What are the consequences of evolutionary theory for the epistemic standing of our beliefs? Evolutionary considerations can be used to either justify or debunk a variety of beliefs. This paper argues that evolutionary approaches to human cognition must at least allow for approximately reliable cognitive capacities. Approaches that portray human cognition as so deeply biased and deficient that no knowledge is possible are internally incoherent and self-defeating. As evolutionary theory offers the current best hope for a naturalistic epistemology, evolutionary approaches (...) to epistemic justification seem to be committed to the view that our sensory systems and belief-formation processes are at least approximately accurate. However, for that reason they are vulnerable to the charge of circularity, and their success seems to be limited to commonsense beliefs. This paper offers an extension of evolutionary arguments by considering the use of external media in human cognitive processes: we suggest that the way humans supplement their evolved cognitive capacities with external tools may provide an effective way to increase the reliability of their beliefs and to counter evolved cognitive biases. (shrink)

This article considers natural signs and their role in the origin of language. Natural signs, sometimes called primary signs, are connected with their signified by causal relationships, concomitance, or likeliness. And their acquisition is directed by both objective reality and past experience (memory). The discovery and use of natural signs is a required prerequisite of existence for any living systems because they are indispensable to movement, the search for food, regulation, communication, and many other information-related activities. It is argued that (...) the birth of conventional signs, sometimes called secondary signs, was determined by a connotative use of natural signs and that, regulated and maintained by them, human language developed. At the same time, the origin and development of human language presupposes a ‘rational turn’ from the given and external reality of natural signs to the rationally constructed reality of artificial signs and rules that are internally maintained by the subjects’ deliberate activities, and actual and inherited social tradition (social memory). In view of this, language is defined as a dynamic system that must both be natural and artificial, empirical and a priori, inductive and deductive. This bilateral origin and regulation of language is the dual-inference of language. (shrink)

Perception provides us with access to the external world, but that access is shaped by our own experiential histories. Through perceptual learning, we can enhance our capacities for perceptual discrimination, categorization, and attention to salient properties. We can also encode harmful biases and stereotypes. This article reviews interdisciplinary research on perceptual learning, with an emphasis on the implications for our rational and normative theorizing. Perceptual learning raises the possibility that our inquiries into topics such as epistemic justification, aesthetic criticism, and (...) moral knowledge should include not only an examination of cognition but also of perception. (shrink)

Whether evil provides evidence against the existence of God, and to what degree, depends on how things seem to the subject—i.e., on one’s perspective. I explain three ways in which adopting an atheistic perspective can increase support for atheism via considerations of evil. The first is by intensifying the common sense problem of evil by making evil seem gratuitous or intrinsically wrong to allow. The second is by diminishing the apparent fit between theism and our observations of evil. The third (...) is by lowering the initial plausibility of theism. I call this “the perspectival problem of evil” and argue that skeptical theism does not fully address it. (shrink)

The case of very young children is a test case for the plausibility of reductionism about testimonial warrant. Reductionism requires reductive reasons, reductively justified and actively deployed for testimonial justification. Though nascent language-users enjoy warranted testimony based beliefs, they do not meet these three reductionist demands. This paper clearly formulates reductionism and the infant/child objection. Two rejoinders are discussed: an influential conceptual argument from Jennifer Lackey’s paper “Testimony and the Infant/Child Objection” and the growing empirical evidence from developmental psychology on (...) selective trust in children. Neither Lackey’s argument nor the empirical evidence vindicate reductionism. (shrink)

Disagreement is common: even informed, intelligent, and generally reasonable people often come to different conclusions when confronted with what seems to be the same evidence. Can the competing conclusions be reasonable? If not, what can we reasonably think about the situation? This volume examines the epistemology of disagreement. Philosophical questions about disagreement arise in various areas, notably politics, ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophy of religion: but this will be the first book focusing on the general epistemic issues arising from informed (...) disagreement. Ten leading philosophers offer specially written essays which together will offer a starting-point for future work on this topic. (shrink)

