The Bipartite Account of Perceptual Knowledge - Avery Archer

101 Pages·2008·1.09 MB·English

MCDOWELL, GETTIER, AND THE BIPARTITE ACCOUNT OF
PERCEPTUAL KNOWLEDGE
Adrian Avery Archer
A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of MPhil
at the
University of St. Andrews
2008
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MCDOOWWEELLLL,GETTIER,ANDTHEBIPARTITE
ACCCCOOUUNNTTOOFFPERCEPTUALKNOWLEDGE
AADDiisssseerrttaattiioonnSSuubbmmiitttteeddiinnPPaarrttiiaallFFuullffiillllmmeenntt
offtthheeRReeqquuiirreemmeennttssffoorrtthheeddeeggrreeeeooff
MASTER OF PHILOSOPHY
By
AdrianAvery Archer
SScchhoooollooffPPhhiilloossoopphhiiccaallaannddAAnntthhrrooppoollooggiiccaallSSttudies
SCOTLAND,UK
August 2007
ABSTRACT
McDowell,Gettier,andtheBipartiteAccountofPerceptualKnowledge
AdrianAveryArcher
In his essay, “Knowledge and the Internal Revisited”, John McDowell claims that “seeing that p
constitutes false-hood excluding justification for believing that p.” In this thesis I attempt to
construct an account of perceptual knowledge that exploits McDowell’s notion of false-hood
excluding justification. To this end, I limn a justified (strong) belief, or bipartite, account of
perceptual knowledge in which justification is seen as factive. On this picture, the truth
requirementofthetraditionaltripartiteaccountisincorporatedintothejustificationconditionfor
knowledge. My account of perceptual knowledge is McDowellian in spirit, but not in detail.
Specifically, I part ways with McDowell in my insistence that knowledge should be seen as a
composite rather than primitive concept in which belief, understood as commitment to the truth
ofaproposition,andjustification,understoodasthepossessionofafactivereason,bothfigure.
Keywords: Epistemology, Perceptual Knowledge, Philosophy of Perception, John McDowell, Self-
knowledge
Supervisors:
SimonProsserandCrispinWright
ExaminingCommittee:
DuncanPritchardandMartinSmith
I, Adrian Avery Archer, hereby certify that this thesis, which is approximately 36,000
words in length, has been written by me, that it is the record of work carried out by me and
that it has not beensubmittedinanyprevious applicationforahigherdegree.
Date.............................................. Signatureofcandidate.........................................
I was admitted as a research student in September 2005 and as a candidate for the degree of
MPhil in August 2006; the higher study for which this is a record was carried out in the
UniversityofSt Andrews between2005 and2007.
Date.............................................. Signatureofcandidate.........................................
I hereby certify that the candidate has fulfilled the conditions of the Resolution and
Regulations appropriate for the degree of MPhil in the University of St Andrews and that the
candidateis qualifiedtosubmit this thesisinapplicationforthat degree.
Date.............................................. Signatureofsupervisor.........................................
In submitting this thesis to the University of St Andrews I understand that I am giving
permission for it to be made available for use in accordance with the regulations of the
UniversityLibraryfor the time beingin force, subject to anycopyright vested in the work not
being affected thereby. I also understand that the title and abstract will be published and that
a copy of the work will may be made and supplied to any bona fide library or research
worker, that my thesis will be electronically accessible for personal or research use, and that
the library has the right to migrate my thesis into new electronic forms as required to ensure
continued access to the thesis. Ihave obtained anythird-partycopyright permissions that may
berequiredinorderto allowsuchaccess andmigration.
Date.............................................. Signatureofcandidate.........................................
TABLEOFCONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION 1
2. GETTIERANDJUSTIFICATIONRELIABILISM 3
2.1 GettierandtheTripartiteAccount 3
2.2 GettierandJustificationExternalism 8
2.3 GettierandLocalJustificationReliabilism 12
2.4 Gettierandthe(Anti)Anti-luckDiagnosis 16
2.5 GettierandGlobalJustificationReliabilism 18
2.6 ChapterSummary 20
3. THEMCDOWELLIANREPLYTOGETTIER 22
3.1 McDowellianJustificationInternalism 23
3.2 McDowellianContentExternalism 25
3.3 McDowellianSingular-thoughtDisjunctivism 27
3.4 McDowellianJustificatoryDogmatism 30
3.5 McDowellianInternalismandExternalismReconciled 33
3.6 ChapterSummary 35
4. SINGULAR-THOUGHTEXTERNALISMANDSELF-KNOWLEDGE 36
4.1 InfallibilityandAuthoritativeSelf-Knowledge 38
4.2 TheFirstMacDonaldObjection 44
4.3 TheSecondMacDonaldObjection 46
4.4 TheThirdMacDonaldObjection 50
4.5 (Re)DefiningAuthoritativeSelf-Knowledge 53
4.6 ChapterSummary 55
5. THELOTTERYARGUMENTFORFACTIVEJUSTIFICATION 57
5.1 FactiveJustificationandTruth-GuaranteeingReasons 58
5.2 FactiveJustificationandLottery-typeBeliefs 60
5.3 TheJustificationClosureObjection 62
5.4 TheIntrospectiveFailureObjection 64
5.5 TheCovertLotteryObjection 67
5.6 ChapterSummary 73
6. THEBIPARTITEACCOUNTOFPERCEPTUALKNOWLEDGE 74
6.1 BeliefandtheBipartiteAccount 74
6.2 Belief/KnowledgeDisjunctivism 75
6.3 Strong/WeakBeliefDisjunctivism 77
6.4 ClarificationsoftheBipartiteAccount 80
6.5 ApplicationsoftheBipartiteAccount 85
7. CONCLUSION 88
REFERENCES 90
My main point in “Knowledge and the Internal”
is to protest against an interiorization of the
justifications available to us for claims about
the external world. The interiorization
threatens to deprive us of the justificatory power
of, for instance, the form “I see that ….” I
insist that statements of such forms are proper
moves in the game of giving reasons, and their
truth fully vindicates entitlement to the
embedded propositions. This ought to seem sheer
common sense, and it would if questionable
philosophy did not put it at risk.
