Causal Theories of Knowledge and Perception

Abstract

Abstract This article first surveys those ‘causal theories of perception’ that attempt to explain what it is for someone to perceive an external thing. Then it surveys the other ‘causal theories of perception’ (or alternatively, ‘causal theories of knowledge’) that attempt to explain what it is for someone to know about external things by means of perception. Within each of these two topics, we can locate all the various causal theories on a two-dimensional map: along one dimension are the various things that have been taken to do the causing, and along the other dimension are the various things that have been taken to be thus caused.