The question I wish to explore is this: Does idealism conflict with common sense? Unfortunately, the answer I give may seem like a rather banal one: It depends. What do we mean by ‘idealism’ and ‘common sense?’ I distinguish three main varieties of idealism: absolute idealism, Berkeleyan idealism, and dualistic idealism. After clarifying what is meant by common sense, I consider whether our three idealisms run afoul of it. The first does, but the latter two don’t. I conclude that while (...) Moore’s famous common sense critique is sound against external world skepticism, against Berkeleyan idealism and dualist idealism it is unavailing. (shrink)

These few pages will attempt to analyze the relationships created in the chronically delirious person between himself and his own biography, such as he knows and has experienced it, to which he attaches himself and which dominates him without his knowing it. A few remarks to clarify our vocabulary before getting into the development of this question. We prefer the expression “chronic deliria“, in the plural, to the word “psychosis”, used in the singular. The former term is clinical, and therefore (...) empirical, whereas the second derives from theories; and, especially, the former does not immediately imply a unity of process as opposed to the effective diversity of semiotic appearances. Moreover, the nominal adjective “psychotic“ runs the risk of both clandestinely bringing in hidden presuppositions and of re-establishing the old presumed unity with mental alienation, which had, indeed, been exorcised by J. P. Falret by the middle of the nineteenth century. (shrink)

Open-minded people should endorse dogmatism because of its explanatory power. Dogmatism holds that, in the absence of defeaters, a seeming that P necessarily provides non-inferential justification for P. I show that dogmatism provides an intuitive explanation of four issues concerning non-inferential justification. It is particularly impressive that dogmatism can explain these issues because prominent epistemologists have argued that it can’t address at least two of them. Prominent epistemologists also object that dogmatism is absurdly permissive because it allows a seeming to (...) provide justification even if the seeming was caused in some apparently inappropriate way. I conclude by disarming this objection. (shrink)

Moral disagreement has long been thought to create serious problems for certain views in metaethics. More specifically, moral disagreement has been thought to pose problems for any metaethical view that rejects relativism—that is, for any view that implies that whenever two thinkers disagree about a moral question, at least one of those thinkers’ beliefs about the question is not correct. In this essay, I shall outline a solution to one of these problems. As I shall argue, it turns out in (...) the end that this problem is not really a special problem about moral disagreement at all: it is a general problem about disagreement as such. For this reason, in the later sections of this essay, I shall turn to some general questions in epistemology, about the epistemic significance of disagreement. (shrink)

This chapter states the contrast between presumptivism about testimonial warrant (often called anti-reductionism) and strict reductionism (associated with Hume) about testimonial warrant. Presumptivism sees an analogy with modest foundationalism about perceptual warrant. Strict reductionism denies this analogy. Two theoretical frameworks for these positions are introduced to better formulate the most popular version of persumptivism, a competence reliabilist account. Seven arguments against presumptivism are then stated and critiqued: (1) The argument from reliability; (2) The argument from reasons; (3) the argument from (...) positive reasons; (4) the argument from negative reasons; (5) the argument from agency; (6) the argument from psychological force; and (7) the argument from gullibility. If presumptivm is false, it is not for any of these arguments. (shrink)

‘How, then, she had asked herself, did one know one thing or another thing about people, sealed as they were?’ So asks Lily Briscoe in To the Lighthouse. It is this question, rather than any concern about pretence or deception, which forms the basis for the philosophical problem of other minds. Responses to this problem have tended to cluster around two solutions: either we know others’ minds through perception; or we know others’ minds through a form of inference. In the (...) first part of this paper I argue that this debate is best understood as concerning the question of whether our knowledge of others’ minds is based on perception or based on evidence. In the second part of the paper I suggest that our ordinary ways of thinking take our knowledge of others’ minds to be both non- evidential and non-perceptual. A satisfactory resolution to the philosophical problem of other minds thus requires us to take seriously the idea that we have a way of knowing about others’ minds which is both non-evidential and non-perceptual. I suggest that our knowledge of others’ minds which is based on their expressions – our expressive knowledge - may fit this bill. (shrink)

