The paper develops a conception of epistemic warrant as applied to perceptual belief, called "entitlement", that does not require the warranted individual to be capable of understanding the warrant. The conception is situated within an account of animal perception and unsophisticated perceptual belief. It characterizes entitlement as fulfillment of an epistemic norm that is apriori associated with a certain representational function that can be known apriori to be a function of perception. The paper connects anti-individualism, a thesis about the nature (...) of mental states, and perceptual entitlement. It presents an argument that explains the objectivity and validity of perceptual entitlement partly in terms of the nature of perceptual states–hence the nature of perceptual beliefs, which are constitutively associated with perceptual states. The paper discusses ways that an individual can be entitled to perceptual belief through its connection to perception, and ways that entitlement to perceptual belief can be undermined. (shrink)

The paper develops a conception of epistemic warrant as applied to perceptual belief, called “entitlement”, that does not require the warranted individual to be capable of understanding the warrant. The conception is situated within an account of animal perception and unsophisticated perceptual belief. It characterizes entitlement as fulfillment of an epistemic norm that is apriori associated with a certain representational function that can be known apriori to be a function of perception. The paper connects anti‐individualism, a thesis about the nature (...) of mental states, and perceptual entitlement. It presents an argument that explains the objectivity and validity of perceptual entitlement partly in terms of the nature of perceptual states–hence the nature of perceptual beliefs, which are constitutively associated with perceptual states. The paper discusses ways that an individual can be entitled to perceptual belief through its connection to perception, and ways that entitlement to perceptual belief can be undermined. (shrink)

Singularists about causation often claim that we can have experiences as of causation. This paper argues that regularity theorists need not deny that claim; hence the possibility of causal experience is no objection to regularity theories of causation. The fact that, according to a regularity theorist, causal experience requires background theory does not provide grounds for denying that it is genuine experience. The regularity theorist need not even deny that non-inferential perceptual knowledge of causation is possible, despite the fact that (...) such knowledge would sometimes allow us to make inferences about what happens in far-off places and times. (shrink)

J.L. Mackie insists that ordinary evaluative thought presents itself as a matter of sensitivity to aspects of the world. And this phenomenological thesis seems correct. When one or another variety of philosophical non-cognitivism claims to capture the truth about what the experience of value is like, or (in a familiar surrogate for phenomenology) about what we mean by our evaluative language, the claim is never based on careful attention to the lived character of evaluative thought or discourse. The idea is, (...) rather, that the very concept of the cognitive or factual rules out the possibility of an undiluted representation of how things are, enjoying, nevertheless, the internal relation to 'attitudes' or the will that would be needed to count as evaluative. On this view the phenomenology of value would involve a mere incoherence, if it were as Mackie says--a possibility that then tends (naturally enough) not to be so much as entertained. But, as Mackie sees, there is no satisfactory justification for supposing that the factual is, by definition, attitudinatively and motivationally neutral. This clears away the only obstacle to accepting his phenomenological claim; and the upshot is that non-cognitivism must offer to correct the phenomenology of value, rather than give an account of it. -/- In Machie's view the correction is called for. In this paper I want to suggest that he attributes an unmerited plausibility to this thesis, by giving a false picture of what one is committed to if one resists it. (shrink)

Richard Brandt's last book discusses foundational questions in metaethics and normative ethics. Many of the central views expressed, as well as the topics taken up, will be familiar to those who know Brandt's earlier works, although some parts of the book represent new and welcome additions to his corpus. Brandt was very much a systematic moral philosopher, a theory builder. I can here only sketch the outlines of the theory he developed in the book, and suggest some points at which (...) one might wish to demur. (shrink)

One finds in the systems of natural languages some explicit means of elaborating not only upon the directness of the causal relationship believed to exist between two events X and Y (i.e. some means of specifying just how inevitably event X gives or gave rise to event Y), but also some manner of indicating just who or what is understood to be the primary instigator of the caused event. The goal of the present paper is to explore these notions in (...) detail and arrive at a formal, logic-based means of capturing them. (shrink)

Introduction This book is about the nature of the content of psychological states. Examples of psychological states with content are: believing today is a ...

This paper investigates the idea that perception can be, at once, a mode of direct awareness of the world and an encounter, in the first instance, with mere appearances. In developing this point, I introduce a sensorimotor account of perception according to which the senses are ways of exploring the environment mediated by different patterns of sensorimotor contingency (i.e. by the distinctive ways in which what the perceiver does affects how things appear).

