According to phenomenal conservatism or dogmatism, perceptual experiences can give us immediate justification for beliefs about the external world in virtue of having a distinctive kind of phenomenal character—namely phenomenal force. I present three cases to show that phenomenal force is neither pervasive among nor exclusive to perceptual experiences. The plausibility of such cases calls out for explanation. I argue that contrary to a long-held assumption, phenomenal force is a separate, non-perceptual state generated by some metacognitive mechanisms that monitor one’s (...) first-order mental processes and states. This new account advances our understanding of the nature of phenomenal force. (shrink)

When we see objects blurrily, in the periphery, or in dim light, we often experience their features unclearly. This paper argues that perceptual clarity is a dimension along which experiences vary, distinct from their distal contents. Drawing on models in perception science, the paper accounts for clarity by using the probabilistic notion of precision. The account’s first part is ecumenical: it says that experiences carry information about the precision of the representations from which each distal content of experience was selected (...) and that this precision information accounts for perceptual clarity. The account’s second part entails that experiences carry the relevant precision information in the manner in which their distal contents are represented. The precision account of clarity is shown to conform to common intuitions about experiences’ contents and accuracy conditions. And it is used to illustrate how experiences could assign probability distributions over distal possibilities, even while experiences’ contents are non-probabilistic. (shrink)

1. Sometimes perceptual experience is crystal clear, as when one inspects an object close-up in bright light with corrective lenses. But experience can be less clear. To illustrate how experiences...

According to the recent Perceptual Confidence view, perceptual experiences possess not only a representational content, but also a degree of confidence in that content. The motivations for this view are partly phenomenological and partly epistemic. We discuss both the phenomenological and epistemic motivations for the view, and the resulting account of the interface between perceptual experiences and degrees of belief. We conclude that, in their present state of development, orthodox accounts of perceptual experience are still to be favoured over the (...) perceptual confidence view. (shrink)

Perceptual Confidence is the view that our conscious perceptual experiences assign confidence. In previous papers, I motivated it using first-personal evidence (Morrison, 2016), and Jessie Munton motivated it using normative evidence (Munton, 2016). In this paper, I will consider the extent to which it is motivated by third-personal evidence. I will argue that the current evidence is supportive but not decisive. I will then describe experiments that might provide stronger evidence. I hope to thereby provide a roadmap for future research.

Introspection is a fundamental part of our mental lives. Nevertheless, its reliability and its underlying cognitive architecture have been widely disputed. Here, I propose a principled way to model introspection. By using time-tested principles from signal detection theory (SDT) and extrapolating them from perception to introspection, I offer a new framework for an introspective signal detection theory (iSDT). In SDT, the reliability of perceptual judgments is a function of the strength of an internal perceptual response (signal- to-noise ratio) which is, (...) to a large extent, driven by the intensity of the stimulus. In parallel to perception, iSDT models the reliability of introspective judgments as a function of the strength of an internal introspective response (signal-to-noise ratio) which is, to a large extent, driven by the intensity of conscious experiences. Thus, by modelling introspection after perception, iSDT can calibrate introspection’s reliability across a whole range of contexts. iSDT offers a novel, illuminating way of thinking about introspection and the cognitive processes that support it. (shrink)

It is increasingly common in cognitive science and philosophy of perception to regard perceptual processing as a probabilistic engine, taking into account uncertainty in computing representations of the distal environment. Models of this kind often postulate probabilistic representations, or what we will call probabilistic states,. These are states that in some sense mark or represent information about the probabilities of distal conditions. It has also been argued that perceptual experience itself in some sense represents uncertainty (Morrison _Analytic Philosophy_ 57 (1): (...) 15 48, 2016 ). In this article, we will first consider three models of sensory activity from perceptual neuroscience, namely signal detection theory (SDT), probabilistic population codes (PPC), and sampling. We will then reflect on the sense in which the probabilistic states introduced in these models are probabilistic representations. To sharpen this discussion, we will compare and contrast these probabilistic states to credences as they are understood in epistemology. We will suggest that probabilistic representation, in an appropriately robust sense, can be understood as a form of analog representation. In the last part of the paper, we apply this to the issue of whether conscious experience represents uncertainty—we will interpret this as the claim that there are phenomenal features of experience that serve as analog probabilistic representations. (shrink)

Perceptual Confidence is the thesis that perceptual experiences can be probabilistic. This thesis has been defended and criticised based on a variety of phenomenological, epistemological, and explanatory arguments. One gap in these arguments is that they neglect the question of whether perceptual experiences satisfy the formal conditions that define the notion of probability to which Perceptual Confidence is committed. Here, we focus on this underexplored question and argue that perceptual experiences do not satisfy such conditions. But if they do not, (...) then ascriptions of perceptual confidence are undefined; and so, Perceptual Confidence cannot be true. (shrink)

One very popular framework in contemporary epistemology is Bayesian. The central epistemic state is subjective confidence, or credence. Traditional epistemic states like belief and knowledge tend to be sidelined, or even dispensed with entirely. Credences are often introduced as familiar mental states, merely in need of a special label for the purposes of epistemology. But whether they are implicitly recognized by the folk or posits of a sophisticated scientific psychology, they do not appear to fit well with perception, as is (...) often noted. -/- This paper investigates the tension between probabilistic cognition and non-probabilistic perception. The tension is real, and the solution—to adapt a phrase from Quine and Goodman—is to renounce credences altogether. (shrink)