manifest image’ of the natural world relates to our best theories in the physical sciences. (shrink)

John McDowell has recently changed his line of response to philosophical scepticism about the external world. He now claims to be in a position to use the strategy of transcendental argumentation in order to show the falsity of the sceptic’s misrepresentation of our ordinary epistemic standpoint. Since this transcendental argument begins from a weak and widely shared assumption shared with the sceptic herself the falsity of external world scepticism is now demonstrable even to her. Building on the account of perceptual (...) intentionality defended in the Woodbridge lectures, McDowell argues that the idea of narrow perceptual content is unavailable to anyone, including the sceptic. This argument is assessed by drawing out an analogy with parallel responses to error theories in ethics. (shrink)

1. In this exciting and ambitious book, Duncan Pritchard defends a novel conception of perceptual epistemic grounds, which can both be factive and reflectively available to the agent. Pritchard calls this position the ‘holy grail’ of epistemology for its power to undercut two of contemporary epistemology’s most central problems: the epistemic internalism/externalism controversy and radical scepticism. While Pritchard’s book manages to make a convincing case for why one should accept epistemological disjunctivism (ED), the ‘neo-Moorean’ anti-sceptical strategy that he derives from (...) it is less compelling. This is not because ED does not provide us with the materials for a plausible anti-sceptical strategy, however, but rather because Pritchard misidentifies where ED’s real power lies, namely, in its potential to prevent the radical sceptical problem from arising in the first place. If I am right, then there is no need to establish Moore-type anti-sceptical theses with the ground rules for doing so set by scepticism. For once (and as McDowell has maintained) the thought has been undermined that my perceptual epistemic grounds can only ever consist of the ‘highest common factor’ between the ‘good case’ and the ‘bad case’, the traditional route to radical scepticism is blocked. (shrink)

One of the key debates in contemporary epistemology is that between Crispin Wright and John McDowell on the topic of radical scepticism. Whereas both of them endorse a form of epistemic internalism, the very different internalist conceptions of perceptual knowledge that they offer lead them to draw radically different conclusions when it comes to the sceptical problem. The aim of this paper is to maintain that McDowell's view, at least when suitably supplemented with further argumentation (argumentation that he may or (...) may not agree with), can be shown to be a viable alternative to Wright's anti-sceptical proposal, one that retains the driving motivation behind Wright's proposal while avoiding one of its most fundamental problems. Wright's wholesale rejection of the McDowellian anti-sceptical strategy is thus premature. (shrink)

1. Quassim Cassam's subtle book, The Possibility of Knowledge, 1 contains many insights. My goal here is not to attempt to give a sense of all that this book has to offer – which I suspect would be foolhardy in the extreme – but rather to explore one particular central theme of this book that I find especially interesting – viz. the application of the ‘multi-level’ response to ‘how possible?’ questions that Cassam offers to the problem of radical scepticism.2. A (...) central contention of Cassam's book is that we should re-cast sceptical problems in terms of ‘how possible?’ questions. Although it is not a sceptical problem that Cassam examines himself , consider how this re-casting would work as regards the problem of free will. The relevant ‘how possible?’ question would be: " How is free will possible?" There are two features of ‘how possible?’ questions that are important for our purposes. The first is that they are by their nature challenging in that they imply that there is a standing obstacle to the possibility in question. In the case of , this obstacle is the familiar one concerning determinism. The second is that they do not presuppose that the target thing – in this case free will – is impossible; rather, they simply ask how such a thing could be possible.These two features of ‘how possible?’ questions impose constraints on what would constitute a satisfactory response to such a question. On the one hand, it would clearly be pointless to respond to such a question by simply insisting – on the basis of commonsense, say – that the target thing is possible, since the question was not suggesting …. (shrink)

