Epistemological Disjunctivism Research Articles

Radical Conventionalism and Hinge Epistemology

In the paper I explore some hints one can find in an updated version of Ajdukiewicz’s radical conventionalism that may help to resolve some controversies within hinge epistemology, i.e. a family of positions that invoke Wittgenstein’s idea of groundless grounds of knowledge. In particular I put into doubt whether there is a real difference between pragmatic and transcendental justification of hinges, I reject epistemological disjunctivism, and I argue for anti-realistic reading of truth in a context determined by particular hinges while retaining the classical notion of truth as a regulative idea of knowledge that governs the possible revisions of hinges.

The Hard Problem of Access for Epistemological Disjunctivism

Abstract In this paper, I identify the hard problem of access for epistemological disjunctivism (ED): given that perceptual experience E is opaque with respect to its own epistemic properties, subject S is not in a position to know epistemic proposition (i) (that E is factive with respect to empirical proposition p) just by having E and/or reflecting on E. This is the case even if (i) is true. I first motivate the hard problem of access (Section 2) and then reconstruct and analyze three of the ways in which EDists have argued for the internal accessibility of the factive character of perceptual experience. These arguments explain internal access in terms of the unity of perceptual and rational capacities (Section 3), favoring support (Section 4), and the outward-looking model of self-knowledge (Section 5). My conclusion (Section 6) is that none of these responses works. I then suggest how ED might be modified to succeed as an access internalist epistemology.

Moderatism and Truth

AbstractAccording to moderatism, perceptual justification requires that one independently takes for granted propositional hinges. This view faces the truth problem: to offer an account of truth for hinges that is not threatened by skepticism. Annalisa Coliva has tried to solve the truth problem by developing a new form of alethic pluralism. I argue that the resulting view cannot offer a coherent characterization of “skeptical switch scenarios” while providing an effective anti-skeptical strategy. In a more positive vein, I defend an approach that combines a correspondence conception of truth with epistemological disjunctivism.

An Epistemological Disjunctivist Account of Memory Knowledge

AbstractThis paper explores the prospects for a Pritchardean epistemological disjunctivist account of memory knowledge. We begin by providing an overview of Duncan Pritchard's epistemological disjunctivist account of perceptual knowledge, as well as the theoretical advantages of such an account. Drawing on that account, we present and motivate our own Pritchardean epistemological disjunctivist account of memory knowledge. After distinguishing different sorts of memory and the different roles that memory can play in knowledge acquisition, we set out our account and argue that the case for epistemological disjunctivism enjoys parity with the case for epistemological disjunctivism of perceptual knowledge. We also consider objections to our account. The first is from Joe Milburn and Andrew Moon, who argue against a general epistemological disjunctivism of memory on the basis of differences in memory types. The second objection arises from a Radford-like case whereby one's true belief is from memory even though one lacks rational support that is reflectively accessible to one.

In touch with the facts: epistemological disjunctivism and the rationalisation of belief

ABSTRACT The idea of believing for a good reason has both normative and psychological content. How are these related? Recently, a number of authors have defended a ‘disjunctivist’ view of rationalisation, on which a good reason can make a subject’s responses to it intelligible in a way that mere ‘apparent reasons’ cannot. However, little has been said about the possible epistemological significance of this view or its relationship to more familiar forms of disjunctivism in the philosophy of perception. This paper examines the relationship between epistemological disjunctivism and disjunctivism about rationalisation, arguing that the latter provides an attractive articulation of certain elements of the former. The specific claim is that disjunctivism about rationalisation enables the proponent of epistemological disjunctivism to explain why beliefs that are based on conclusive normative reasons provided by perception are susceptible to a certain kind of undercutting defeat. On the way to motivating this claim, the paper considers possible ways of articulating epistemological disjunctivism in terms of reasons, distinguishes different forms of disjunctivism about reasons for belief and clarifies the relationships between them.

