I argue that the descriptions of perceptual experience offered by Kant and Merleau-Ponty are, contrary to what many commentators suppose, largely compatible. This is because the two are simply referring to different things when they talk about experience: Kant to empirical cognition and Merleau-Ponty to perception. Consequently, while Merleau-Ponty correctly denies that Kant accurately describes the conditions for the possibility of perception, Kant nevertheless provides a plausible account of the conditions of empirical judgment. Further, the two approach experience with different (...) standards of normativity: Kant with the standard of justification, but Merleau-Ponty with the standard of what he calls “motivation”. I exemplify this approach through an analysis of the Second Analogy of Experience. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to shed light on and develop what I call a phenomenological conception of experiential justification. According to this phenomenological conception, certain experiences gain their justificatory force from their distinctive phenomenology. Such an approach closely connects epistemology and philosophy of mind and has recently been proposed by several authors, most notably by Elijah Chudnoff, Ole Koksvik, and James Pryor. At the present time, however, there is no work that contrasts these different versions of PCEJ. This (...) paper not only bridges this gap, but also reveals problems in current versions of PCEJ. Consequently, I argue for a new version of PCEJ that focuses on what is given within experience and not on how what is given pushes me towards believing something. (shrink)