--John McDowell, 2002, page 98.
1 INTRODUCTION
The present disquisition may be summarised in a single McDowellian thesis: ‘seeing that p
constitutes false-hood excluding justification for believing that p’(McDowell [2002], p. 98).
What follows is an articulation of the theory of perceptual knowledge that follows from this
claim. MydissertationwillbeMcDowellianinspirit,butnotindetail. Specifically,Iwillbe
co-opting some of McDowell’s theoretical apparatus in defence of a bipartite conception of
perceptual knowledge. That is, I see perceptual knowledge as best analysed in terms of
justifiedstrong1belief(henceforthabbreviatedasJB). Ofcourse,McDowelldoesnotendorse
a JB account since he, like Timothy Williamson and others, sees knowledge as a primitive.
However, I believe that the central intuitions motivating the primitivist account of
knowledge may be captured within my own JB account of perceptual knowledge, while
avoiding certain problems inherent in the primitivist view. In many respects my position
resemblesthe more traditional tripartite or justified truebelief(henceforth abbreviated asJTB)
conception of knowledge. However, it is central to my view that justification, at least with
1Thesignificanceofthequalification‘strong’isexplainedin§6.3
1
regards to our perceptual beliefs, is factive. (Thus, on my proposed account, the ‘T’ of the
traditionalJTBaccountisincorporatedintothe‘J’.) Thecentralcontentionofmydissertation
is that perceptual knowledge may be analysed in terms of justified (strong) belief, where
justificationisseenasafactivenotion.
The emphasis on perceptual knowledge is crucial since I will not be concerned with
knowledge simpliciter. Thus, I remain open to the possibility that other forms of (non-
perceptual) knowledge do not conform to the JB analysis limned in the present study. By
perceptual knowledge I simply mean knowledge that is based on perceptual experience in
the following sense: if one were asked, why one believed that p, one’s answer would
implicate a perceptual experience. That is to say, if the answer one would give to the
question, ‘why does one believe that p?’, is that one sees that p, hears that p, smells that p or
tastes that p, then on my view one’s belief that p is a perceptual belief. Moreover, if one’s
perceptualbeliefthatpisjustified,thenonmyaccountonehasperceptualknowledgethatp.
For simplicity, my discussion will be limited to the case of vision, but presumably what
follows may be generalised with respect to the other sensory modalities. Moreover, I take
perceptual knowledge to be propositional in content. Hence, one may see, for example, that
there is a vase on the table. In what follows, whenever I speak of a subject seeing that p, it is
propositionsofthisformthatIhaveinmind.
Thematically, my dissertation may be divided into two halves. The first half, §2-§4,
represents an exposition and defence of key features of McDowell’s theory of knowledge. I
will be using a pair of perceptual Gettier cases as a foil for bringing into sharp relief four
McDowellian theses: (1) justification internalism, (2) content externalism, (3) singular-
thought disjunctivism and (4) justificatory dogmatism. The second half, §5 and §6,
represents my appropriation of these four theses in defence of a bipartite account of
perceptualknowledge.2
2IwillliketothankKatherinHawley,DuncanPritchard,SimonProsser,MartinSmithandCrispinWrightfor
theirvaluablefeedbackatvariousstagesofthisdissertation.
2
2 GETTIERANDJUSTIFICATIONRELIABILISM
2.1 GettierandtheTripartiteAccount
If there were anything like a classical or traditional definition of knowledge, it would be
somethingalongthefollowinglines:
JTB ForanysubjectS,Sknowsthatpiff3: (i) pistrue
(ii) Sbelievesthatp
(iii) S’sbeliefthatpisjustified
JTB takes (i), (ii), and (iii) to be individually necessary and jointly sufficient for S’s knowing
that p. That knowledge is composed of these three features was an assumption taken for
granted by philosophers dating at least as far back as Plato.4 However, this fact should not
promptusto dismissJTB since italso appearsto receive the endorsementof commonsense.