An enduring puzzle in philosophy and developmental psychology is how young children acquire number concepts, in particular the concept of natural number. Most solutions to this problem conceptualize young learners as lone mathematicians who individually reconstruct the successor function and other sophisticated mathematical ideas. In this chapter, I argue for a crucial role of testimony in children’s acquisition of number concepts, both in the transfer of propositional knowledge (e.g., the cardinality concept), and in knowledge-how (e.g., the counting routine).

Moderate scientism is the view that empirical science can help answer questions in nonscientific disciplines. In this paper, we evaluate moderate scientism in philosophy. We review several ways that science has contributed to research in epistemology, action theory, ethics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. We also review several ways that science has contributed to our understanding of how philosophers make judgments and decisions. Based on this research, we conclude that the case for moderate philosophical scientism is strong: scientific (...) practice has promoted significant progress in philosophy and its further development should be welcomed and encouraged. (shrink)

Language is a human universal reflecting our deeply social nature. Among its essential functions, language enables us to quickly and efficiently share information. We tell each other that many things are true—that is, we routinely make assertions. Information shared this way plays a critical role in the decisions and plans we make. In Knowledge and the Norm of Assertion, a distinguished philosopher and cognitive scientist investigates the rules or norms that structure our social practice of assertion. Combining evidence from philosophy, (...) psychology, and biology, John Turri shows that knowledge is the central norm of assertion and explains why knowledge plays this role. -/- Concise, comprehensive, non-technical, and thoroughly accessible, this volume quickly brings readers to the cutting edge of a major research program at the intersection of philosophy and science. It presupposes no philosophical or scientific training. It will be of interest to philosophers and scientists, is suitable for use in graduate and undergraduate courses, and will appeal to general readers interested in human nature, social cognition, and communication. (shrink)

There is no denying the difficulty of expressing in words the meanings behind complex emotions. If they cannot be conveyed because they are personal and private, then how are they conveyed when they are neither entirely private nor personal, as in the case of generalized emotions, or the rasa experience? In Ānandavardhana’s Dhvanyāloka, we find a theory of suggestion (dhvani) which can be expanded beyond poetics to account for the evocative nature of emotion outside of all other modes of expression. (...) The result of dhvani in art experiences is the manifestation of aestheticized emotions (rasadhvani). When language serves art, it neither negates nor dispenses with linguistic apprehension. Rather, it delivers more than language can: the ineffable essence of the subject who experiences love, compassion, grief, the comic, and more, including quietude. I argue the question of the sentient subject is conveyed all the better in aesthetic suggestion, precisely because whether or not an artistic construction makes use of linguistic devices, the arts, whether they be theater, dance, or poetry, defies the confines of language. The ineffable subject is made tangible, in ordinary as well as extraordinary ways. (shrink)

Both Reid and Berkeley reject ‘representationalism’, an epistemological position whereby we perceive things in the world indirectly via ideas in our mind, on the grounds of anti-scepticism and common sense. My aim in this paper is to draw out the similarities between Reid and Berkeley's ‘anti-representationalist’ arguments, whilst also identifying the root of their disagreements on certain fundamental metaphysical issues. Reid famously rejects Berkeley's idealism, in which all that exists are ideas and minds, because it undermines the dictates of common (...) sense. Reid also charges Berkeley with not only accepting but furthering the progress of ‘the Way of Ideas’, a longstanding tradition which has drawn philosophy away from true science and common sense. From Berkeley's perspective, Reid is a ‘materialist’; that is, he dogmatically accepts that mind-independent things exist. I argue that these important differences can be explained by both thinkers’ construal of certain ‘philosophical prejudices’. Finally, I conclude that despite these differences, both ought to be characterised as ‘anti-representationalists’ in light of their shared epistemological concerns. (shrink)

