Non-veridical Experience Research Articles

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.

Inferência metafísica e a experiência do observável

Some strongly empiricist views of scientific knowledge advocate a rejection of metaphysics. On such views, scientific knowledge is described strictly in terms of knowledge of the observable world, demarcated by human sensory abilities, and no metaphysical considerations need arise. This paper argues that even these views require some recourse to metaphysics in order to derive knowledge from experience. Central here is the notion of metaphysical inference, which admits of different “magnitudes”, thus generating a spectrum of putative knowledge with more substantially empirical beliefs at one end, and more metaphysically imbued beliefs at the other. Given that metaphysical inference is required even concerning knowledge of the observable, the empiricist hope of avoiding metaphysics altogether is futile: knowledge of the observable simply involves metaphysical inferences that are of smaller magnitudes than others. Metaphysical inferences are required not only to distinguish veridical from non-veridical experience and to determine the quality of empirical information, but also in order to explain how we construct experience (through categorizations and classifications of objects, events, processes, and properties), how we extrapolate from empirical evidence to generalize about observable phenomena, and how we use this evidence to test and confirm hypotheses and theories.

Perception Pragmatized: a Pragmatic Reconciliation of Representationalism and Relationalism

This paper develops a theory of perception that reconciles representationalism and relationalism by relying on pragmatist ideas. I call it the pragmatic view of perception. I argue that fully reconciling representationalism and relationalism requires, first, providing a theory in which how we perceive the world involves representations; second, preserving the idea that perception is constitutively shaped by its objects; and third, offering a direct realist account of perception. This constitutes what I call the Hybrid Triad. I discuss how Charles Peirce’s theory of perception can provide a framework for such a view and I devote the rest of the paper to developing my own pragmatic and Peircean theory of perception. In particular, I argue that considering perception as a continuous temporal process, which essentially involves interaction with the environment, allows us to do justice to the Hybrid Triad. I motivate this view by discussing how a pragmatic theory of perception would deal with issues such as the distinction between veridical and non-veridical experiences and the nature of perceptual objects.

The illusion confusion.

In Batty (2010b), I argue that there are no olfactory illusions. Central to the traditional notions of illusion and hallucination is a notion of object-failure—the failure of an experience to represent particular objects. Because there are no presented objects in the case of olfactory experience, I argue that the traditional ways of categorizing non-veridical experience do not apply to the olfactory case. In their place, I propose a novel notion of non-veridical experience for the olfactory case. In his (2011), Stevenson responds to my claim that there are no olfactory illusions. Although he agrees that it is natural—or at least commonplace—to think there are no olfactory illusions, he argues that there are and provides examples of them, many of which he suggests have analogs in the visual and auditory domains. In this paper, I examine the nature of the disagreement between us. I argue that Stevenson fails to argue against my conclusion that there are no olfactory illusions.

A problem for rationalist responses to skepticism

Rationalism, my target, says that in order to have perceptual knowledge, such as that your hand is making a fist, you must “antecedently” (or “independently”) know that skeptical scenarios don’t obtain, such as the skeptical scenario that you are in the Matrix. I motivate the specific form of Rationalism shared by, among others, White (Philos Stud 131:525–557, 2006) and Wright (Proc Aristot Soc Suppl Vol 78:167–212, 2004), which credits us with warrant to believe (or “accept”, in Wright’s terms) that our senses are reliably veridical, where that warrant is one we enjoy by default, that is, without relying on any evidence or engaging in any positive argument. The problem with this form of Rationalism is that, even if you have default knowledge that your senses are reliable, this is not adequate to rule out every kind of skeptical scenario. The problem is created by one-off skeptical scenarios, scenarios that involve a highly reliable perceiver who, by a pure fluke, has a one-off, non-veridical experience. I claim you cannot infer that your present perceptual experience is veridical just on the basis of knowledge of your general reliability. More generally, if you infer that the present F is G, just on the basis of your knowledge that most Fs are Gs, this is what I call statistical inference, and, as I argue, statistical inference by itself does not generate knowledge. I defend this view of statistical inference against objections, including the objection that radical skepticism about our ordinary inductive knowledge will follow unless statistical inference generates knowledge.

