Perceptual noise and the bell curve objection

Analysis 83 (3):429-436 (2023)
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Abstract

Perceptual experience supports the assignment of confidences in belief – doxastic confidences. To explain this fact, many philosophers appeal to Perceptual Indeterminacy, which holds that perceptual content can be more or less determinate. Others instead appeal to Perceptual Confidence, which says that perceptual experience supports doxastic confidences because it assigns confidences too. Morrison argues that a primary reason to favour Perceptual Confidence is that it is uniquely capable of accounting for bell-shaped doxastic confidence distributions; we call this the bell curve objection to Perceptual Indeterminacy. Here we show that two recent defences of Perceptual Indeterminacy, due to Nanay and Raleigh and Vindrola, fail to adequately address the bell curve objection. But we also argue that all is not lost for proponents of Perceptual Indeterminacy. They can counter the bell curve objection by embracing a third view, which we call Perceptual Noise.

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Jacob Beck
York University

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References found in this work

Attention and perceptual content.Bence Nanay - 2010 - Analysis 70 (2):263-270.
Perceptual Confidence.John Morrison - 2016 - Analytic Philosophy 57 (1):15-48.
A Layered View of Shape Perception.E. J. Green - 2017 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 68 (2).

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