Luca Moretti, University of Aberdeen l.moretti@abdn.ac.uk Seemings and Epistemic Justification How Appearances Justify Beliefs 2 Acknowledgments Portions of this book draw on previous published work of mine. Some parts of §2 are based on 'Phenomenal conservatism', Analysis (2015) 75, 296-309. §3 uses material of 'Cognitive penetrability of perception and epistemic justification', Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2019), co-authored by Christos Georgakakis. §4 is a revised version of 'In defence of dogmatism', Philosophical Studies (2015) 172, 261-282. Some parts of §5 draw from 'Phenomenal conservatism and the problem of reflective awareness', American Philosophical Quarterly (2018) 55, 265-280 and 'Inferential seemings and the problem of reflective awareness', Canadian Journal of philosophy (2019) 49, 253-271. Various colleagues have commented on drafts or presentations of parts of this manuscript at various stages of their development. I would like to thank particularly: Michael Bergmann, Francesco Berto, Berit Brogaard, Peter Brössel, Daniel Burnston, Catrin Campbell-Moore, Adam Carter, Lorenzo Casini, Michel Croce, Richard Dawid, Dylan Dodd, Anna-Maria Eder, Filippo Ferrari, Christos Georgakakis, Stephan Hartmann, Christopher Kelp, Federico Luzzi, Alessia Marabini, Anna Mathani, Kevin McCain, Matthew McGrath, Samir Okasha, Orestis Palermos, Jim Pryor, Thomas Raleigh, Martin Smith, Karim Thebault, Chris Tucker, Filippo Vindrola, Crispin Wright, Elia Zardini and anonymous reviewers of American Philosophical Quarterly, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Philosophical Studies, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy and SpringerBrief. A special thanks to Tommaso Piazza for his invaluable feedback over the years about many of the theses defended in this work. Finally, I'm in debt with Christos Georgakakis and Alessia Marabini for proofreading the manuscript. I'm also grateful to the (no longer operative) Northern Institute of Philosophy of the University of Aberdeen, the Tilburg Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science, the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, the Eidyn Research Centre of the University of Edinburgh, and the Emmy Noether Research Group 'From Perception to Belief and Back to Perception' of the Ruhr University of 3 Bochum for hosting me and providing a stimulating atmosphere to conduct various stages of this investigation. The research leading to this book was supported by a Visiting Fellowship from the Tilburg Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science, two Visiting Fellowships from the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, a Carnegie Grant from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, a Supporting Grant from the University of Aberdeen, and a Visiting Fellowship from the Emmy Noether Research Group 'From Perception to Belief and Back to Perception' of the Ruhr University of Bochum. 4 Contents 1. Introduction 2. Phenomenal conservatism 2.1 Introduction 2.2 The basics of phenomenal conservatism 2.3 The nature of seemings 2.4 Supporting phenomenal conservatism 2.5 Preliminary criticism of phenomenal conservatism 2.6 Conclusions References 3. Cognitive penetrability 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Characterizing cognitive penetrability 3.3 The epistemic problem of cognitive penetrability 3.4 The reliabilist account 3.5 The inferentialist account 3.6 Taming cognitive penetrability 3.7 Conclusions References 4. The Bayesian objection 4.1 Introduction 4.2 White's objection 4.3 Responding to White's objection 4.4 Perceptual appearances and reflective justification 4.5 Conclusions References 5 5. Antiscepticism and easy justification 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Antiscepticism and reflective awareness 5.3 Easy justification objections 5.4 Answering the easy justification from closure objection 5.5 Answering the easy justification from bootstrapping objection 5.6 Conclusions References 6. Concluding remarks