379 research outputs found
The Basis-Access Dilemma for Epistemological Disjunctivism
Epistemological disjunctivists such as Duncan Pritchard claim that in paradigmatic cases of knowledge the rational support for the known propositions is both factive and reflectively accessible. This position faces some problems, including the basis problem â how can our knowledge be based on such strong reasons that seem to leave no room for non-knowledge and therefore presuppose knowledge? â and the access problem â can disjunctivists avoid the implausible claim that we can achieve knowledge through inference from our introspective awareness of those reasons? I argue that disjunctivists cannot solve both of these problems at the same time by posing the dilemma question whether we can have factive and reflectively accessible reasons without knowledge. While I focus on Pritchard throughout most of the paper, I argue in the last section that other anti-skeptical versions of disjunctivism face the same dilemma
Epistemological Disjunctivism and the Internalist Challenge
The paper highlights how a popular version of epistemological disjunctivism labors under a kind of 'internalist challenge'âa challenge that seems to have gone largely unacknowledged by disjunctivists. This is the challenge to vindicate the supposed 'internalist insight' that disjunctivists claim their view does well to protect. The paper argues that if we advance disjunctivism within a context that recognizes a distinction between merely functional and judgmental belief, we get a view that easily overcomes the internalist challenge
Neither/Nor
Abstract: On one formulation, epistemological disjunctivism is the view that our perceptual beliefs constitute knowledge when they are based on reasons that provide them with factive support. Some would argue that it is impossible to understand how perceptual knowledge is possible unless we assume that we have such reasons to support our perceptual beliefs. Some would argue that it is impossible to understand how perceptual experience could furnish us with these reasons unless we assume that the traditional view of experience is mistaken. For reasons explained here, I think that the epistemological argument for metaphysical disjunctivism rests on mistaken assumptions about reasons and their rational role. Neither disjunctivist view is needed to understand how perceptual knowledge is possible
A Plea for the Theist in the Street
It can be easy to assume that since the âtheist in the streetâ is unaware of any of the traditional arguments for theism, he or she is not in position to offer independent rational support for believing that God exists. I argue that that is false if we accept with William Alston that âmanifestation beliefsâ can enjoy rational support on the basis of suitable religious experiences. I make my case by defending the viability of a Moorean-style proof for theismâa proof for the existence of God that parallels in structure G. E. Mooreâs famous proof for the existence of the external world. I argue that this shows that even if the theist in the street has nothing to offer for helping to convince the religious sceptic, this neednât entail that she cannot offer independent rational support in defense of her theistic belief
The bifurcated conception of perceptual knowledge: a new solution to the basis problem for epistemological disjunctivism
Epistemological disjunctivism says that one can know that p on the rational basis of oneâs seeing that p. The basis problem for disjunctivism says that that canât be since seeing that p entails knowing that p on account of simply being the way in which one knows that p. In defense of their view disjunctivists have rejected the idea that seeing that p is just a way of knowing that p (the SwK thesis). That manoeuvre is familiar. In this paper I explore the prospects for rejecting instead the thought that if the SwK thesis is true then seeing that p canât be oneâs rational basis for perceptual knowledge. I explore two strategies. The first situates disjunctivism within the context of a âknowledge-firstâ approach that seeks to reverse the traditional understanding of the relationship between perceptual knowledge and justification (or rational support). But I argue that a more interesting strategy situates disjunctivism within a context that accepts a more nuanced understanding of perceptual beliefs. The proposal that I introduce reimagines disjunctivism in light of a bifurcated conception of perceptual knowledge that would see it cleaved along two dimensions. On the picture that results perceptual knowledge at the judgemental level is rationally supported by perceptual knowledge at the merely functional or âanimalâ level. This supports a form of disjunctivism that I think is currently off the radar: one thatâs consistent both with the SwK thesis and a commitment to a traditional reductive account of perceptual knowledge
Perceptual Knowledge, Discrimination, and Closure
Carter and Pritchard (2016) and Pritchard (2010, 2012, 2016) have tried to reconcile the intuition that perceptual knowledge requires only limited discriminatory abilities with the closure principle. To this end, they have introduced two theoretical innovations: a contrast between two ways of introducing error-possibilities and a distinction between discriminating and favoring evidence. I argue that their solution faces the âsufficiency problemâ: it is unclear whether the evidence that is normally available to adult humans is sufficient to retain knowledge of the entailing proposition and come to know the entailed proposition. I submit that, on either infallibilist or fallibilist views of evidence, Carter and Pritchard have set the bar for deductive knowledge too low. At the end, I offer an alternative solution. I suggest that the knowledge-retention condition of the closure principle is not satisfied in zebra-like scenarios
A representationalist reading of Kantian intuitions
There are passages in Kantâs writings according to which empirical intuitions have to be (a) singular, (b) object-dependent, and (c) immediate. It has also been argued that empirical intuitions (d) are not truth-apt, and (e) need to provide the subject with a proof of the possibility of the cognized object. Having relied on one or another of the a-e constraints, the naĂŻve realist readers of Kant have argued that it is not possible for empirical intuitions to be representations. Instead they have argued for a relationalist reading of empirical intuitions in terms of an acquaintance relation between the subject and the intuited object.
For the sake of argument, I will grant the naĂŻve realist reader of Kant that empirical intuitions should satisfy all the a-e constraints. Nevertheless, by incorporating these constraints, one by one, into a representationalist theory of empirical intuitions, I will show that not only doesnât a naĂŻve realist reading of empirical intuitions follow, but also that the naĂŻve realist has hastily overlooked a range of perfectly representationalist readings of intuitions available to Kant and his representationalist allies. On the positive side, I will argue that there is an extra constraint on intuitionsâi.e., that givenness does not require presence to consciousnessâthat directly goes against any naĂŻve realist account of intuitions
Reflective Access, Closure, and Epistemological Disjunctivism
In this paper, I consider the so-called Access Problem for Duncan Pritchardâs
Epistemological Disjunctivism (2012). After reconstructing Pritchardâs own response to
the Access Problem, I argue that in order to assess whether Pritchardâs response is a
satisfying one, we first need an account of the notion of âReflective Accessâ that underpins
Pritchardâs Epistemological Disjunctivism. I provide three interpretations of the notion of
Reflective Access: a metaphysical interpretation, a folk interpretation, and an epistemic
interpretation. I argue that none of these three interpretations comes without problems. I
conclude that, until we have a clear and unproblematic account of Reflective Access, the
Access Problem remains a challenge for Pritchardâs Epistemological Disjunctivism
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