Part one offers a précis of my book, Epistemic Angst, with particular focus on the themes discussed by the participants in this symposium. Part two then examines a number of topics raised in this symposium in light of this précis. These include how best to understand the ‘non-belief’ account of hinge epistemology, whether we should think of our hinge commitments as being a kind of procedural knowledge, whether hinge epistemology can be used to deal with underdetermination-based scepticism, what the status (...) of my acceptance of the closure principle amounts to, whether one’s total evidence in fact supports our hinge commitments, and the nature of the kind of reasoning that Wittgenstein employs when advancing a hinge epistemology. Finally, I offer some remarks on the notion of epistemic risk in the context of the sceptical problematic, and show how this has application to legal epistemology. (shrink)

Part one offers a précis of my book, Epistemic Angst, with particular focus on the themes discussed by the participants in this symposium. Part two then examines a number of topics raised in this symposium in light of this précis. These include how best to understand the ‘non-belief’ account of hinge epistemology, whether we should think of our hinge commitments as being a kind of procedural knowledge, whether hinge epistemology can be used to deal with underdetermination-based scepticism, what the status (...) of my acceptance of the closure principle amounts to, whether one’s total evidence in fact supports our hinge commitments, and the nature of the kind of reasoning that Wittgenstein employs when advancing a hinge epistemology. Finally, I offer some remarks on the notion of epistemic risk in the context of the sceptical problematic, and show how this has application to legal epistemology. (shrink)

This paper examines the relationship between perceptual knowledge and discrimination in the light of the so-called ‘relevant alternatives’ intuition. It begins by outlining an intuitive relevant alternatives account of perceptual knowledge which incorporates the insight that there is a close connection between perceptual knowledge and the possession of relevant discriminatory abilities. It is argued, however, that in order to resolve certain problems that face this view, it is essential to recognise an important distinction between favouring and discriminating epistemic support that (...) is often overlooked in the literature. This distinction complicates the story regarding how an alternative becomes relevant, and in doing so weakens the connection between perceptual knowledge and discrimination. The theory that results, however—what I term a ‘two-tiered’ relevant alternatives theory of perceptual knowledge—accommodates many of our intuitions about perceptual knowledge and so avoids the revisionism of some recent proposals in the epistemological literature. (shrink)

A critique of attributer contextualist treatments of the problem of radical scepticism is offered. It is argued that while such proposals, standardly conceived, gain some purchase against the closure-based formulation of this problem, they run aground when applied to the logically distinct underdetermination-based formulation. A specific kind of attributer contextualism—rational support contextualism—is then explored. This is better placed to deal with underdetermination-based radical scepticism via its endorsement of ascriptions of factive rational support in everyday contexts of epistemic appraisal. But such (...) a proposal is faced with a dialectical impasse with regard to the competing epistemological disjunctivist response to radical scepticism. While the former has dialectical advantages over the latter with regard to closure-based radical scepticism, the latter has the dialectical upper-hand when it comes to underdetermination-based radical scepticism. It is claimed that the way to resolve this issue—and thereby to understand that we should not expect a unified treatment of these two formulations of the sceptical problem, much less one that is cast along contextualist lines—is to recognise how these two formulations reflect distinct sources of scepticism. (shrink)

In this paper, I do three things. First, I offer an overview of an anti- luck epistemology, as set out in my book, Epistemic Luck. Second, I attempt to meet some of the main criticisms that one might level against the key theses that I propose in this work. And finally, third, I sketch some of the ways in which the strategy of anti- luck epistemology can be developed in new directions.

This paper argues that McDowell is right to claim that disjunctivism has anti-sceptical implications. While the disjunctive conception of experience leaves unaffected the Cartesian sceptical challenge, it undermines another type of sceptical challenge. Moreover, the sceptical challenge against which disjunctivism militates has some philosophical urgency in that it threatens the very notion that perceptual experience can acquaint us with the world around us.

