Easy Knowledge, Circularity, and the Puzzle of Reliability Knowledge

Episteme ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 453-473
Author(s):  
Matthias Steup
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Cognitive Structure ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Animal Knowledge ◽  
Ernest Sosa ◽  
Perceptual Knowledge ◽  
Mutual Dependence ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Temporal Priority ◽  
Vicious Circularity

AbstractAccording to externalist reliabilism and dogmatic foundationalism, it's possible to gain knowledge through a perceptual experience without being in a position to know that the experience is reliable. As a result, both of these views face the problem of making knowledge of perceptual reliability too easy, for they permit deducing perceptual reliability from particular perceptual experience without already knowing that these experiences are trustworthy. Ernest Sosa advocates a two-stage solution to the problem. At the first stage, a rich body of perceptual animal knowledge is acquired. At the second stage, perceptual knowledge becomes reflective after deducing perceptual reliability from the initial body of perceptual animal knowledge. I defend the alternative approach of rejecting both externalist reliabilism and dogmatic foundationalism. According to the alternative view, perceptual knowledge and knowledge of perceptual reliability require each other. Such a cognitive structure seems viciously circular. I propose that the appearance of vicious circularity dissipates when the relationship in question is viewed, not as one of temporal priority, but instead as synchronic mutual dependence. At a given time, one cannot have perceptual knowledge without knowledge of perceptual reliability, and vice versa. Such mutual dependence, I argue, is benign.

Pyrrhonian Skepticism and Two Kinds of Knowledge

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Williams
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Reflective Knowledge ◽  
Animal Knowledge ◽  
Ernest Sosa ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Pyrrhonian Skepticism ◽  
Cognitive Faculties ◽  
Skeptical Problem ◽  
Vicious Circularity ◽  
Direct Answer

AbstractIn his Reflective Knowledge, Ernest Sosa offers a theory of knowledge, broadly virtue-theoretic in character, that is meant to transcend simple ways of contrasting "internalist" with "externalist" or "foundationalist" with "coherentist" approaches to knowledge and justification. Getting beyond such simplifications, Sosa thinks, is the key to finding an exit from "the Pyrrhonian Problematic": the ancient and profound skeptical problem concerning the apparent impossibility of validating the reliability of our basic epistemic faculties and procedures in a way that escapes vicious circularity. Central to Sosa's anti-skeptical strategy is the claim that there are two kinds of knowledge. His thought is that animal knowledge, which can be understood in purely reliabilist terms, can ground justified trust in the reliability of our basic cognitive faculties, thus elevating us (without vicious circularity) to the level of reflective knowledge. I offer a sketch of an alternative approach, linking knowledge and justification with epistemic accountability and responsible belief-management, which casts doubt on the idea that "animal" knowledge is knowledge properly so-called. However, it turns out that this approach is (perhaps surprisingly) close in spirit to Sosa's. I suggest that the differences between us may rest on a disagreement over the possibility of providing a direct answer to the Pyrrhonian challenge.

scholarly journals Sosa’s Responses to Dreaming Skepticism

2010 ◽  
Vol 42 (125) ◽  
pp. 3-25
Author(s):  
Claudia Lorena García
Keyword(s):  
Radical Surgery ◽  
Animal Knowledge ◽  
Ernest Sosa ◽  
Perceptual Knowledge ◽  
First Response

Ernest Sosa has proposed two different ways to respond to dreaming skepticism. In this paper I argue that Sosa's first response —which centers on holding that we have no beliefs in dreams— does not appear to be successful against (what we have called) either the hyperbolic or the realistic dreaming skeptic. I also argue that his second attempt to respond to the dreaming skeptic by arguing that perceptual knowledge indeed counts as what he calls "animal knowledge", may succeed but requires us to perform what appears to be some radical surgery on the concept of knowledge; a radical surgery that, as I show, is probably unnecessary to avoid dreaming skepticism. Finally, I sketch some independent considerations why I think that the hyperbolic skeptic's dreaming argument is not acceptable. 

Explaining Perceptual Knowledge

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Stroud
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
External World ◽  
Satisfactory Explanation ◽  
Perceptual Knowledge ◽  
Epistemological Problem ◽  
The Way

This chapter offers a response to Quassim Cassam’s ‘Seeing and Knowing’, which challenges some of the conditions Cassam thinks the author has imposed on a satisfactory explanation of our knowledge of the external world. According to Cassam, the conditions he specifies can be fulfilled in ways that explain how the knowledge is possible. What is at stake in this argument between Cassam and the author is the conception of what is perceived to be so that is needed to account for the kind of perceptual knowledge we all know we have. That is what must be in question in any promising move away from the overly restrictive conception of perceptual experience that gives rise to the hopelessness of the traditional epistemological problem. The author suggests that we should explore the conditions of successful ‘propositional’ perception of the way things are and emphasizes the promise of such a strategy.

