Perceptual confidence: A Husserlian take

Abstract

AbstractIn this paper, I propose a Husserlian account of perceptual confidence, and argue for perceptual confidence by appeal to the self‐justification of perceptual experiences. Perceptual confidence is the intriguing view, recently developed by John Morrison, that there are not just doxastic confidences but also perceptual confidences, that is, confidences as aspect of perceptual experience, enabling us to account, for example, for the increasing confidence with which we experience an approaching human figure, while telling ourselves, as the viewing distance diminishes, “It looks like this just could be Isaac,” “It looks like this is probably Isaac,” “It looks like this is almost certainly Isaac.” I first present my Husserlian account with a focus on the notion of fulfillment, and the idea that the contents of perceptual experience are fulfillment conditions. I then show that this account can be complemented by PC. Finally, I develop a focus on the idea of perceptual self‐justification, diverting the perceptual confidence debate from its pre‐eminent concern with the relations between perceptual and doxastic confidences, and present an argument to the effect that there are perceptual confidences.