The paper argues that there is such a thing as luck in acquisition of candidate a priori beliefs and knowledge, and that the possibility of luck in this “armchair” domain shows that definitions of believing by luck that p offered in literature are inadequate, since they mostly rely on the possibility of it being the case that not- p. When p is necessary, such a definition should be supplemented by one pointing to variation in belief, not in the fact believed. (...) Thus the paper suggests a focus upon the agent and her epistemic virtue in the account of epistemic luck in general. (shrink)

I propose an account of desire that reconciles two apparently conflicting intuitions about practical agency. I do so by exploring a certain intuitive datum. The intuitive datum is that often when an agent desires P she will seem to immediately and conclusively know that there is a reason to bring P about. Desire-based theories of reasons seem uniquely placed to explain this intuitive datum. On this view, desires are the source of an agent’s practical reasons. A desire for P grounds (...) conclusive knowledge of a reason to bring P about because that desire makes it true that there is a reason to do so. However, this implies that a basic desire for P can never be in error about there being at least some reason to bring P about. We have the conflicting intuition that basic desires sometimes rationally count for nothing. The guise of the good explains this intuition about the fallibility of desires. On this view, a desire for P represents P as good in some respect. Desires and reasons are independent, so a desire might misrepresent one’s reasons. But this independence is usually taken to rule out that desires ever provide conclusive knowledge of reasons. Capturing the intuition about conclusive knowledge rules out capturing the intuition about fallibility, and vice versa. I propose an epistemological disjunctivist version of the guise of the good that reconciles fallibility with the possibility of conclusive knowledge. (shrink)

The internalism /externalism debate is of interest in epistemology since it addresses one of the most fundamental questions in the discipline: what is the basic nature of knowledge and epistemic justification? It is generally held that if a positive epistemic status obtains, this is not a brute fact. Rather if a belief is, for example, justified, it is justified in virtue of some further condition obtaining. What has been called epistemic internalism holds, as the label suggests, is that all the (...) relevant factors that determine justification must be “internal”. Epistemic externalism is the denial of internalism. Epistemic internalism about justification is the subject of this article. After introducing the central intuitive considerations that have tended to motivate internalism, this paper will explore different ways of construing the internalist position. In addition to classical formulations, more recent formulations will be discussed, concluding with a discussion of an emerging position known as “Epistemological Disjunctivism”, which its advocates claim preserves the most important features of more traditional forms of internalism, while avoiding their difficulties. Epistemological Disjunctivism is particularly worthy of attention since if true, it promises to bridge internalist and externalist epistemologies, bringing a rapprochement to two sides of what may otherwise appear a deep and intractable debate about the fundamental nature of epistemology. (shrink)

In common with traditional forms of epistemic internalism, epistemological disjunctivism attempts to incorporate an awareness condition on justification. Unlike traditional forms of internalism, however, epistemological disjunctivism rejects the so-called New Evil Genius thesis. In so far as epistemological disjunctivism rejects the New Evil Genius thesis, it is revisionary. -/- After explaining what epistemological disjunctivism is, and how it relates to traditional forms of epistemic internalism / externalism, I shall argue that the epistemological disjunctivist’s account of the intuitions underlying the New (...) Evil Genius thought experiment is at best incomplete. As presented, therefore, epistemological disjunctivism is unable to accommodate the core guiding intuitions of epistemic internalism. Given the stated aim of not being revisionary on this score, the view is at a dialectical disadvantage over the traditional forms of epistemic internalism the position is meant to replace. Unfortunately, therefore, at present, the impasse between internalism and externalism remains. (shrink)

Epistemological disjunctivists make appeal to Moorean-style anti-skeptical arguments. It is often held that one problem with using Moorean-style arguments in the context of a response to skepticism is that such arguments are subject to a kind of epistemic circularity. The specific kind of epistemic failure involved has come to be known as a failure of warrant transmission. It would likely pose a problem for the anti-skeptical ambitions of the epistemological disjunctivist if his version of the Moorean-style argument failed to transmit (...) warrant; but no epistemological disjunctivist has offered an argument to show that this is not so. In this paper, I fill the gap by arguing that warrant transmits across epistemological disjunctivist Moorean-style arguments. (shrink)