Perception and Primary Knowledge

2019 ◽  
pp. 34-69
Author(s):  
Michael Ayers
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Psychology ◽  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Phenomenological Analysis ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Direct Realism ◽  
Perceptual Awareness ◽  
Perceptual Knowledge ◽  
Decisive Reason ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

A phenomenological analysis of perceptual experience, conducted with an eye on experimental psychology, addresses a series of questions. What is phenomenology? What makes perception of one’s environment as one’s environment? Does the phenomenal integration of the senses give decisive reason for ‘direct realism’? Do we perceive causal relations, or only infer them? Are we perceptually aware of acting? Are we perceptually aware of the causality of perception itself, and if so, in some cases or in all? It is argued that perceiving is not only direct cognitive contact with reality, but that the perceptual relation is itself an object of perceptual awareness. Accordingly, conscious perceptual knowledge comes with knowledge that and of how one has it. Other forms of knowledge (e.g. a priori knowledge) are analogous. A distinction is drawn between primary and secondary knowledge, such that that there could be no secondary knowledge without some primary knowledge.

Perceptual knowledge

2019 ◽  
pp. 279-308
Author(s):  
Georges Dicker
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Perceptual Knowledge ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Carry Over ◽  
Sensitive Knowledge ◽  
Rule Out

This chapter critically analyzes Locke’s views on “sensitive knowledge.” Its main theses are: (1) Locke sometimes confuses the legitimate question (Q1), “When we perceive a body, how can we know that we aren’t hallucinating instead?” with the faulty “veil-of-perception” question, (Q2) “How do we know bodies exist, since we can’t perceive them?” (2) When Locke does mention (Q1), he sometimes just dismisses it, because he holds that simple ideas of sensation are by definition produced by bodies. (3) At other times, Locke humors the skeptic, and offers a defense of the senses, in the form of an inference to the best explanation. (4) It’s doubtful that he could successfully rule out other possible explanations of our perceptual experience, like Descartes’s deceiver scenario and its contemporary variants. (5) There are reasons for this weakness, and they carry over to any attempt to defeat skepticism by an inference to the best explanation.

scholarly journals Virtudes epidémicas reflexivas. El conocimiento como una cuestión de confianza

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 243
Author(s):  
Manuel Liz
Keyword(s):  
Animal Knowledge ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Epistemic Circularity ◽  
Ernest Sosa ◽  
De Re ◽  
Epistemic Virtues ◽  
Sources Of Knowledge ◽  
Palabras Clave ◽  
Epistemic Perspective

Resumen De acuerdo a Ernest Sosa, el conocimiento re exivo debería ser capaz de integrar al- gunas circularidades epistémicas como fuentes virtuosas de conocimiento. Argumen- taremos que tal conocimiento re exivo tiene que estar basado en ciertas capacidades para delegar y aplazar de manera adecuada la justi cación de nuestras creencias de primer orden. También argumentaremos que entender esas capacidades comunitarias y temporales como constituyendo virtudes epistémicas re exivas nos conduce fuera de cualquier concepción criterial del conocimiento. Para estas concepciones, conocer siempre requiere saber que se han satisfecho determinados criterios. Si el conoci- miento propiamente humano inevitablemente necesita alguna dosis de re exión, y si nuestro conocimiento re exivo necesariamente depende del ejercicio virtuoso de ciertas capacidades para delegar y aplazar la justi cación, entonces en último término el conocimiento no puede ser criterial. El conocimiento humano es más bien una cuestión de con anza Palabras clave: Conocimiento; criterios; perspectiva epistémica; circularidad epistémica; conocimiento animal; conocimiento re exivo; ascenso epistémico; virtu- des epistémicas re exivas; delegación de la justi cación; aplazamiento de la justicación. AbstractAccording to Ernest Sosa, re ective knowledge would have to be able to integrate some epistemic circularities as virtuous sources of knowledge. We will argue that such re ective knowledge has to be based on some capacities for delegating and relegating in adequate ways the justi cation of our rst-order beliefs. Also, we will argue that to understand those communitarian and temporal capacities as constituting re ective epistemic virtues leads us outside any criterial conception of knowledge. For these conceptions, knowing always requires to know that certain criteria are ful lled. If human knowledge worth of the name unavoidably needs some amount of re ection, and if our re ective knowledge necessarily depends on virtuous delegation and deferring, then at the end of the day knowledge cannot be criterial. Human knowledge is rather a matter of trust.Keywords: Knowledge; criteria; epistemic perspective; epistemic circularity; animal knowledge; re ective knowledge; epistemic ascent; re ective epistemic virtues; delegation of justi cation; deferring of justication.  

