The Diversity of Disjunctivism Fabian Dorsch: (Disjunctivism: Perception, Action, Knowledge edited by Fiona Macpherson and Adrian Haddock)

Abstract

During the last ten years or so, there has been a noticeable surge of interest in disjunctivism, accompanied by the emergence of many different promising disjunctivist positions on a large variety of philosophical issues. However, this positive development has yet to lead to a change in the general attitude towards disjunctivism, which is often one of prevailing scepticism or even disregard. It is still not rare to dismiss disjunctivism right from the start as too implausible or abstruse to be considered as a serious alternative to other views. Not surprisingly, disjunctivism has so far failed to gain the level of attention in contemporary philosophical discussions that it deserves, and which many of its rival positions already enjoy. Part of the reason for this state of the debate is perhaps that proponents and opponents of disjunctivism alike have not always been sufficiently careful in distinguishing the various forms of disjunctivism, nor in determining their precise commitments. This excellent and timely volume—together with the slightly later published collection of classical texts on disjunctivism edited by Alex Byrne and Heather Logue (2009)—is bound to remedy this situation and to improve the wider understanding of both the content and the significance of disjunctivist positions. Indeed, the essays concerned show that any serious attempt at accounting for perception, perceptual knowledge, actions or practical reasons has to take the relevant disjunctivist claims and arguments into consideration— notably those discussed in the volume at hand. The collection brings together seventeen specially written essays on disjunctivism in the philosophy of mind, epistemology and, to a smaller extent, the philosophy of agency and meta-ethics. The standard of the contributions is very high throughout and reflects the quality of the respective discussions in the current literature. As its title already suggests, the book is divided into three parts that are concerned with perception, action, and knowledge, respectively. The relative prominence of disjunctivism in the related areas of philosophy is reflected by the number of papers making up each part: there are eight essays on the nature of perceptual experiences, six on perceptual knowledge or scepticism about it, and only one on the nature of bodily action (with David-Hillel Ruben developing a disjunctive account) and two on reasons for action (with Jennifer Hornsby defending, and Jonathan Dancy attacking, a disjunctive treatment). Thus, all in all, fourteen of the seventeen papers are concerned with issues in the philosophy of perception. This is very much in line with the origin of disjunctivism in discussions of experience and its role in the acquisition of knowledge, as well as with the continuing focus