The Puzzle of Perceptual Justification: Conscious experience, Higher-order Beliefs, and Reliable Processes PDF
Preview The Puzzle of Perceptual Justification: Conscious experience, Higher-order Beliefs, and Reliable Processes
Synthese Library 377 Harmen Ghijsen The Puzzle of Perceptual Justification Conscious experience, Higher-order Beliefs, and Reliable Processes Synthese Library Studies in Epistemology, Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science Volume 377 Editor-in-Chief OtávioBueno,UniversityofMiami,DepartmentofPhilosophy,USA Editors BeritBrogaard,UniversityofMiami,USA AnjanChakravartty,UniversityofNotreDame,USA StevenFrench,UniversityofLeeds,UK CatarinaDutilhNovaes,UniversityofGroningen,TheNetherlands Moreinformationaboutthisseriesathttp://www.springer.com/series/6607 Harmen Ghijsen The Puzzle of Perceptual Justification Conscious experience, Higher-order Beliefs, and Reliable Processes 123 HarmenGhijsen CentreforLogicandAnalyticPhilosophy InstituteofPhilosophy,KULeuven Leuven,Belgium SyntheseLibrary ISBN978-3-319-30498-4 ISBN978-3-319-30500-4 (eBook) DOI10.1007/978-3-319-30500-4 LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2016937332 ©SpringerInternationalPublishingSwitzerland2016 Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpartof thematerialisconcerned,specificallytherightsoftranslation,reprinting,reuseofillustrations,recitation, broadcasting,reproductiononmicrofilmsorinanyotherphysicalway,andtransmissionorinformation storageandretrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilarmethodology nowknownorhereafterdeveloped. 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Printedonacid-freepaper ThisSpringerimprintispublishedbySpringerNature TheregisteredcompanyisSpringerInternationalPublishingAGSwitzerland Preface We’reallprobablyfamiliarwithcertaincommonperceptualillusions:theblacktie boughtintheshopturnsouttobedarkblue,themonsterinthebedroomisjustthe shadowofatreeinthebackyard,andnooneactuallycalledyournameeventhough itsoundedjustlikeit.Althoughyouwouldprobablymakeafalsejudgmentinthese circumstances,youappeartohaveagoodreasonforit:youconsciouslyexperienced theworldasbeingthatway.Thatis,eventhoughyoudidnotknowthatsuch-and-so wasthecase(becauseyouwereactuallywrong),atleastyouwerejustifiedinyour belief. This notion of perceptualjustification,and its relation to consciousexperience and reasons, will be the main topic of investigation in this book. Let me note immediately that I do not want to commit myself to there being different kinds ofjustification (perceptual,memorial,inferential,etc.).I just wantto focusonthe justification that typically arises in successful cases of perception, whether or not this justification is of a special kind.I take it thatjustification is a propertywhich givesbeliefsacertainkindofpositiveepistemicvaluewhileremainingweakerthan knowledge:ajustifiedbeliefisonewhichisepistemicallybetterthananunjustified belief even if for some reason it does not amount to knowledge. I’m not too concernedwithwhether“justification”istherighttermforthis,perhapssomewould prefer “entitlement” or “warrant” or some other word. What I’m investigating is simplythatpropertywhichtypicallygivesperceptualbeliefstheirpositiveepistemic status,andI’llrefertothatpropertywiththeterm“justification.” I take this to be an interesting notion to investigate for several reasons. First of all, perception is one of our fundamental ways of gaining knowledge about the world. Given that many people take justification to be a necessary condition for knowledge, an investigation of perceptual justification could help to better our understanding of the fundamental source of knowledge that perception is. Furthermore, an investigation of perceptual justification helps to shed light on the nature of justification (and knowledge) in general, given the important role perceptionplaysintheacquisitionofmanyofourbeliefs.Ifatheoryofjustification is unsuccessful for the case of perception, then it can be a radically incomplete theoryatbest.Atworst,itsimplyiscompletelymistaken. v vi Preface Butnotonlyisperceptiononeofourfundamentalsourcesofknowledge,italso appearstobeafundamentalsourceofknowledgeforlesscognitivelysophisticated epistemic agents, such as small children and animals. It would be nice to have a theoryofjustificationthatcouldsecurethecontinuitybetweentheseunsophisticated cognizersandourselveswhilealsoallowingforsomeimportantdifferencesbecause ofthelevelofcognitivesophistication.Suchastrategyseemsimportantnotonlyfor epistemology,butalsofor,say,philosophyofmindandactiontheory.Ifonefocuses too much on the peculiarities of how we, adult human agents, are related to the relevantanalysandum,thenone’soveralltheoryislikelytobecometoodemanding