Perception, Intuition, and Apprehension

2020 ◽  
pp. 105-117
Author(s):  
Robert Audi
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
The Self ◽  
Belief Formation ◽  
A Priori Justification

This chapter brings the theory of perception developed in Chapters 1 to 6 to bear on clarifying intuition, especially regarding abstract elements. Intuitive apprehension of these elements has much in common with perception. Such intuition is structurally parallel to perception, and it is experientially representational in a way that enables it to confer, as does perception, (prima facie) justification on beliefs. Moreover, both perception and intuitive apprehension are non-inferential, hence not premise-based. Both, given their status as embodying sensory or intuitive seemings, yield (and can explain) inclinations to believe and can explain belief-formation. Like perceptions, intuitions (in their occurrent forms) are direct responses to something one considers or otherwise experiences; they are not inferential responses to a premise. As experiential, non-inferential, and phenomenally representational, intuitions can confer justification on beliefs. This ascription of directness to intuitive apprehensions goes well with their role in explicating the self-evident—which, in certain cases, is paradigmatically intuitive—and thereby in accounting for a priori justification and knowledge.

Sincerity and the Reliability of Testimony

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter J. Graham
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Tyler Burge ◽  
P Content ◽  
Epistemology Of Testimony ◽  
Content Preservation

“Content Preservation” by Tyler Burge is one of the most influential articles in the epistemology of testimony. Burge argues for three theses: (1) That we enjoy a prima facie entitlement to take testimony (presentations-as-true) at face value, (2) That this entitlement has an a priori basis, based in the nature of reason, and (3) That in some cases testimony-based beliefs are warranted a priori. Most of the debate in the testimony literature is over the truth of (1). Most of the criticism of Burge’s paper focuses on (3). Burge has since abandoned (3). What about (2)? Burge’s argument for (2) is compressed; the underlying nuts and bolts are difficult to understand. This chapter reconstructs Burge’s overall teleo-functional reliabilist framework and then reconstructs Burge’s overall argument for (2) in some detail. Three criticisms are then offered of the argument. Even granting (1), Burge’s argument does not establish (2).

scholarly journals Communities and the individual: Beyond the liberal–communitarian divide

2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 392-401
Author(s):  
Volker Kaul
Keyword(s):  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Significant Others ◽  
The Self ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Self And Identity ◽  
Default Position ◽  
The Individual

Liberalism believes that individuals are endowed a priori with reason or at least agency and it is up to that reason and agency to make choices, commitments and so on. Communitarianism criticizes liberalism’s explicit and deliberate neglect of the self and insists that we attain a self and identity only through the effective recognition of significant others. However, personal autonomy does not seem to be a default position, neither reason nor community is going to provide it inevitably. Therefore, it is so important to go beyond the liberal–communitarian divide. This article is analysing various proposals in this direction, asks about the place of communities and the individual in times of populism and the pandemic and provides a global perspective on the liberal–communitarian debate.

scholarly journals How Plausible Is the Implausible? Students’ Plausibility and Prevalence Ratings of the Self-Report Symptom Inventory

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irena Boskovic ◽  
Thomas Merten ◽  
Harald Merckelbach
Keyword(s):  
Psychology Students ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Psychological Assessments ◽  
Symptom Validity Tests ◽  
Symptom Inventory ◽  
Validity Measures ◽  
Report Symptom ◽  
Validity Tests

AbstractSome self-report symptom validity tests, such as the Self-Report Symptom Inventory (SRSI), rely on a detection strategy that uses bizarre, extreme, or very rare symptoms. Thus, items are constructed to invite respondents with an invalid response style to affirm pseudosymptoms that are usually not experienced by genuine patients. However, these pseudosymptoms should not be easily recognizable, because otherwise sophisticated over-reporters could strategically avoid them and go undetected. Therefore, we tested how well future psychology professionals were able to differentiate between genuine complaints and pseudosymptoms in terms of their plausibility and prevalence.Psychology students (N = 87) received the items of the SRSI online and were given the task to rate each item as to its plausibility and prevalence in the community.Students evaluated genuine symptoms as significantly more plausible and more prevalent than pseudosymptoms. However, 56% of students rated pseudosymptoms as moderately plausible, whereas 17% rated them as moderately prevalent in the general public.Overall, it appears that psychology students are successful in distinguishing bizarre, unusual, or rare symptoms from genuine complaints. Yet, the majority of students still attributed relatively high prima facie plausibility to pseudosymptoms. We contend that if such a trusting attitude is true for psychology students, it may also be the case for young psychology practitioners, which, consequently, may diminish the probability of employing self-report validity measures in psychological assessments.