A‐Rational Epistemological Disjunctivism

AbstractAccording to epistemological disjunctivism (ED), in paradigmatic cases of perceptual knowledge, a subject,S, has perceptual knowledge thatpin virtue of being in possession of reasons for her belief thatpwhich are both factive and reflectively accessible toS. It has been argued that ED is better placed than both knowledge internalism and knowledge externalism to undercut underdetermination‐based skepticism. I identify several principles that must be true if ED is to be uniquely placed to attain this goal. After that, I use those principles to formulate a diachronic skeptical argument. This argument yields the counterintuitive conclusion that understanding a global skeptical hypothesis is all it takes for a rational subject to lose all her perceptual knowledge of the world. Next, I show that a popular Austinian move must reject one or another of the principles that underlie ED. I close by delineating a novel strategy that can block the diachronic skeptical argument while preserving all the principles. The key idea is that perceptual knowledge is grounded in primitive, perceptual and recognitional abilities. This view sheds new light on some puzzling features of global skepticism that have been noted by Descartes and Hume, among others.

Epistemological Disjunctivism and the Conditionality Problem for Externalism

Abstract Epistemological disjunctivism (ED) has been thought to solve the conditionality problem for epistemic externalism. This problem arises from externalists’ characterization of our epistemic standings as conditional on the obtaining of worldly facts which we lack any reflective access to. ED is meant to avoid the conditionality problem by explicating subjects’ perceptual knowledge in paradigmatic cases of perceptual knowledge via their possession of perceptual reasons that are both factive and reflectively accessible. I argue that ED's account of reflectively accessible factive perceptual reasons is also prey to the conditionality problem. After that, I submit that Stroud's influential formulation of the conditionality problem relies on a methodological requirement that is potentially dissociable from ED. So, it is possible to put ED in the service of a more modest anti-skeptical strategy. I close by suggesting that this modest anti-skeptical strategy successfully undercuts the underdetermination-based skeptical paradox. Nevertheless, it does not have substantial advantages over some forms of epistemic externalism.

Knowledge‐first perceptual epistemology: A comment on Littlejohn and Millar

AbstractAccording to epistemological disjunctivism (ED), ordinary perceptual experience ensures an opportunity for perceptual knowledge. In recent years, two distinct models of this idea have been developed. For Duncan Pritchard (Epistemological disjunctivism, 2012, Oxford University Press; Epistemic angst: Radical skepticism and the groundlessness of our believing, 2012, Princeton University Press), perception provides distinctly powerful reasons for belief. By contrast, Clayton Littlejohn (Journal of Philosophical Research, 41, 201; Knowledge first, 2017, Oxford University Press; Normativity: Epistemic and practical, 2018, Oxford University Press) and Alan Millar (The nature and value of knowledge: Three investigations, 2010, Oxford University Press; Philosophical Issues, 21, 332) argue for a version of ED in terms of a “knowledge first” program, on which perception directly provides knowledge, without relying on antecedent reasons or justification. Specifically, both Littlejohn and Millar argue that “reasons first” ED faces a problematic regress. In this article, I defend “reasons first” ED by arguing that experience provides a type of reason that escapes the regress. I also argue that reasons are a fundamental aspect of ED, especially in its anti‐skeptical stance.

Stranded Runners

Those who endorse a knowledge-first program in epistemology claim that rather than attempting to understand knowledge in terms of more fundamental notions or relations such as belief and justification, we should instead understand knowledge as being in some sense prior to such concepts and/or relations. If we suppose that this is the correct approach to theorizing about knowledge, we are left with a residual question about the nature of those concepts or relations, such as justification, that were thought to be first but are now second. Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa has recently proposed that we understand justification in terms of potential knowledge. Ichikawa combines his view of knowledge and justification with what initially seems to be a natural complement, epistemological disjunctivism. While Ichikawa focuses on hallucination, I shift the focus to illusion. I argue that the combination of justification as potential knowledge and epistemological disjunctivism entails that perceptual beliefs that arise from illusions are not justified.