When one contrasts pain with the classic five senses, discussions generally focus on vision, which is taken as the paradigmatic example of perception. An intentionalist might argue that if the phenomenal difference between feeling and seeing bodily disturbances cannot be explained at the level of the content, it can be so at the level of the mode of presentation, and more particularly at the level of the structure of the spatial phenomenology of pain. Here I will argue that the spatial (...) phenomenology of pain shares some key features with touch by contrast to sight, but these similarities should not make us neglect major differences between these two types of bodily sensations. I shall then draw the consequences of these differences for the awareness of one’s body as one’s own. In brief, to fix the boundaries of the body that one experiences as one’s own, one must answer two questions: where does the body stop, and the rest of world start? and what matters for self-preservation? I will suggest that touch primarily answers the first question, whereas pain primarily answers the second question. (shrink)

When we look at a tree, two images of it are formed, one on each of our retinas. Why, then, asks the child or the philosopher, do we not see two trees?1 Thomas Reid offers an answer to this question in the section of his Inquiry into the Human Mind entitled ‘Of seeing objects single with two eyes’. The principles he invokes in his answer serve at the same time to explain why we do occasionally see objects double. In Part (...) I of this essay, I examine the principles Reid uses to explain single and double vision. This part is mostly an exercise in the history of cognitive science, but it raises questions of interest to philosophers along the way. In Part II, I turn to a hard-core philosophical problem raised by double vision, namely, whether double vision constitutes an objection to the direct realist theory of perception, which was one of Reid's main philosophical purposes to promote. (shrink)

This paper argues that reading is a source of knowledge. Epistemologists have virtually ignored reading as a source of knowledge. This paper argues, first, that reading is not to be equated with attending to testimony, and second that it cannot be reduced to perception. Next an analysis of reading is offered and the source of knowledge that reading is further delineated. Finally it is argued that the source that reading is, can be both transmissive and generative, is non-basic, once was (...) a non-essential but has become essential for many people, and can be unique. (shrink)

Radical skepticism is the view that we know nothing or at least next to nothing. Nearly no one actually believes that skepticism is true. Yet it has remained a serious topic of discussion for millennia and it looms large in popular culture. What explains its persistent and widespread appeal? How does the skeptic get us to doubt what we ordinarily take ourselves to know? I present evidence from two experiments that classic skeptical arguments gain potency from an interaction between two (...) factors. First, people evaluate inferential belief more harshly than perceptual belief. Second, people evaluate inferential belief more harshly when its content is negative (i.e., that something is not the case) than when it is positive (i.e., that something is the case). It just so happens that potent skeptical arguments tend to focus our attention on negative inferential beliefs, and we are especially prone to doubt that such beliefs count as knowledge. That is, our cognitive evaluations are biased against this specific combination of source and content. The skeptic sows seeds of doubt by exploiting this feature of our psychology. (shrink)

Thomas Reid distinguished between natural and artificial language and argued that natural language has a very specific sort of priority over artificial language. This paper critically interprets Reid's discussion, extracts a Reidian explanatory argument for the priority of natural language, and places Reid's thought in the broad tradition of Cartesian linguistics.

This paper applies speech-act theory to craft a new response to Pyrrhonian skepticism and diagnose its appeal. Carefully distinguishing between different levels of language-use and noting their interrelations can help us identify a subtle mistake in a key Pyrrhonian argument.

I respond to John Greco’s argument that all forms of internalism in epistemology are either false or uninteresting. The paper divides into two sections. First, I explain precisely what internalists and externalists in epistemology disagree over. This puts us in a position to assess whether Greco’s argument succeeds. Second, I present Greco’s argument and offer two objections.