toworkforunsophisticatedcognizers.Thismightnotalwaysbeabadresult,butat leastforthecaseofepistemology,thislookslikeaproblem. The externalist view of perceptual justification that I aim to defend is one that seeks to accommodate the possibility of animal knowledge, a virtue that has commonly been stressed as a motivation for externalist views in general. But it also attempts to make room for the peculiarities of human belief formation in acknowledgement of the fact that there are some important differences between sophisticatedandunsophisticatedagents.Notonlydoessuch a view combinetwo elements that are prima facie desirable in any epistemological theory, it will also helptosolvesomeclassicproblemsforexternalismandsomegeneralproblemsfor anytheoryof(perceptual)justification. One important aspect of this approach has to do with distinguishing between evidentialandnon-evidentialjustification.Sometimeswecometojustifiablybelieve newthingsonthebasisofotherthingsweknow;thislatterknowledgewouldthen act as evidence for our new beliefs, making the cases into instances of evidential justification. For instance, I can come to justifiably believe that you won’t be on timefordinnerbyreflectingonthefactthatyoutoldmethatyouhadameetingat 6PMandthefactthatyourmeetingstendtotakealongtime.However,theremight alsobeinstancesinwhichIcometohavejustifiedbeliefswithoutthesebeliefsbeing basedonanyevidence,whichareinstancesofnon-evidentialjustification.Themain thesisofthisbookisthatperceptualjustificationisbestconstruedassuchaformof non-evidentialjustification:wheneverweperceptuallyexperiencethatsomethingis thecase,we(normally)justtherebyalsobelievethatitisthecase,withouthavingto basethosebeliefsontherelevantperceptualexperiences.Insuchacase,thejustifier ofthebeliefisanon-evidentialone,namely,thereliabilityoftheperceptualprocess. Ofcourse,whenchallenged,wemightsupplyadditionalevidentialjustifiersforour perceptualbeliefs.Forinstance,ifsomeonechallengesmyclaimtoknowthatthere issomemilkleftinthefridge,IcouldrespondbysayingthatIsawthattherewas somemilkleftinthefridge.Theimportantpoint,though,isthatevenifwecancite andusethisadditionalevidencetojustifyourperceptualbeliefs,thisdoesnotmean thatweneededtheadditionalevidencetomakeourbeliefsjustifiedinthefirstplace. Itdoesmeanthatwe,sophisticatedcognizers,havejustifiersatourdisposalthatare notavailabletolesssophisticatedones. This latter aspect is related to what is distinctive for sophisticated cognizers: the capability for higher-order thought. Not only do we often see, and thereby know, that such-and-so is the case, we normally also know that we are seeing Preface vii thatsuch-and-soisthecase.Andforthistypeofhigher-orderknowledge,asimilar questionarisesasbefore:isthisknowledgebestanalyzedasdependingonevidential justification on the basis of experience, or is it better seen as depending on non- evidentialjustification?Again,thepreferableansweristhelatterone.Itisamistake to think that conscious experience itself provides evidence on the basis of which we conclude that we are currently seeing that such-and-so is the case, a mistake thatliesatthebottomofsomepersistentphilosophicalproblems.Onceoneaccepts thepossibilityofnon-evidentialjustificationforfirst-orderandhigher-orderbeliefs, one can answer these philosophicalproblemsand presenta persuadingexternalist accountofperceptualjustification. Thisexternalistviewdoeslimittheroleofconsciousexperienceinepistemology. In effect, the view argues that reliability is far more important for perceptual justification than conscious experience, something that seems to go against some of our prima facie intuitions about justification. That is why I start with a critical discussion of contemporarytheories of perceptual justification that argue in favor of the idea of experiential evidence and leave discussion of my own preferred externalistalternativeuntillater. The precise outline of the book will be as follows. Chapter 1 introduces the theories of perceptual justification to be discussed in relation to a challenge that arises from the indistinguishability of perception and hallucination. Each of these theories will highlight different aspects of perception, namely, conscious experience,higher-orderbelief,andreliabilityoftheperceptualprocess. Chapters2and3arebothdevotedtoexperientialistviewsofperceptualjustifica- tion,whichholdthatperceptualexperiencesjustifyperceptualbeliefsbyactingas their evidence. Chapter 2 is devoted to variants of evidentialism, which hold that perceptual experience can fulfill its evidential role without having propositional content.Chapter3isdevotedtovariantsofdogmatism,whichholdthataperceptual experiencewith the propositionalcontentthatp is sufficientforimmediate(prima facie)justificationofthebeliefthatp.Theoverallproblemfortheseexperientialist