Parmenides on ‘naming’ and ‘meaning’: a disjunctivist reading of the Poem

AbstractA well-established tradition has argued that it is not legitimate to attribute to Parmenides a Fregean semantics, i.e. the distinction between ‘naming’ and ‘meaning’. Nonetheless, Parmenides claims more than once (B 8.53, B 9.1) that mortalsdo namereality, although incorrectly. As many scholars have emphasised, because it is fair neither to conclude that mortals’ names are ‘empty names’ nor dismiss Opinion's account (i.e., broadly speaking, the mortals’ account of reality) itself as meaningless, it seems that Parmenides is suggesting that some kind of distinction between what names refer to and what names mean must be drawn. In view of this, what is Parmenides’ account of names?My suggestion is that in order to explain the Eleatic philosophy of language (and the Eleatic account of names) a step back is required. More specifically, Parmenides’ epistemology has to be taken into account. Indeed, if we assume that Parmenides is arguing for an ‘epistemological disjunctivism’ – such that the veridical and truthful state and the erroneous and deceptive state are essentially different – it will be clear that he is further arguing for what could be defined as a ‘semantic disjunctivism’, so that true speech and false speech are essentially different as well.

Multi-Factor Causal Disjunctivism: a Nyāya-Informed Account of Perceptual Disjunctivism

Perceptual disjunctivism is a controversial thesis about perception. One familiar characterization of the thesis maintains that there is no common epistemic kind that is present in both veridical and non-veridical cases of perception. For example, the good case, in which one sees a yellow lemon, and the bad case, in which one hallucinates a yellow lemon, share a specific first-person phenomenology, being indistinguishable from the first-person point of view; however, seeing a yellow lemon and hallucinating a yellow lemon do not, according to the disjunctivist, share a common epistemic kind. There are two types of disjunctivism: epistemological vs. metaphysical. John McDowell (1996, 2008, Philosophical Explorations, 13(3), 243–255, 2011, Philosophical Explorations, 16(3), 259–279, 2013) has articulated, refined, and defended one kind of disjunctivism. Tyler Burge (Philosophical Topics, 33(1), 1–78, 2005, Philosophical Explorations, 13(3), 43–80, 2011) has objected to many forms of disjunctivism, arguing that they are all inconsistent with the proximality principle (PP) in the vision sciences. PP requires an ability-general kind in common between relevantly similar perceptual states, such as seeing a yellow lemon and hallucinating a yellow lemon, which disjunctivism denies. Against the background of this debate some analytic epistemologists, such as Michael Martin (Philosophical Studies, 120, 37–89, 2004), Alan Millar (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 73(1), 176–198, 2007), Berit Brogaard (Philosophical Issues 21-The Epistemology of Perception, 21(1), 46–73, 2011), Duncan Pritchard (2012), and Heather Logue (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 86(1), 105–133, 2013) remain attracted to some version of disjunctivism. Brogaard and Pritchard each have gone on to articulate and defend a version. Pritchard’s (2012), for example, defends epistemological disjunctivism. Martin, Millar, and Logue, by contrast, have defended the idea that the disjunctivist is right about something, but perhaps not wholly correct about the nature of perception. In what follows, I articulate and defend the view that an interesting kind of disjunctivism is to be found through a reading of the Nyāya School of classical Indian philosophy. I articulate a version of perceptual disjunctivism informed by Nyāya perceptual theory that is not derivable from any single Nyāya philosopher. The view I offer is inspired by work on disjunctivism both in Anglo-analytic philosophy and in Nyāya scholarship, such as by Dasti and Phillips (Philosophy East & West, 60(4), 535–540, 2010), Ganeri (Philosophy East & West, 60(4), 541–550, 2010), Dasti (Philosophy East & West, 62(1), 1–15, 2012), Phillips (2012), Vaidya (Philosophy East and West, 63(4), 562–585, 2013), and Schiller (History of Philosophy Quarterly, 36(1), 1–18, 2019). Importantly, the causal account I offer is distinct from Grice’s (Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 121, 121–152, 1961) single-factor causal theory of perception by crucially involving a multi-factor causal theory of perception. My work on Nyāya perceptual theory derives primarily from Jaysankar Shaw’s (2016a, b, c) account of Nyāya on the sources of knowledge, which is distinct from Stephen Phillips’ well-known (2012) account of Nyāya epistemology. Shaw’s theory has been developed and refined through textual analysis and dialectical engagement with the twentieth century Nyāya Pundit Philosopher, Viśvabandhu Tarkatīrtha. Like other modern Nyāya scholars, such as B. K. Matilal (1992), A. Chakrabarti (Philosophy East and West, 50(1), 1–8, 2010), M. Chadha (2015), J. Ganeri (2011), and S. Phillips (Philosophy East and West, 51(1), 104–113, 2001, 2012), J. Shaw’s account shows how Nyāya epistemology is a living and continuing form of Indian philosophy. My goal here is twofold. On the one hand, I articulate multi-factor causal disjunctivism and show how it can be applied to the McDowell-Burge debate over the viability of disjunctivism and naive realism. On the other hand, I aim to start a cross-cultural epistemological conversation with those that have contributed to the Anglo-analytic debate in anthologies, such as Haddock and Macpherson (2008), Byrne and Logue (2009), and introductions, such as Soteriou (2016). The hope is that a cross-cultural epistemological investigation into disjunctivism will lead to better epistemic theorizing about the nature of perception.