First, it seems counterintuitive to talk about knowing that p if p is false. Second, one cannot
knowthatpifpisnotamongone’s beliefs.Third,knowingthat prequiresmorethansimply
believing that p. It also requires one to have some reason for, evidence in favour of, or
justification for believing that p. (For the time being, I will treat all these notions as
synonymous.) Significantly, the third requirement of JTB has traditionally been taken to
express a J-internalist intuition—namely, that one’s reasons should be constituted by factors
that are subjectively available to one.5 Each of these theses appears to be in harmony with
our everyday usage and understanding of the word ‘know’. Moreover, one would be hard
pressed to find some additional requirement necessary for our quotidian understanding of
knowledge.
3The‘iff’istobeunderstoodasindicatingnecessarycoextenstion,orequivalence.
4See:Plato[1961]:97e-98a.
5 The third requirement of JTB can also be spelt out in J-externalist terms. However, J-internalist accounts of
justification tend to do a better job at preserving the common sense understanding of justification as being in a
positiontoprovidereasonsforone’sbeliefs.
3
Unfortunately,Gettier-typecounterexampleshaveraisedseriousquestionsaboutthe
adequacyofJTB.6 Forexample,considerthecaseofveridicalhallucinationbelow.
2.1.1 TheGettierCaseofVeridicalHallucination
Suppose S has strong perceptual evidence for, and comes to believe, the empirical
proposition:
(a) thereisavaseonthetable.
S’sevidencefor(a)isthatsheishavingavisualexperienceoftherebeingavaseonthetable.
ButunknowntoS,hervisualexperienceoftherebeingavaseonthetableisactuallyadrug-
inducedhallucination. Now,itsohappensthatthereisinfactavaseonthetable,thoughthe
real vase is being obscured from S’s visual field by a stack of books. The following all seem
tobetrueoftheaforementionedcase:
(i) (a)istrue
(ii) Sbelievesthat(a)
(iii) S’sbeliefthat(a)isjustified
Thus,allthreeconditionsofJTBhavebeenmet. However,intuitivelywewouldbereluctant
tosaythatthesubjectintheaboveexampleknowsthat(a). (IwillrefertotheGettiercaseof
veridical hallucinationjustdescribed withthe abbreviation GTTRVH.) There are a number of
explanations that could be given for the intuition that the GTTRVH subject lacks knowledge
that (a). For example, we may say that S’s reasons fail to constitute good reasons since the
evidential basis for her belief that (a) is a hallucination rather than an actual vase. Put
differently, we may say that S does not have the reasons she takes herself to have for
believing that (a). Or, we may point out that there is no objective connection between S’s
justification for believing that (a) and the fact itself. For example, we may say that S’s belief
6SeeEdmundGettier[1963].
4
was not caused by the relevant fact. Or we may say that the fact that S’s belief that (a)
happens to be true is (given the circumstances) merely a matter of luck; she would have
believed(a)evenifitweretruethatnot-(a).7 ThefirstexplanationislikelytobegivenbyaJ-
internalist, while the second would probably be offered by a J-externalist. The third
explanation, which attributes S’s knowledge-failure to luck, is the most neutral of the three.
Whether J-internalist or J-externalist, most philosophers agree that the luck involved has
somethingtodowiththeintuitionthattheGettiersubjectdoesnothaveknowledge.
My proposed bipartite account presupposes an alternative framework to the
standard anti-luck diagnosis of why the Gettier subject lacks perceptual knowledge. I take
the anti-luck diagnosis to be inadequate for one of two possible reasons. On the one hand,
there seems to be genuine Gettier cases in which it is not a matter of luck that the subject’s
belief is true. On the other hand, there appear to be cases in which we would intuitively
imputeperceptualknowledgetoasubjecteventhoughthefactthatherbeliefistrueispartly
due to luck.8 Pace the anti-luck diagnosis, I argue that the Gettier subject lacks perceptual
knowledge that (a), there is a vase on the table, because she does not have the (truth-
guaranteeing) reason, she takes herself to have, for believing that (a). Let us call S’s reason
for believing that there is vase on the table {R}. In the aforementioned case, {R} = seeing that
thereisa vaseonthetable. However, since Sdoes notsee thatthere isa vase onthe table, she
doesnothave{R}—i.e.,the(truth-guaranteeing)reasonshetakesherselftohave. Itisstilltoo
early to fully appreciate this point, but I will return to it in §6. My proposed account
attemptstopreservetheJ-internalistintuitionthatonemusthavea‘goodreason’(inwhicha
reason is seen as something one has subjective access to) for believing that p in order to be
justified in believing that p. However, I also attempt to preserve the J-externalist intuition
thattheremustbeanobjectiveconnectionbetweenjustificationandtruth.
TherearethreestrategiesavailableforrespondingtoGettierpresentlyrepresentedin
theliterature:
7 Gettier has onlyshown that the internalist requirement is not a sufficient condition for knowledge. It has not
shownthatisnotanecessaryconditionforknowledge.
8Whichofthesetworationalesforwhytheanti-luckdiagnosisisinadequatewefindpreferabledependsonour
understandingofepistemicluck. Iwillnotattempttosettlewhichoftherationalesisbest,sincebothlendequal
supporttomyconclusion.
5