A Defense of McDowell’s Response to the Sceptic

Crispin Wright argues that John McDowell’s use of disjunctivism to respond to the sceptic misses the point of the sceptic’s argument, for disjunctivism is a thesis about the differing metaphysical natures of veridical and nonveridical experiences, whereas the sceptic’s point is that our beliefs are unjustified because veridical and nonveridical experiences can be phenomenally indistinguishable. In this paper, I argue that McDowell is responsive to the sceptic’s focus on phenomenology, for the point of McDowell’s response is that it is the phenomenal character of experience that makes the belief in disjunctivism rational, and thereby also makes rational the anti-sceptical belief that, other things being equal, the world is the way it appears.

Kant on Non-Veridical Experience

Kant on Non-Veridical Experience

A New Framework for Conceptualism

A satisfactory theory of perception must meet a variety of metaphysical and epistemological demands. What is wanted is a view that simultaneously accounts for, among other things, the epistemic significance of experience, the nature and status of illusion and hallucination, the possibility of unmediated perceptual contact with the world, the “richness” of experience, and the source of perceptual concepts. It has been argued that experience must be conceptual in order to secure the justificatory role of perceptual states; at the same time, it has been thought that such states cannot be conceptual given their phenomenological and explanatory features. Our aim is to introduce and defend a new framework for conceptualism that, by marking ontological and epistemic differences between sensory awareness and perceptual experience, promises to resolve this dispute while accounting for all of the above phenomena. In §1, we clarify the conceptualist thesis at issue. In §2, we present and motivate the framework—a collection of theses about awareness and experience—and defend it against possible objections. In §3, we show how the framework can be used to block what we take to be the most serious threat to conceptualism: the argument from nonveridical experience. In §4, we show how the framework bears upon various further issues that arise in the debates between conceptualists and nonconceptualists, including the

Pictorial Experience and Seeing

This paper proposes that pictorial experience, the experience that pictures give rise to when we understand them, involves the non-veridical experience of seeing the picture’s subject matter. Using phenomenological analysis and material from philosophy of mind and perceptual psychology, it argues that both pictorial experience lacking awareness of the picture surface, such as illusion, and pictorial experience that includes this awareness, i.e. seeing-in, should be understood in this way.

Sensory Awareness Is not a Wide Physical Relation: An Empirical Argument Against Externalist Intentionalism1

Intentionalism is very popular. Here I will work with a simple form for convenience. On this form of Intentionalism, to have an experience is to stand in the sensory representation relation or, as I shall say, the property-awareness relation to a cluster of properties (Dretske 1999). The properties we are aware of are the ostensible properties of external objects or parts of one’s body. In veridical experience these properties are instantiated in one’s environment or body, while in non-veridical experience they are not. In hallucination, for instance, one is aware of properties but not anything that instantiates the properties; one is aware of a cluster of free-floating properties (Dretske 1995, 1999, 2003; Tye 2000). Finally, the qualitative character of experience is determined by the totality of properties one is aware of (the totality of properties one sensorily represents). Roughly speaking, necessarily, if two people are aware of the same properties, then they have the same experience-type. Of course, we are not only aware of properties; in veridical experience, we are also aware of objects and facts. But object-awareness and fact-awareness do not determine qualitative character (Dretske 1999). It is what properties things seem to have which determines qualitative character. Here I will simply speak of the ‘‘awareness relation’’. But it is to be understood that I am exclusively interested in the nature of the property-awareness relation. There is much to recommend Intentionalism. Unlike Disjunctivism, Intentionalism is a common factor theory. The common factor between

Justified vs. Warranted Perceptual Belief: Resisting Disjunctivism

In this paper I argue that McDowell's brand of disjunctivism about perceptual knowledge is ill-motivated. First, I present a reconstruction of one main motivation for disjunctivism, in the form of an argument that theories that posit a “highest common factor” between veridical and non-veridical experiences must be wrong. Then I show that the argument owes its plausibility to a failure to distinguish between justification and warrant (where “warrant” is understood as whatever has to be added to true belief to yield knowledge).

Detecting hypnotically altered states of consciousness

The non-veridical experiences associated with hypnosis, which are clearly at variance with reality, are a clue that the hypnotized person has ceased to test the validity of experiences. Recent brain-mapping studies implicate the anterior cingulate gyrus as a key region in the establishment of hypnotic misperceptions. Significantly, when that region of brain is damaged patients experience difficulty in distinguishing the imaginary from the real. Taken together, these observations support the claim that hypnosis entails an abandonment of reality testing. It is argued that an altered state of consciousness is an inevitable consequence of ceasing to test reality. Possible ways of researching this altered state are discussed. Copyright © 2005 British Society of Experimental and Clinical Hypnosis