The acclaimed author of The Good Apprentice draws on the entire history of philosophy--and particularly on Plato and Kant--to formulate her own model of morality and demonstrate how thoroughly it is bound up with our daily lives. "An utterly absorbing book".--The Wall Street Journal.

There is a traditional conception of sensory experience on which the experiences one has looking at, say, a cat could be had by someone merely hallucinating a cat. Disjunctivists take issue with this conception on the grounds that it does not enable us to understand how perceptual knowledge is possible. In particular, they think, it does not explain how it can be that experiences gained in perception enable us to be in ‘cognitive contact’ with objects and facts. I develop this (...) chal- lenge to the traditional conception and then show that it is possible to accommo- date an adequate account of cognitive contact in keeping with the traditional conception. One upshot of the discussion is that experiences do not bear the explanatory burden placed upon them by disjunctivists. (shrink)

There is a traditional conception of sensory experience on which the experiences one has looking at, say, a cat could be had by someone merely hallucinating a cat. Disjunctivists take issue with this conception on the grounds that it does not enable us to understand how perceptual knowledge is possible. In particular, they think, it does not explain how it can be that experiences gained in perception enable us to be in ‘cognitive contact’ with objects and facts. I develop this (...) challenge to the traditional conception and then show that it is possible to accommodate an adequate account of cognitive contact in keeping with the traditional conception. One upshot of the discussion is that experiences do not bear the explanatory burden placed upon them by disjunctivists. (shrink)

A common objection to sense-datum theories of perception is that they cannot give an adequate account of the fact that introspection indicates that our sensory experiences are directed on, or are about, the mind-independent entities in the world around us, that our sense experience is transparent to the world. In this paper I point out that the main force of this claim is to point out an explanatory challenge to sense-datum theories.

Many people face a problem about potentiality: their moral beliefs appear to dictate inconsistent views about the significance of the potentiality to become a healthy adult. Briefly, the problem arises as follows. Consider the following two claims. First, both human babies and cats have moral status, but harms to babies matter more, morally, than similar harms to cats. Second, early human embryos lack moral status. It appears that the first claim can only be true if human babies have more moral (...) status than cats. Among the properties that determine moral status, human babies have no properties other than their potentiality that could explain their having more moral status than cats. So human babies’ potentiality to become adult persons must explain their having more moral status than cats. But then potentiality must raise moral status generally. So early human embryos must have some moral status. It appears that the view that must underlie the first claim implies that the second claim is false. (shrink)

I argue that it is possible, in the right circumstances, to see what the kind thing is to do: in the right circumstances, we can, literally, see deontic facts, as well as facts about others’ emotional states, and evaluative facts. In arguing for this, I will deploy a notion of non‐inferential perceptual belief or judgement according to which the belief or judgement is arrived at non‐inferentially in the phenomenological sense and yet is inferential in the epistemic sense. The ability to (...) arrive at these kinds of beliefs and judgements is part of virtue, and is also part of what it is to grasp thick ethical concepts in an engaged way. When we come to thinner evaluative and deontic facts and thinner ethical concepts, however, the requirements for non‐inferential perceptual belief and judgement are less easily met. Seeing what is the kind thing to do is one matter; seeing what is the right thing to do is another. (shrink)

Richard Brandt is one of the most influential moral philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century. He is especially important in the field of ethics for his lucid and systematic exposition of utilitarianism. This new book represents in some ways a summation of his views and includes many useful applications of his theory. The focus of the book is how value judgments and moral belief can be justified. More generally, the book assesses different moral systems and theories of (...) justice, and considers specific problems such as the optimal level of charity and the moral tenability of the criminal law. This book will be essential reading for all professional philosophers concerned with ethics, and will prove helpful to students as well. (shrink)

Written by one of today's most creative and innovative philosophers, Ruth Garrett Millikan, this book examines basic empirical concepts; how they are acquired, how they function, and how they have been misrepresented in the traditional philosophical literature. Millikan places cognitive psychology in an evolutionary context where human cognition is assumed to be an outgrowth of primitive forms of mentality, and assumed to have 'functions' in the biological sense. Of particular interest are her discussions of the nature of abilities as different (...) from dispositions, her detailed analysis of the psychological act of reidentifying substances, and her critique of the language of thought for mental representation. In a radical departure from current philosophical and psychological theories of concepts, this book provides the first in-depth discussion on the psychological act of reidentification. (shrink)

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

This is the long-awaited third volume of philosophical writings by Davidson, whose influence on philosophy since the 1960s has been deep and broad. His first two collections, published by Oxford in the early 1980s, are recognized as contemporary classics. His ideas have continued to flow; now, in this new work, he presents a selection of his best work on knowledge, mind, and language from the last two decades. It is a rich and rewarding feast for anyone interested in philosophy, and (...) essential reading for anyone working on these topics. (shrink)