views will be presented in the form of a (Sellarsian) dilemma: if a perceptual experiencelacks propositionalcontent,then it is entirely unclearhow it can serve asevidenceforbelief,butifaperceptualexperiencehaspropositionalcontent,then onehastoexplainhowitisabletodosowithoutbeingjustifieditself. Chapter4discussesvariantsofepistemologicaldisjunctivism.Accordingtothese accounts,perceptualjustificationhastodowithhavingaccesstofactivereasonsof theform“Iseethatp.”Epistemologicaldisjunctivismthusholds,inagreementwith experientialism,thatperceptualjustificationhastodowithhavingevidence,butin contrastwithexperientialism,ittakesthisevidencetoconsistinfactivereasons.The largest problem I present for this view is that of hyper-intellectualization:having access to factive reasons plausibly requires having the capacity for higher-order beliefs, which is too cognitively demanding for unsophisticated epistemic agents. This chapter thus not only critically discusses an alternative accountof evidential perceptualjustification,italsostartsthediscussionoftheroleofhigher-orderbeliefs inperceptualjustification. viii Preface After displaying the problems of several accounts of perceptual justification that connect justification to evidence, Chap.5 introducesa non-evidentialview of justification:processreliabilism.Thefirstpartofthischapterfocusesontheclassic account of process reliabilism, which holds that the reliability of a specific type ofbelief-formingprocessdetermineswhethera beliefis justified.Thesecondpart discussestwo alternativestothisclassic account,i.e.,inferentialistreliabilismand proper functionalism, in the light of the well-known New Evil Demon Problem (whicharguesagainstthenecessityofreliabilityforjustification)andClairvoyance Problem(whicharguesagainstthesufficiencyofreliabilityforjustification). InChap.6Iintegrateseveralinsightsfromepistemologicaldisjunctivism,infer- entialist reliabilism, and proper functionalism to account for the Clairvoyance ProblemandNewEvilDemonProblem.AlthoughChap.4showsthathigher-order beliefs should not be taken as necessary for perceptualjustification, they can still play a role in providing additional evidential justification for perceptual beliefs as long as they are the outputof reliable introspective mechanisms.What’s more, the fact that we have these introspectivemechanismscan also be used to explain, first, how perceptual beliefs get defeated in cases of clairvoyance and, second, why we would overestimatethe importanceof experiencein providingperceptual justification—therebyleadingtothemistakenNewEvilDemonIntuition.Withthe ClairvoyanceandNewEvilDemonProblemoutoftheway,Iconcludethatanon- evidentialtheoryofperceptualjustificationdefinitelycomesoutontop. Leuven,Belgium HarmenGhijsen Acknowledgments Thisbookwouldprobablynothavebeenwritteninthisformifithadnotbeenfor a number of people. A lot of the research carried out for this book happened by means of a FLOF doctoral fellowship and a BOF PDMK postdoctoralfellowship at KU Leuven, where I was originally hired as a doctoral researcher by Stefaan Cuypers.Hehasbeenamajorsupporteversince,andIhavehadhisfullconfidence from the moment I started. Chris Kelp has definitely had the most impact on the contentof thisbook,as some partsof itare evenbased onour jointwork. He has influenced my thinking on the issues in this book from the moment we met and has always made time to discuss and commenton my work even before he could have gained any benefit from that himself. Jack Lyons has, unknowingly at first, alsobeenaninfluenceonmywritings,andreadersfamiliarwithhisPerceptionand BasicBeliefswillsurelyrecognizesomeoftheargumentspresentedhere.Iwould also like to thankall membersof the LeuvenEpistemologyGroup,especially Jan Heylen,MonaSimion,andFernandoBroncano-Berrocal,fortheirvaluableinputon parts of the book.The same goesfor my other colleaguesat the Centre for Logic and Analytic Philosophyand all other people that have given me good comments andsuggestionsatpresentationsofmywork. On thepersonalfront,Ihavealsobeensupportedbylotsoffriendsandfamily, someofwhichIamalsofortunateenoughtohavealreadymentionedascoworkers. Most importantly here, I’d like to thank my wife, Lorraine Fliek, for her utmost confidenceinmyabilities. Parts of this book are based on some of my earlier published work. Below I specifythesepartsinmoredetail. (cid:129) Sections2.4,2.5,and5.5arepartlybasedonpointsmadein“TheNon-Evidential NatureofPerceptualExperience,”LogiqueetAnalyse57(2014). (cid:129) Sections3.3and3.5arebasedon“GroundingPerceptualDogmatism:Whatare PerceptualSeemings?”TheSouthernJournalofPhilosophy53(2015):196–215. ©JohnWileyandSons,Inc.Reprintedwithpermission. ix
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