Dretske & McDowell on perceptual knowledge, conclusive reasons, and epistemological disjunctivism

Dretske & McDowell on perceptual knowledge, conclusive reasons, and epistemological disjunctivism

A NÃO REDUÇÃO DA EPISTEMOLOGIA AS CIÊNCIAS COGNITIVAS E A QUESTÃO DO DISJUNTIVISMO

No presente artigo abordo a questão da redução da epistemologia as ciências cognitivas, explorando o debate entre Burge e McDowell sobre o disjuntivismo epistemológico. Dessa maneira, começo apontando a tese da indistinguibilidade que afirma que existe um denominador comum entre uma experiência perceptiva verídica e uma experiência perceptiva enganosa. Veremos que essa tese motiva um argumento cético. Em seguida apresento a posição disjuntivista de McDowell que afiram que experiências verídicas e não-verídicas diferem em valor cognitivo. Mostro as críticas de Burge ao disjuntivismo de McDowell, e a sua tese de que a experiência perceptiva deve ser tratada pelas ciências cognitivas. Depois disso, mostro a resposta de McDowell a Burge de que o caráter epistêmico da experiência difere do caráter descritivo das ciências cognitivas. Por fim, digo porque a epistemologia não pode ser reduzida a epistemologia.

Современные подходы к проблеме картезианского скептицизма. Открытая лекция: Существует ли внешний мир? Часть I. Решение или устранение проблемы скептицизма

We consider some newcontemporary approaches to solving or dissolving the problem of skepticism regarding the existence of the external world, in particular, disjunctivism, Duncan Pritchard’s biscopic approach and Timothy Williamson’s knowledge first approach. We argue that resolving the skepticalproblem within the framework of epistemological disjunctivism is problematic because it does not take into account the Wittgenstein's notion of a hinge proposition. In fact, a successful approach to the skepticalproblem requires a revision of the metaphysical premises of traditional epistemology, namely the adoption of a non-metaphysical Wittgenstein’s realism. The recently proposed by D. Pritchard within the frame-work of his “biscopic” approach dissolving of the skeptical problem asa pseudo-problem just combines Wittgenstein’s hinge epistemology and epistemological disjunctivism.

Does perceptual psychology rule out disjunctivism in the theory of perception?

Disjunctivist views in the theory of perception hold that genuine perceptions differ in some relevant kind from misperceptions, such as illusions and hallucinations. In recent papers, Tyler Burge has argued that such views conflict with the basic tenets of perceptual psychology. According to him, perceptual psychology is committed to the view that genuine perceptions and misperceptions produced by the same proximal stimuli must be or involve perceptual states of the same kind. This, he argues, conflicts with disjunctivism. In this paper, I defend epistemological disjunctivism from Burge’s inconsistency charge. To this end, I survey the perceptual psychological literature, and reveal that the perceptual kinds they tend to employ differ from and imply nothing about the kinds at issue for the epistemological disjunctivist. I then argue that Burge’s concerns with epistemological disjunctivism are best interpreted as motivated not by his commitment to empirical science, but instead by his views in epistemology and about human rationality.