Representational theories of mind cannot individuate the sense modalities in a principled manner. According to representationalism, the phenomenal character of experiences is determined by their contents. The usual objection is that inverted qualia are possible, so the phenomenal character of experiences may vary independently of their contents. But the objection is inconclusive. It raises difficult questions about the metaphysics of secondary qualities and it is difficult to see whether or not inverted qualia are possible. This paper proposes an alternative test (...) of representationalism. Do experiences in different sense modalities have the same phenomenal character when they share content? Psychological work on the perception of shape through vision and spatial hearing is discussed. This work shows that visual and auditory experiences differ in phenomenal character even in so far as they represent similar properties. This objection to representationalism does not invite questions about secondary qualities or depend on establishing metaphysical possibilities. (shrink)

How ought we differentiate the senses? What, say, distinguishes vision from audition? The question comes in two versions. First, there is the traditional problem of individuating the senses in humans. Second, there is also an important question about what sensory modalities we ought to attribute to non-human animals, a version of the question that has been virtually ignored by philosophers. Modality ought to be construed as an “avenue into” an organism for information external to the central nervous system. Six proposed (...) criteria found in the philosophical literature concerning the senses are reviewed. Initially, four criteria—physics, neurobiology, behavior, and evolutionary or developmental dedication—are shown to be individually necessary and jointly sufficient. Next, two criteria—Aristotle's proper objects of sensation criterion and Grice's sensation or qualia criterion—are considered and rejected. One overarching goal here is to show that there is interesting contemporary work left to be done on this ancient philosophical question. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that there is a fundamental distinction between knowing that something is the case and knowing how to do something. According to Gilbert Ryle, to whom the insight is credited, knowledge-how is an ability, which is in turn a complex of dispositions. Knowledge-that, on the other hand, is not an ability, or anything similar. Rather, knowledge-that is a relation between a thinker and a true proposition.

It is argued that there are three main forms of necessity --the metaphysical, the natural and the normative--and that none of them is reducible to the others or to any other form of necessity. In arguing for a distinctive form of natural necessity, it is necessary to refute a version of the doctrine of scientific essentialism; and in arguing for a distinctive form of normative necessity, it is necessary to refute certain traditional and contemporary versions of ethical naturalism.

Central to aesthetic experience, but also to experience in general, is the phenomenon of ‘seeing as'. We see a painting as a landscape, we hear sequence of sounds as a melody, we see a wooden contraption as a boat, and we hear a comment as an insult. There are interesting and important differences between these cases of ‘seeing as': the painting cannot literally be a landscape while the wooden contraption can literally be a boat; a failure to hear sounds as (...) a melody may count as a shortcoming whereas the failure to hear a comment as an insult may be admirable. Here I want to focus mainly on their similarities, however -- similarities that will lead us back to Kant, and to the nature of consciousness itself. The phenomenon of ‘seeing as’ presents certain familiar puzzles: how is seeing a painting as a landscape different from seeing a landscape, on the one hand, and from thinking of the painting as a landscape, on the other? ‘Seeing as’ is not the same as misperceiving, nor is it the same as offering an interpretation, yet it seems related to both. These puzzles are articulated in Section I, and some candidate solutions are rejected. Section II develops a Kantian account of experience showing how the convergence of conflicting representations, achieved through imaginative syntheses, is essential to the experience of objects and to consciousness itself. Kant's insights are used to evaluate some recent responses to the so-called ‘binding problem’ -- the problem of explaining how the contents of consciousness are bound together, and the role of the imagination is further detailed. Section III then returns to the difference between ordinary seeing and ‘seeing as', offering an explanation of the latter in terms of the framework developed in Section II. (shrink)

The passage above comes from the opening pages of Merleau-Ponty’s essay on Edmund Husserl. It proposes a risky interpretive principle. The main feature of this principle is that the seminal aspects of a thinker’s work are so close to him that he is incapable of articulating them himself. Nevertheless, these aspects pervade the work, give it its style, its sense and its direction, and therefore belong to it essentially. As Martin Heidegger writes, in a passage quoted by Merleau-Ponty: " The (...) greater the work of a thinker – which in no way coincides with the breadth and number of writings – the richer is what is un-thought in this work, which means, that which emerges in and through this work as having not yet been thought. 2 " The goal of Merleau-Ponty’s essay, he says, is “to evoke this un-thought-of element in Husserl’s thought”. 3. (shrink)