Centuries ago, Descartes and Locke initiated a foundational debate in epistemology over the relationship between knowledge, on the one hand, and practical factors, on the other. Descartes claimed that knowledge and practice are fundamentally separate. Locke claimed that knowledge and practice are fundamentally united. After a period of dormancy, their disagreement has reignited on the contemporary scene. Latter-day Lockeans claim that knowledge itself is essentially connected to, and perhaps even constituted by, practical factors such as how much is at stake, (...) how important the situation is, or how one should act. Latter-day Cartesians claim, by contrast, that knowledge is entirely constituted by truth-related factors such as truth, belief, and evidence. Each side has supported its case with claims about patterns in ordinary behavior and knowledge judgments. Lockeans argue that these patterns are best explained by positing a fundamental and direct link between knowledge and practical factors. Cartesians argue that the patterns can be equally well explained by positing an indirect link, entirely mediated by the traditional factors of truth, belief, and evidence, thereby rendering the Lockean hypothesis unnecessary. We argue that Cartesians are right about some practical factors, in particular stakes and how important a situation is, which have, at best, a modest indirect relationship to knowledge. However, Lockeans are right about actionability: whether a person should pursue a course of action is unquestionably very powerfully and directly connected to knowledge. (shrink)

Phenomenal character is determined by representational content, which both hallucinatory and veridical experiences can share. But in the case of veridical experience, unlike hallucination, the external objects of experience literally have the properties one is aware of in experience. The representationalist can accept the common factor assumption without having to introduce sensory intermediaries between the mind and the world, thus securing a form of direct realism.

The main purpose of this article is to consider the significance of different types of memory and non-genetic inheritance and different biosemiotic systems for the origin and evolution of language. It presents language and memory as distributed, heteronomous and system-determined processes implemented in biological and social domains. The article emphasises that language and other sign systems are both ecological and inductive systems that were caused by and always correlate with the environment and deductive systems that are inherited by and depend (...) on the internal development of organisms, individuals, and societies. The article also claims that the origin, re-occurrence and evolution of naturally-emerging sign systems presuppose their retention and accumulation in physical, biological, individual, and social types of memory and reinforcement and maintenance by conventional and deliberate social regulation and accumulation. All of this allows language and other sign systems to be situation-relevant and to be transmitted through generations without their constant reinvention. The novelty of the proposed theory of language origin and evolution is in interdisciplinary integration of biosemiotic studies, systems approaches to language and studies of inheritance systems presented by ‘Extended evolutionary synthesis’. (shrink)

It is now generally accepted that human beings are naturally, possibly even essentially, intersubjective. This chapter offers a robust defence of an enhanced and extended intersubjectivity, criticising the paucity of individuating notions of agency and emphasising the community and reciprocity of our affective co-existence with other living organisms and things. I refer to this modified intersubjectivity, which most closely expresses the implicit intricacy of our pre-reflective neuro-muscular experiential entanglement, as ‘enkinaesthesia’. The community and reciprocity of this entanglement is characterised as (...) dialogical, and in this dialogue, as part of our anticipatory preparedness, we have a capacity for intentional transgression, feeling our way with our world but, more particularly, co-feeling our way with the mind and intentions of the other. Thus we are, not so much ‘mind’-reading, as ‘mind’-feeling, and it is through this enkinaesthetic ‘mind’-feeling dialogue that values-realising activity originates and we uncover the deep roots of morality. (shrink)

In the perceptual model of mystical experience, the mystics are said to “perceive” God much like ordinary people perceive physical objects. The model has been used to defend the epistemic value of mysticism, and it has been championed most vigorously by William Alston in his work Perceiving God. This paper is a critique of the model from a phenomenological perspective. Utilizing insights from Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, I show that models like Alston’s are based on an inadequate notion of perception, which (...) fails to distinguish perception from other modes of intentionality; the result is that even if we assume the mystics have directly experienced God, it is not clear why we should say they have “perceived” God. Then, using a better and richer concept of perception, I show that the mystical experiences under discussion cannot be truly perceptual, because they lack some salient features of perception. The conclusion is that talks of “perceiving God” can only be analogical or metaphorical, but not literal. (shrink)