EPISTEMOLOGICAL DISJUNCTIVISM AND THE INTERNALIST CHALLENGE

Abstract The paper highlights how a popular version of epistemological disjunctivism (Pritchard 2012, 2016) labors under a kind of ‘internalist challenge’—a challenge that seems to have gone largely unacknowledged by disjunctivists. This is the challenge to vindicate the supposed ‘internalist insight’ that disjunctivists claim their view does well to protect (Littlejohn forthcoming 2015). The paper argues that if we advance disjunctivism within a context that recognizes a distinction between merely functional and judgmental belief (Sosa 2015), we get a view that easily overcomes the internalist challenge.

Reflective Access, Closure, and Epistemological Disjunctivism

AbstractIn this paper, I consider the so-called Access Problem for Duncan Pritchard's Epistemological Disjunctivism (2012). After reconstructing Pritchard's own response to the Access Problem, I argue that in order to assess whether Pritchard's response is a satisfying one, we first need an account of the notion of ‘Reflective Access’ that underpins Pritchard's Epistemological Disjunctivism. I provide three interpretations of the notion of Reflective Access: a metaphysical interpretation, a folk interpretation, and an epistemic interpretation. I argue that none of these three interpretations comes without problems. I conclude that, until we have a clear and unproblematic account of Reflective Access, the Access Problem remains a challenge for Pritchard's Epistemological Disjunctivism.

The weight of facts: A puzzle about perception, reasons and deliberation

AbstractHow should we understand the epistemic role of perception? According to epistemological disjunctivism (ED), a subject’s perceptual knowledge that p is to be explained in terms of the subject believing that p for a factive and reflectively accessible reason. I argue that ED raises far‐reaching questions for rationality and deliberation; I illustrate those questions by setting up a puzzle about belief‐suspension, and I argue that ED does not have the resources to make sense of the rationality of belief‐suspension in cases in which suspending is clearly rational. The conclusion that I draw from the puzzle is mainly negative: the epistemic contribution of perception cannot be explained in terms of a warrant‐conferring relation between perception and belief. However, toward the end, I sketch a positive picture of the epistemic role of perception in terms of a direct explanatory relation between perception and knowledge.

EPISTEMOLOGICAL DISJUNCTIVISM: NEO-WITTGENSTEINIAN AND MODERATE NEO-MOOREAN

ABSTRACTDuncan Pritchard proposes a biscopic solution to the problem of radical skepticism, which consists in epistemological disjunctivism and a theory about the limits of rational evaluation inspired by Wittgenstein's On Certainty. According to the latter theory, we cannot have rationally grounded knowledge of the denials of radical skeptical hypotheses, a consequence that Pritchard finds attractive insofar as he thinks that claims to know the falsity of radical skeptical hypotheses are epistemically immodest. I argue that there is room for a neo-Moorean to dispute Pritchard's argument for the Wittgensteinian proposal and I raise some doubts about its underlying motivation. Finally, I put forward an alternative, which I call “moderate neo-Moorean epistemological disjunctivism.” While this theory contends that we possess rationally grounded anti-skeptical knowledge, it also allows for a degree of epistemic modesty, by conceding that perceptual knowledge never amounts to knowledge that is absolutely certain.

Perceptual Knowledge, Discrimination, and Closure

Carter and Pritchard (Philos Stud 173(4):969–990, 2016) and Pritchard (Nous 44(2):245–268, 2010, Epistemological disjunctivism, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012, Epistemic angst: radical scepticism and the groundlessness of our believing, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2016) have tried to reconcile the intuition that perceptual knowledge requires only limited discriminatory abilities with the closure principle. To this end, they have introduced two theoretical innovations: a contrast between two ways of introducing error-possibilities and a distinction between discriminating and favoring evidence. I argue that their solution faces the “sufficiency problem”: it is unclear whether the evidence that is normally available to adult humans is sufficient to retain knowledge of the entailing proposition and come to know the entailed proposition. I submit that, on either infallibilist or fallibilist views of evidence, Carter and Pritchard have set the bar for deductive knowledge too low. At the end, I offer an alternative solution. I suggest that the knowledge-retention condition of the closure principle is not satisfied in zebra-like scenarios.