If you want to understand McDowell's spatial metaphors when he talks about perceptual knowledge, place him side-by-side with Dretske on perceptual knowledge. Though McDowell shows no evidence of reading Dretske's writings on knowledge from the late 1960s onwards (McDowell mentions "Epistemic Operators" once in passing), McDowell gives the same four arguments as Dretske for the conclusion that knowledge requires "conclusive" reasons that rule of the possibility of mistake. Despite various differences, we think it is best to read McDowell as re-discovering (...) Dretske on perceptual knowledge. Since Dretske is easy to understand, all of McDowell's metaphors become easy to understand. But what about McDowell's disjunctivism? Turns out McDowell is not an ontological disjunctivist, and his epistemological disjunctivism is really just the banal point that some perceptual experiences provide conclusive reasons for perceptual belief and some do not. Perceptual experiences are either conclusive or inconclusive. Dretske would agree. (shrink)

John McDowell’s original motivation of disjunctivism occurs in the context of a problem regarding other minds. Recent commentators have insisted that McDowell’s disjunctivism should be classed as an epistemological disjunctivism about epistemic warrant, and distinguished from the perceptual disjunctivism of Hinton, Snowdon and others. In this paper I investigate the relation between the problem of other minds and disjunctivism, and raise some questions for this interpretation of McDowell.

Duncan Pritchard has recently defended a view he calls ‘epistemological disjunctivism’, largely inspired by John McDowell. I argue that Pritchard is right to associate the view with McDowell, and that McDowell’s ‘inference-blocking’ argument against the sceptic succeeds only if epistemological disjunctivism is accepted. However, Pritchard also recognises that epistemological disjunctivism appears to conflict with our belief that genuine and illusory experiences are indistinguishable (the ‘distinguishability problem’). Since the indistinguishability of experiences is the antecedent in the inference McDowell intends to block, (...) I suggest that his argument rests on an inconsistent set of premises. In support of this, I show that Pritchard’s response to the distinguishability problem is incompatible with the conclusion of the ‘inference-blocking’ argument, and that the response available in McDowell’s work relies on a mistaken conception of fallibility. Either McDowell must deny the sceptic’s premise that perceptual experiences are indistinguishable, or he must give up his conclusion that perceptual warrant can be indefeasible. (shrink)

Epistemological disjunctivists hold that perceiving subjects have “reflective access” to factive perceptual support for belief. However, little has been done to elaborate the intended notion of reflection, or introspective awareness more generally. Moreover, critics have pointed out that the disjunctivist conception of “reflective access” can seem vulnerable to varieties of Williamson’s anti-luminosity argument. In this paper I defend disjunctivism from this charge, arguing that it holds the resources for a potent defense of the claim that knowledge of perceptual states is (...) luminous. Indeed, I argue that appreciating the relation between disjunctivism and luminosity sheds critical light on how the disjunctivist conceives of perceptual support for belief. (shrink)

From the early modern period, Western epistemologists have often been concerned with a rigorous notion of epistemic justification, epitomized in the work of Descartes: properly held beliefs require insulation from extreme skepticism. To the degree that veridical cognitive states may be indistinguishable from non-veridical states, apparently veridical states cannot enjoy high-grade positive epistemic status. Therefore, a good believer begins from what are taken to be neutral, subjective experiences and reasons outward—hopefully identifying the kinds of appearances that properly link up to (...) the world and those that do not. Good beliefs, beliefs that are justified (warranted, etc.), are those that a believer has .. (shrink)

An epistemological how-possible question asks how knowledge, or knowledge of some specific kind, is possible. The main contention of Duncan Pritchard‟s stimulating comments is that what I call „explanatory minimalism‟ appears to offer us just what we are seeking when we ask such a question. This looks like a problem for me given that I defend a version of explanatory anti-minimalism. Pritchard outlines a version of minimalism inspired by the writings of John McDowell and does not find it obvious that (...) this position is lacking in any relevant respect. Nor do I. My minimalism is moderate rather than extreme but Pritchard‟s objections to anti-minimalism are objections to extreme anti-minimalism. Indeed, his comments do not seem to me to have any direct bearing on what I take to be the fundamental disagreement between minimalism and anti-minimalism. (shrink)