The Scottish moral philosopher Adam Ferguson (1723–1816) is recognized as one of the founding fathers of sociology and social science more generally. This article examines his early ruminations on what has come to be seen as one of the most pressing methodological concerns for social science: the problem of ethnocentrism. The article explores Ferguson’s attempts to deal with this problem and his attempt to plot the relationship between empirical research, theory formation and normative moral judgement. It argues that Ferguson was (...) well aware of the danger of cultural bias and that his understanding of moral science is marked by a concern that empirical and normative judgements are freed from the danger of bias. (shrink)

One popular view in recent years takes the source of testimonial entitlement to reside in the intrinsically social character of testimonial exchanges. This paper looks at two extant incarnations of this view, what we dub ‘weak’ and ‘modest’ social anti-reductionism, and questions the rationales behind their central claims. Furthermore, we put forth an alternative, strong social anti-reductionist account, and show how it does better than the competition on both theoretical and empirical grounds.

This article intends to show that the defense of “understanding” as one of the major goals of science education can be grounded on an anti-reductionist perspective on testimony as a source of knowledge. To do so, we critically revisit the discussion between Harvey Siegel and Alvin Goldman about the goals of science education, especially where it involves arguments based on the epistemology of testimony. Subsequently, we come back to a discussion between Charbel N. El-Hani and Eduardo Mortimer, on the one (...) hand, and Michael Hoffmann, on the other, striving to strengthen the claim that rather than students’ belief change, understanding should have epistemic priority as a goal of science education. Based on these two lines of discussion, we conclude that the reliance on testimony as a source of knowledge is necessary to the development of a more large and comprehensive scientific understanding by science students. (shrink)

This paper compares and contrasts Mencius's moral philosophy with recent development in cognitive science regarding mental capacity to understand moral rules and principles. Several cognitive scientists argue that the human mind has innate cognitive and emotive foundations of morality. In this paper, Mencius's moral theory is interpreted from the perspective of faculty psychology and cognitive modularity, a theoretical hypothesis in cognitive science in which the mind is understood as a system of specialized mental components. Specifically, Mencius's Four Beginnings (the basic (...) human emotions that serve as the foundations of morality) are interpreted as vertical faculties, comparable to Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid's moral faculties. (shrink)

(2005). Wonder in the face of scientific revolutions: Adam Smith on Newton's ‘Proof’ of Copernicanism. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 697-732. doi: 10.1080/09608780500293042.

This paper proposes a novel account of the contents of memory. By drawing on insights from the philosophy of perception, I propose a hybrid account of the contents of memory designed to preserve important aspects of representationalist and relationalist views. The hybrid view I propose also contributes to two ongoing debates in philosophy of memory. First, I argue that, in opposition to eternalist views, the hybrid view offers a less metaphysically-charged solution to the co-temporality problem. Second, I show how the (...) hybrid view conceives of the relationship between episodic memory and other forms of episodic thinking. I conclude by considering some disanalogies between perception and memory and by replying to objections. I argue that, despite there being important differences between memory and perception, those differences do not harm my project. (shrink)

The idea that episodic memory is a form of mental time travel has played an important role in the development of memory research in the last couple decades. Despite its growing importance in psychology, philosophers have only begun to develop an interest in philosophical questions pertaining to the relationship between memory and mental time travel. Thus, this paper proposes a more systematic discussion of the relationship between memory and mental time travel from the point of view of philosophy. I start (...) by discussing some of the motivations to take memory to be a form of mental time travel. I call the resulting view of memory the mental time travel view. I then proceed to consider important philosophical questions pertaining to memory and develop them in the context of the mental time travel view. I conclude by suggesting that the intersection of the philosophy of memory and research on mental time travel not only provides new perspectives to think about traditional philosophical questions, but also new questions that have not been explored before. (shrink)

