Abstract
Epistemological disjunctivism says that one can know that p on the rational basis of one’s seeing that p. The basis problem for disjunctivism says that that can’t be since seeing that p entails knowing that p on account of simply being the way in which one knows that p. In defense of their view disjunctivists have rejected the idea that seeing that p is just a way of knowing that p (the \(\hbox {S}_{\mathrm{w}}\hbox {K}\) thesis). That manoeuvre is familiar. In this paper I explore the prospects for rejecting instead the thought that if the \(\hbox {S}_{\mathrm{w}}\hbox {K}\) thesis is true then seeing that p can’t be one’s rational basis for perceptual knowledge. I explore two strategies. The first situates disjunctivism within the context of a ‘knowledge-first’ approach that seeks to reverse the traditional understanding of the relationship between perceptual knowledge and justification (or rational support). But I argue that a more interesting strategy situates disjunctivism within a context that accepts a more nuanced understanding of perceptual beliefs. The proposal that I introduce reimagines disjunctivism in light of a bifurcated conception of perceptual knowledge that would see it cleaved along two dimensions. On the picture that results perceptual knowledge at the judgemental level is rationally supported by perceptual knowledge at the merely functional or ‘animal’ level. This supports a form of disjunctivism that I think is currently off the radar: one that’s consistent both with the \(\hbox {S}_{\mathrm{w}}\hbox {K}\) thesis and a commitment to a traditional reductive account of perceptual knowledge.
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Notes
In what sense here is seeing that p a way of knowing that p? Not in Cassam’s sense (2007). For in that sense a way of knowing is simply a means of acquiring knowledge about something, and a means of knowing needn’t entail knowledge (e.g. reading that pdoesn’t entail knowing that p). Rather I think what we mean here is something like seeing that pis identical to a piece of propositional knowledge, or realizes propositional knowledge. More on this below. See French (2014) for discussion.
cf. Ghijsen (2015).
See Pritchard (2012, 2016) and McDowell (2002) for this line of response. They try to motivate a rejection of the WK thesis by describing cases that suggest that it’s not obvious that this thesis is supported by our ordinary thought and talk about epistemic seeing. For example, suppose you see a zebra in clear view but suspend judgment on whether there’s a zebra since you have a misleading defeater to the effect that it’s a cleverly disguised mule. Pritchard and McDowell register the intuition that, after the fact, it’d be perfectly natural for you to describe yourself as having seen that there was a zebra, despite your not knowing that there was since you didn’t believe that there was a zebra at the time.
By ‘knowledge-first’ I invoke the orientation in epistemology that most associate with the vision of Williamson (2000).
It’s in this connection that Pritchard writes that epistemological disjunctivism represents the ‘holy grail’ of epistemology (2012, p.1).
For criticism that ED doesn’t capture the internalist’s insight, see Boult (forthcoming), Madison (2014) and Goldberg (forthcoming). For criticism that there’s no internalist insight for ED to capture, see Littlejohn (2015) (forthcoming). For criticism that ED doesn’t capture the externalist’s insight, see Kelp and Ghijsen (2016).
ED is susceptible to other problems, too: what Pritchard (2012, 2016) calls the access and distinguishability problems. There’s also the problem of explaining why, given that one enjoys factive and reflectively accessible rational support for perceptual beliefs, it seems impermissible to assert that you know what you do in contexts where sceptical error possibilities have been raised. I don’t speak to these other problems in this paper.
Pritchard (2016, p. 127) writes that at best it would look like “one can appeal to seeing that p to explain how one knows that p, but not to indicate one’s epistemic basis for knowing that p.” Ghijsen (2015, p. 1149) adds that “this would make the perceptual knowledge that pliterally self-supporting (...)”. Thanks to a referee for helping me to be clarify exactly how SwK makes trouble for disjunctivism.
Millar writes that “instead of explaining the knowledge as, so to speak, built up from justified belief, we treat the knowledge as what enables one to be justified in believing” (2010, p. 139).
To clarify, by ‘epistemic basis’ I mean that in virtue of which one knows something. One’s ‘rational basis’ may be that in virtue of which one knows something, in which case it will also be one’s epistemic basis for that knowledge. But we should allow that one might enjoy a rational basis for their perceptual knowledge, despite one’s not knowing on the basis of this rational support.