Knowing by Perceiving

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Millar
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Philosophical Method ◽  
Perceptual Justification ◽  
Perceptual Knowledge ◽  
The Real ◽  
Justified Belief ◽  
Sensory Experiences ◽  
Alternative Perspective ◽  
Key Concepts

Epistemological discussions of perception usually focus on something other than knowledge. They consider how beliefs arising from perception can be justified. With the retreat from knowledge to justified belief there is a retreat from perception to the sensory experiences implicated by perception. On the most widely held approach, perception drops out of the picture other than as the usual means by which we are furnished with the experiences that are supposed to be the real source of justification—experiences that are conceived to be no different in kind from those we could have had if we had been perfectly hallucinating. In this book an alternative perspective is developed that explicates perceptual knowledge in terms of recognitional abilities, and perceptual justification in terms of perceptually known truths as to what we perceive to be so. Justified belief is regarded as belief founded on known truths. The treatment of perceptual knowledge is situated within a broader conception of epistemology and philosophical method. Attention is paid to contested conceptions of perceptual experience, to knowledge from perceived indicators, and to the standing of background presuppositions that inform our thinking. Throughout, the discussion is sensitive to ways in which key concepts figure in ordinary thinking, while being resolutely focused on what knowledge is, not just on how we think of it.

Knowledge from Perceived Indicators and Background Knowledge

2019 ◽  
pp. 165-187
Author(s):  
Alan Millar
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Model ◽  
Background Knowledge ◽  
Factual Knowledge ◽  
Public Knowledge ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Perceptual Knowledge ◽  
Knowing That

The focus is on knowing that something is so by perceiving something that indicates that it is so. It is argued that some of our knowledge of this sort is more akin to perceptual knowledge than might at first appear. This is because recognition figures in two ways. We recognize the indicating phenomenon as being of a certain sort and we recognize the indicative significance of the indicator. The view is shown to be compatible with taking the knowledge in question to be evidence-based. An alternative model—the covering generalization model—is critically discussed. Since generalizations do figure in our thinking about indicators, their status is discussed. This leads into a more general discussion of standing factual knowledge that touches on public knowledge and picks up themes from Moore and Wittgenstein.

Perceptual Knowledge and the Primacy of Judgment

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 385-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
BARRY STROUD
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Perceptual Knowledge ◽  
The World

ABSTRACT:Rather than asking how what we are aware of in perceptual experience can give us knowledge of the independent world, this paper asks what conditions we as knowers must fulfill, what capacities we must have, and what the ‘objects of perception’ must be in the competent exercise those capacities, if we are to have any such knowledge. It is argued that we must be capable of perceiving that such-and-such is so and thereby knowing by perception alone what is so in the world as it is independently of us.

scholarly journals Los sueños, la agencia y el juicio

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 315
Author(s):  
Matthew Soteriou
Keyword(s):  
Second Order ◽  
Reflective Knowledge ◽  
Animal Knowledge ◽  
Ernest Sosa ◽  
Virtue Epistemologist

De acuerdo con Sosa, Descartes es un epistemólogo de virtudes, y podemos entender el proyecto epistemológico de Descartes sólo como un proyecto de segundo orden que concuerda con esta manera de entender su epistemología. Mi objetivo en este artículo es el de ahondar en esta comparación con la epistemología de Descartes, principalmente mediante la exploración de una manera en la que uno podría añadir ciertos detalles suplementarios a la postura general de Sosa, con la finalidad de que ésta concuerde de mejor manera con la postura de Descartes, o al menos con la que yo considero que es la postura de DescartesPalabras clave: Ernest Sosa, Descartes, conocimiento animal, conocimiento reflexivo, cognitio, scientia.AbstractAccording to Sosa, Descartes is a virtue epistemologist, and we can make sense of Descartes’ epistemological project only as a second-order project that fits with this view of his epistemology. My aim in this paper is to pursue this comparison with Descartes’ epistemology—principally through exploring a way in which one might add certain supplementary details to Sosa’s general approach, in order to bring it into closer alignment with Descartes’ view, or at least what I take to be Descartes’ view Keywords: Ernest Sosa, Descartes, animal knowledge, reflective knowledge, cognitio, scientia. 

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document