This article is a discussion of Hume's maxim Nothing we imagine is absolutely impossible. First I explain this maxim and distinguish it from the principle Whatever cannot be imagined (conceived), is impossible. Next I argue that Thomas Reid's criticism of the maxim fails and that the arguments by Tamar Szábo Gendler and John Hawthorne for the claim that “it is uncontroversial that there are cases where we are misled” by the maxim are unconvincing. Finally I state the limited but real (...) value of the maxim: it does help us, in certain cases, reliably to make up our minds. Along the way I show that Reid, his criticism of the maxim notwithstanding, actually employs it, and I furthermore argue that the principle What is inconceivable, is impossible is spurious. (shrink)

The 18th-century Scottish ‘common sense’ philosopher Thomas Reid argued that perception can be distinguished on several dimensions from other categories of experience, such as sensation, illusion, hallucination, mental images, and what he called ‘fancy.’ We extend his approach to eleven mental categories, and discuss how these distinctions, often ignored in the empirical literature, bear on current research. We also score each category on five properties (ones abstracted from Reid) to form a 5 × 11 matrix, and thus can generate statistical (...) measures of their mutual dependencies, a procedure that may have general interest as illustrating what we can call ‘computational philosophy.’. (shrink)

We are ignorant knowers. This paper proposes an information theoretic explanation of that fact. The explanation is a conjunction of three claims. First, that even in those dimensions where we are capable of picking up information, there is information that we don’t pick up. Second, that there can be dimensions of information for which we lack the capacity to pick up any information whatsoever. Third, that we don’t know whether the faculties and cognitive capacities we are endowed with process all (...) the information that they pick up. (shrink)

According to a classic but nowadays discarded philosophical theory, perceptual experience is a complex of nonconceptual sensory states and full-blown propositional beliefs. This classical dual-component theory of experience is often taken to be obsolete. In particular, there seem to be cases in which perceptual experience and belief conflict: cases of known illusions, wherein subjects have beliefs contrary to the contents of their experiences. Modern dual-component theories reject the belief requirement and instead hold that perceptual experience is a complex of nonconceptual (...) sensory states and some other sort of conceptual state. The most popular modern dual-component theory appeals to sui generis propositional attitudes called ‘perceptual seemings’. This article argues that the classical dual-component theory has the resources to explain known illusions without giving up the claim that the conceptual components of experience are beliefs. The classical dual-component view, though often viewed as outdated and implausible, should be regarded as a serious contender in contemporary debates about the nature of perceptual experience. (shrink)

In "The History of Sexuality", Foucault maintains that "Western man has become a confessing animal" (1990, 59), thus implying that "man" was not always such a creature. On a related point, Wittgenstein suggests that "man is a ceremonial animal" (1996, 67); here the suggestion is that human beings are, by their very nature, ritualistically inclined. In this paper I examine this crucial difference in emphasis, first by reconstructing Foucault's "genealogy" of confession, and subsequently by exploring relevant facets of Wittgenstein's later (...) thinking. While there are significant correlations between Foucault and Wittgenstein, an important disparity emerges in relation to the question of the "natural." By critically analyzing this, I show how Wittgenstein's minimal naturalism provides an important corrective to Foucault's more extravagant claims. By implication, we see why any radical relativist, historicist, and/or constructivist position becomes untenable on Wittgensteinian grounds, even though Wittgenstein himself is often read as promoting such views. (shrink)

Abstract At stake in the dispute between Campbell and Hume is the basis for our acceptance of testimony. Campbell argues that, contrary to Hume, our acceptance of testimony is prior to experience, while Hume continues to maintain that the appropriation through testimony of the experience of others depends ultimately on one's own experience. I argue that Hume's remarks about testimony provide a non-circular account of the process by which the experience of others may become one's own; and I suggest that (...) the view of Campbell and Hume as proponents of two radically opposed positions on the epistemology of testimony represents a considerable over-simplification. (shrink)