Compare Millar when he writes: “Since it is constitutive of seeing that there are tomatoes in the basket that I believe that there are, it cannot be that I come to believe that there are in response to being apprised of the fact that I see that there are. Rather, I am in a position such that the reason I have to believe plays a role in sustaining the belief: were a question to arise as to whether there are tomatoes in the basket I would be liable to resist any suggestion that there are not in view of the fact that I see that there are, and were I to cease to believe that I see that there are then, all else equal, I’d cease to believe that there are” (2011b, pp. 332-333) (emphasis added).
In what follows I substitute ‘knowledgeably’ where Sosa would say ‘aptly’. I think this is a safe substitution that shouldn’t obscure my representation of Sosa’s ideas. This is merely to avoid having to address the technicalities of Sosa’s view of aptness with respect to belief, which would take us too far afield. Suffice it to say that, on Sosa’s view, an apt belief is not simply true and competently formed, but true because competently formed. See also Sosa (2016).
This isn’t something I’m able to do, for instance, when merely guessing the answer to a question in a game show. Here I might affirm that, say, Columbus sailed in 1492 in effort to affirm truly (after all I want the prize, and you need true answers for that!). But I wouldn’t be affirming to thereby affirm knowledgably, on Sosa’s view. For him a truly judgmental belief isn’t manifested in an intentional truth-aimed affirmation that amounts to a mere guess.
For other examples of authors that seem to distinguish between at least two kinds of belief, see Daniel Dennett (1978), Gendler (2008), and Stevenson (2002), who actually distinguishes up to six different conceptions of belief. See also Newman (1870) who distinguishes between ‘notional’ assent and ‘real’ assent, and Frede (1998) who distinguishes ‘having a view’ from ‘taking a position’ on a matter.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with Sosa’s work. He’s long held to a distinction between so-called ‘animal’ and ‘reflective’ knowledge.
This is why our proposal is also preferable to a view that is like Millar’s, with the exception that is offers a reductive externalist account of perceptual knowledge. On such a view we have only one kind of perceptual knowledge that receives a reductive externalist analysis. But such knowledge is also susceptible of further rational support courtesy of one’s seeing that p to be the case. Whatever the merits of a view like this, it is not able to sustain what I’m assuming is the relevant advantage secured by our proposal—viz., that it’s consistent with the ambition of offering a certain reductive account of perceptual knowledge: one that reduces perceptual knowledge to a kind of rationally supported perceptual belief. I’m claiming that only a disjunctivism that integrates the bifurcated conception of perceptual knowledge is able to sustain that advantage without compromising on the SwK thesis. Thanks to a referee for the journal for encouraging me to make this clearer.
Perhaps this is the thought behind the worry. Of course our proposal can’t claim for itself that it’s able to reconcile both internalist and externalist insights with respect to perceptual knowledge, so long as these are supposed to be insights into just any kind of perceptual knowledge whatsoever. Not if we allow merely functional perceptual knowledge to take a thoroughly externalist analysis (i.e. with no ‘internalist’ admixture). But then why think that? Why think that the externalist’s and internalist’s insights are real insights into just any kind of perceptual knowledge that there may be? Thanks to a referee for stimulating me to think about this some more.
Indeed he thinks that it’s only in paradigmaticcases that one perceptually knows that p by virtue of enjoying factive and reflectively accessible rational support in the form of one’s seeing that p to be the case. He explicitly denies that all knowledge, and even all perceptual knowledge, requires reflectively accessible and factive reasons (2015, forthcoming).
Compare Pritchard (2016, pp. 134–135): “(...) suppose I tell my manager over the phone that a colleague of mine is at work today (thereby representing myself as perceptually knowing this to be the case), and she expresses scepticism about this (...). In response I might naturally say that I know that she’s at work today because I can see that she’s at work (...). Indeed, wouldn’t it be odd for me to respond in this case, given the situation as described, by offering nonfactive rational support, such as by saying that it seems to me as if she is at work (...)?”
Thanks to a referee for the journal for encouraging me to think through the issues in this last section.
Thanks to Duncan Pritchard, Martin Smith, Aidan McGlynn, Adam Carter, Giada Fratantonio, Lukas Schwengerer, Matt Jope, and Michel Croce for comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Thanks also to two anonymous referees for Synthese.
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Shaw, K.J. The bifurcated conception of perceptual knowledge: a new solution to the basis problem for epistemological disjunctivism. Synthese 196, 2871–2884 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-017-1590-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-017-1590-x