The Sellarsian dilemma is a powerful argument against internalistic foundationalist views that aim to end the regress of reasons in experiential states. Laurence BonJour once defended the soundness of this dilemma as part of a larger argument for epistemic coherentism. BonJour has now renounced his earlier conclusions about the dilemma and has offered an account of internalistic foundationalism aimed, in part, at showing the errors of his former ways. I contend that BonJour’s early concerns about the Sellarsian dilemma are correct, (...) and that his latest position does not adequately handle the dilemma. I focus my attention on BonJour’s claim that a nonconceptual experiential state can provide a subject with a reason to believe some proposition. It is crucial for the viability of internalistic foundationalism to evaluate whether this claim is true. I argue it is false. The requirement that the states that provide justification give reasons to a subject conflicts with the idea that these states are nonconceptual. In the final section I consider David Chalmers’s attempt to defend a view closely similar to BonJour’s. Chalmers’s useful theory of phenomenal concepts provides a helpful framework for identifying a crucial problem with attempts to end the regress of reasons in pure experiential states. (shrink)

BonJour affirme qu’il a trouvé un moyen de sortir du dilemme sellarsien de la justification non-doxastique. Dans cet article, je soutiens trois thèses afin de montrer que sa solution alléguée échoue. Tout d’abord, il y a deux exigences pour qu’une raison soit bonne, et la notion de prise de conscience non-conceptuelle de l’expérience sensorielle développée par BonJour donne lieu à un dilemme sérieux en ce qui concerne ces exigences. Deuxièmement, il tire son idée de la soi-disant «prise de conscience constitutive (...) du contenu» de sa conception de la croyance consciente et occurrente. Mais cette conception conduit à un dilemme analogue à l’égard de ces exigences. Troisièmement, son explication se heurte au problème de la représentation. (shrink)

Internalism about epistemic justification (henceforth, ‘internalism’) says that a belief B is epistemically justified for S only if S is aware of some good-making feature of B, some feature that makes for B’s having positive epistemic status: e.g., evidence for B. Externalists with respect to epistemic justification (‘externalists’) deny this awareness requirement. Michael Bergmann has recently put this dilemma against internalism: awareness admits of a strong and a weak construal; given the strong construal, internalism is subject to debilitating regress troubles; (...) given the weak construal, internalism is unmotivated; either way, internalism is in serious trouble. I argue for two claims in this article. First, Bergmann’s dilemma argument is unmotivated: he’s given no good reason for accepting one of its crucial premises. And second, Bergmann’s dilemma argument is unsound: the crucial premise in question is false. (shrink)