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Against Phenomenal Conservatism

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Abstract

Recently, Michael Huemer has defended the Principle of Phenomenal Conservatism: If it seems to S that p, then, in the absence of defeaters, S thereby has at least some degree of justification for believing that p. This principle has potentially far-reaching implications. Huemer uses it to argue against skepticism and to defend a version of ethical intuitionism. I employ a reductio to show that PC is false. If PC is true, beliefs can yield justification for believing their contents in cases where, intuitively, they should not be able to do so. I argue that there are cases where a belief that p can behave like an appearance that p and thereby make it seem to one that p.

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Notes

  1. Cf. Tolhurst 1998: 293, note 1. Tolhurst uses the same premise as Huemer to conclude that seemings “constitute a distinct mental state type.” He leaves it open, however, whether some beliefs are seemings.

  2. Huemer notes that perceptual experiences also typically have a third feature: qualia. But he thinks there are perceptions lacking qualia. His example is proprioception, a faculty that makes us aware of the position of our bodies (Huemer 2001: 67). Huemer claims that the lack of qualitative content is the reason why one can be aware of the position of one’s body without being aware of the fact that one is getting this information via proprioception (I myself do not think the absence of qualia is necessary for this difference in awareness, only that it facilitates it). The example in my reductio involves beliefs behaving similarly, i.e., making certain things seem true without it being apparent that this is happening via belief.

  3. I have modified the statement of EC to mirror Huemer’s most recent articulation of PC.

  4. And even if we did, that would not show that beliefs are not appearances. There might simply be appearances that require exercising agency. Such exercises of agency might not count against something’s being an appearance. Exercises of agency might just count as justificatory defeaters, but that will depend on precisely how agency is involved. I cannot discuss doxastic voluntarism here, but see Alston 1988.

  5. Recall the discussion of proprioception in an earlier footnote. Perhaps the same things can be said about perception and memory, though I think this is more obviously (and more typically) true of intuition, introspection and proprioception.

  6. I am construing internalism as Huemer does, i.e., as the thesis that “all of the conditions that confer justification supervene on how things seem to the subject” (Huemer 2006: 148). I am construing externalism as the denial of this thesis. I agree with Huemer that this is the best way of characterizing the internalism/externalism distinction. Even if this is not the case, however, the second problem above still arises. Inserting an exception clause will tacitly concede something to those who hold that justification does not supervene only on how things seem.

  7. An anonymous referee suggests that advocates of PC could offer the following principled reason for saying that beliefs cannot confer justification for believing their contents: that no belief can confer justification upon itself, perhaps because this would involve “vicious circularity.” I worry an advocate of PC who offered such a response would be missing the point of some of my remarks above. But no matter. There is an independent problem with the principle: there seem to be cases where one’s beliefs can confer justification upon one for believing their contents. Notice that I have not argued that beliefs can never do this, only that the belief in my case cannot. Consider some other cases. Take someone who repeatedly finds herself believing things that have no apparent connection to her experiences or concerns. Out of curiosity, she investigates matters every time this happens and discovers that the beliefs are always true. It seems that the beliefs provide her with some justification (via induction) for believing their contents. Or consider some aliens who cannot see or hear and for whom belief functions as a kind of perception. Instead of seeing or hearing things, for example, they just find themselves believing that there are things nearby with certain properties when there are such things nearby with those properties (they may not be able to perceive things like color in this way, but that does not matter to my point). They do have other sensory faculties more like ours, though, e.g., a sense of touch, and these other faculties can typically be used to confirm the beliefs (and usually do when so used). It seems their beliefs can confer justification upon them for believing the contents of their beliefs.

  8. It can hardly be suggested that Huemer’s use of the word other (which is typical in formulations of foundationalism) is meant to accommodate this possibility or can plausibly do so. More likely, it reflects the assumption that beliefs that do depend on beliefs for their justification always depend on other beliefs. Note also that I am not denying the common claim that some beliefs have “self-warrant” (Alston 1971: 235) or that belief in some propositions is justified “by their [the propositions’] own nature” (Chisholm 1977: 63, 86). This claim holds that some beliefs are justified because of some special fact about the proposition believed, e.g., that one has privileged access to its content (say because the proposition is that one seems to be seeing text right now).

  9. The implausibility of biting the bullet serves in part to distinguish my criticism from others, notably Peter Markie’s (2005: 356-358). Markie complains that PC grants defeasible justification even when appearances have problematic origins, e.g., wishful thinking and cognitive malfunction. He claims that the difference in epistemic status between these appearances and appearances that have impeccable pedigree is not just a difference in their defeasibility. Even if the former are open to defeat, the latter, he observes, are also open to defeat. The problem with PC, he claims, is that it awards defeasible justification to all appearances in the first place. He thinks that appearances like those he discusses should not be granted such status. Obviously, I agree that PC is too generous in doling out justification. But the absurdity of granting defeasible justification to the appearances Markie discusses is not obvious to me. Markie’s cases and my own both pump externalist intuitions. But it seems that Huemer can plausibly insist that the sorts of appearances Markie discusses do confer defeasible justification, that they are typically defeated, and that, in cases where they are not defeated by countervailing appearances, they confer some justification. Such insistence about my case, however, seems far less plausible for the reasons outlined above. My objection, then, shows that there are grounds for rejecting PC even if one is willing to be much more generous in doling out justification than Markie is.

  10. Thanks to Andre Gallois, Clayton Littlejohn, Matt Skene and an anonymous referee for this journal.

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Hanna, N. Against Phenomenal Conservatism. Acta Anal 26, 213–221 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-010-0111-z

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