Epistemological Disjunctivism is a view about paradigm cases of perceptual knowledge. Duncan Pritchard claims that it is particularly well suited to accounting for internalist and externalist intuitions. A number of authors have disputed this claim, arguing that there are problems for Pritchard’s way with internalist intuitions. I share the worry. However, I don’t think it has been expressed as effectively as it can be. My aim in this paper is to present a new way of formulating the worry, in terms (...) of an “explanatory challenge”. The explanatory challenge is a simple, yet powerful and illuminating challenge for Epistemological Disjunctivism. It is illuminating in the sense that it shows us why Epistemological Disjunctivism must take on certain internalistically problematic commitments. A secondary aim of this paper is to examine whether the recently much-discussed distinction between justifications and excuses in epistemology can support an adequate response. I will argue that it cannot. (shrink)

The paper explicates a new way to model the context-sensitivity of 'knows', namely a way that suggests a close connection between the content of 'knows' in a context C and what is pragmatically presupposed in C. After explicating my new approach in the first half of the paper and arguing that it is explanatorily superior to standard accounts of epistemic contextualism, the paper points, in its second half, to some interesting new features of the emerging account, such as its compatibility (...) with the intuitions of Moorean dogmatists. Finally, the paper shows that the account defended is not subject to the most prominent and familiar philosophical objections to epistemic contextualism discussed in the recent literature. (shrink)

This thesis motivates a novel account of desire as the best explanation of an intuitive datum. The intuitive datum is that often when an agent desires P she will immediately, outright know that she has a reason to bring P about. Existing explanations of the intuitive datum cannot simultaneously satisfy two desiderata. We want to explain how desires enable outright knowledge of reasons and also explain the fallibility of desires. Existing views satisfy the first desideratum at the expense of the (...) second, or vice versa. I propose an epistemological disjunctivist account of desire that satisfies both. On this view, a desire for P represents the value of P in a manner analogous to perception. Desires come in two distinct epistemic kinds: an awareness of value or an illusion of value. An awareness of value enables outright knowledge of reasons and allows the agent to tell by reflection that she has such knowledge. An illusion of value merely seems to provide grounds for knowledge, which explains the fallibility of desires. The proposed account is a strong candidate for the truth because it best explains central features of our practical agency. (shrink)

Naive realism is one of the oldest theories of perception. To a first approximation, naive realism is the view that perception is a direct relation between a subject and an object. Many historical philosophers (from Locke to Russell) argued that naive realism must be rejected on the grounds that hallucinations are perceptual experiences without an object. Contemporary philosophers have resurrected the theory by insisting that genuine cases of perception have a different structure or a different metaphysical status than non-genuine ones. (...) This version of naive realism has come to be known as ‘disjunctivism’. Epistemological disjunctivism and disjunctivism about phenomenal belief, or what I shall call ‘Epistemological disjunctivism’, have also gained popularity in recent years. More recently disjunctivist accounts of bodily movements, abilities and reasons for action have entered the philosophical scene. This entry focuses on the contemporary debate about disjunctivism: its characterization, its motivation and its potential shortcomings. (shrink)

The epistemological problem of the external world asks: (1) “How is knowledge of the external world possible given certain obstacles which make it look impossible?” This is a “how-possible?” question: it asks how something is possible given certain obstacles which make it look impossible (cf. Cassam 2007; Nozick 1981; Stroud 1984). Now consider the following question, which asks: (2) “How is a philosophically satisfying answer to (1) possible?” Skepticism is the thesis that knowledge of the external world is impossible. It (...) therefore represents a negative answer to the first question. Meta-epistemological skepticism is the thesis that a satisfying philosophical explanation of how our knowledge of the external world is possible is itself impossible. It therefore represents a negative answer to the second question. In this thesis, I explore the prospects of meta-epistemological skepticism. In particular, I structure the thesis around two master arguments from for meta-epistemological skepticism. The first argument is that skepticism represents a kind of paradox which requires dispensing with a plausible principle or belief, or even 'platitude', which means that there's no philosophically satisfying response to the paradox (see, e.g., Stroud 1984), and the second argument is “Stroud’s dilemma” (cf. Cassam 2009), that either we explain how external world knowledge is possible by reference to what external world knowledge we have, thereby failing to answer the philosophical question adequately, or else we don't, but then we succumb to first-order skepticism. I argue that the first argument fails to provide adequate support for meta-epistemological skepticism. However, the second argument, Stroud’s dilemma, is plausible and withstands serious objections (e.g., from Sosa 1994, Williams 1996, and Cassam 2009). In short, while the worry emerging out of the 'skeptical paradox' view fails to adequately support meta-epistemological skepticism, Stroud’s dilemma succeeds. Fortunately, it doesn't show that we lack external world knowledge; we rather just can't explain, philosophically, how it's possible. We may have first-order knowledge without understanding how it's possible. This thesis therefore represents a partial defense of meta-epistemological skepticism. Meta-epistemological skepticism is a live option in epistemology. (shrink)

