Non‐epistemic perception as technology

Abstract

AbstractSome epistemologists and philosophers of mind hold that the non‐epistemic perceptual relation of which feature‐seeing and object‐seeing are special cases is the foundation of perceptual knowledge. This paper argues that such relations are best understood as having only a technological role in explaining perceptual knowledge. After introducing the opposing view in §1, §2 considers why its defenders deny that some cases in which one has perceptual knowledge without the relevant acquaintance relations are counterexamples, detailing their case for lurking inferential epistemology. §§3–4 suggest that this strategy fails in many other cases. While there is a computational tale that might be deemed ‘inferential’ in these cases, there is no corresponding tale in epistemic structure, not even if one rejects what Siegel (2017) calls the ‘Reckoning Model’ of inference. §5 offers a more fundamental dilemma. §6 concludes that there is only a technological role for non‐epistemic perception in grounding perceptual knowledge, but allows that it might play a more‐than‐technological role elsewhere.