Philosophers of information, according to Luciano Floridi (The philosophy of information. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010, p 32), study how information should be “adequately created, processed, managed, and used.” A small number of epistemologists have employed the concept of information as a cornerstone of their theoretical framework. How this concept can be used to make sense of seemingly intractable epistemological problems, however, has not been widely explored. This paper examines Fred Dretske’s information-based epistemology, in particular his response to radical epistemological (...) skepticism. We discuss the relationship between information, evidence and knowledge in relation to the problem of skepticism and the options available to an information-based epistemology for dealing with it. (shrink)

It is claimed that the radical sceptical problem that is the focus of much of contemporary epistemological discussion in fact divides into two logically distinct subproblems --a formulation that turns on the closure principle, and a second formulation which turns on the underdetermination principle. The Wittgensteinian account of the structure of rational evaluation is set out, and it is shown how this proposal --at least when properly formulated--can deal with closure-based radical scepticism. It is also claimed, however, that this account (...) fails to gain any purchase on underdetermination-based radical scepticism. The antidote to this latter form of radical scepticism lies elsewhere--with, it is suggested, epistemological disjunctivism. (shrink)

On the assumption that we may learn from our elders and betters, this paper approaches some fundamental questions in perceptual epistemology through a dispute between McDowell and Wright about external world scepticism.

This chapter first surveys general issues in the epistemic internalism / externalism debate: what is the distinction, what motivates it, and what arguments can be given on both sides. -/- The second part of the chapter will examine the internalism / externalism debate as regards to the specific case of the epistemology of memory belief.

What does ordinary language philosophy contribute to the solution of the problems it diagnoses as violations of linguistic use? One of its biggest challenges has been to account for the epistemic asymmetry of mental states experienced by the subject of those states and the application of psychological properties to others. The epistemology of other minds appears far from resolved with reference to how sensation words are used in everyday language. In this paper, I revisit the Wittgensteinian arguments and show how (...) they engage the ordinary language method (in the modified form of grammatical investigation) to ‘dissolve’ the problem. Several important results are generated by way of this reconstruction. An expressive view of the vocabulary of sensation is defended which facilitates a discussion of sensation discourse emphasising the normative grammatical conditions for the communication of psychological states. This motivates a reassessment of criterial justification for the ascription of psychological concepts in the third person. In the final sections, I mobilise a normative approach to expose the moral relevance of the epistemology of other minds. Even if it is conceded that belief in other minds lacks warrant from an epistemological standpoint, this does not justify adopting the skeptical attitude from an ethical standpoint. In light of this, a normative justification for the a priori belief that others are subjects of consciousness is defended. (shrink)

We revisit an important exchange on the problem of radical skepticism between Richard Rorty and Michael Williams. In his contribution to this exchange, Rorty defended the kind of transcendental approach to radical skepticism that is offered by Donald Davidson, in contrast to Williams’s Wittgenstein-inspired view. It is argued that the key to evaluating this debate is to understand the particular conception of the radical skeptical problem that is offered in influential work by Barry Stroud, a conception of the skeptical problem (...) which generates metaepistemological ramifications for anti-skeptical theories. In particular, we argue that, contra Williams, Rorty’s view that Davidson was offering a theoretical diagnosis of radical skepticism can be consistently maintained with his transcendental approach. (shrink)