THE MODAL ARGUMENT FOR A PRIORI JUSTIFICATION

Ratio ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joachim Horvath
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
A Priori Justification ◽  
Modal Argument

Phenomenology of Interior Life and the Trinity

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-88
Author(s):  
Robert Farrugia
Keyword(s):  
Conscious Experience ◽  
A Priori ◽  
The Self ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
The World ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
Michel Henry ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
Static Nature

Michel Henry radicalises phenomenology by putting forward the idea of a double manifestation: the “Truth of Life” and “truth of the world.” For Henry, the world turns out to be empty of Life. To find its essence, the self must dive completely inward, away from the exterior movements of intentionality. Hence, Life, or God, for Henry, lies in non‑intentional, immanent self-experience, which is felt and yet remains invisible, in an absolutist sense, as an a priori condition of all conscious experience. In Christian theology, the doctrine of the Trinity illuminates the distinction between the immanent Trinity (God’s self‑relation) and the economic workings of the Trinity (God‑world relation). However, the mystery of God’s inmost being and the economy of salvation are here understood as inseparable. In light of this, the paper aims to: 1) elucidate the significance of Henry’s engagement with the phenomenological tradition and his proposal of a phenomenology of Life which advocates an immanent auto‑affection, radically separate from the ek‑static nature of intentionality, and 2) confront the division between Life and world in Henry’s Christian phenomenology and its discordancy with the doctrine of the Trinity, as the latter attests to the harmonious unity that subsists between inner life and the world.

Phenomenal Explanationism’s Global Ambitions

2021 ◽  
pp. 115-136
Author(s):  
Kevin McCain ◽  
Luca Moretti
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Justification ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Perceptual Justification ◽  
A Priori Justification ◽  
Comprehensive Account ◽  
Multiple Domains ◽  
The Way

This chapter further elucidates PE by explaining how it applies to multiple domains. Though the preceding chapter already touches upon some of these, here it is cashed out how PE can account for perceptual justification, memorial justification, testimonial justification, introspective justification, and a priori justification. Exploring the contours of PE in this way reveals just how powerful and unified the theory is. Along the way, it is argued that Declan Smithies’ forceful objections to PC fail to impugn PE. Additionally, it is shown that PE has the resources to respond to each of the challenges that Smithies claims are faced by any internalist theory with “global ambitions”––any theory that purports to be a comprehensive account of epistemic justification. (These challenges for instance include the problem of forgotten evidence and the problem of stored beliefs.) The discussion in this chapter makes it clear that PE is a comprehensive account of epistemic justification that achieves its global ambitions.

Boghossian on Intuition, Understanding, and the A Priori Once Again1

2020 ◽  
pp. 227-239
Author(s):  
Paul Boghossian ◽  
Timothy Williamson
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
A Priori Justification ◽  
Learning Mathematics ◽  
The Way

This chapter replies to Boghossian’s Chapter 15 and amplifies the arguments of the author’s Chapter 14. In particular, it illustrates the loss of underived dispositions with an example from learning mathematics, when the novice gradually ceases to be tempted by a certain kind of mistake. It is also explains why the argument of Chapter 14 does not assume that introspection and postulation are mutually incompatible; rather, it notes the author’s inability to introspect the non-doxastic intellectual seemings Boghossian postulates and suggests that it is not idiosyncratic. Finally, a challenge is raised for Boghossian’s view of a priori justification as coherence with intellectual seemings. What prevents bigoted beliefs being justified a priori in the way he describes by the bigoted intellectual seemings of a consistent Nazi, for example? If nothing does, what prevents the Nazi’s so-justified beliefs as to what one ought to do from justifying the corresponding actions?

Reply to Williamson on Intuition, Understanding, and the A Priori1

2020 ◽  
pp. 214-226
Author(s):  
Paul Boghossian ◽  
Timothy Williamson
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Mental States ◽  
A Priori Justification

This paper argues that Williamson fails to produce successful counterexamples to the existence of understanding–assent links, in particular because he fails to show that the expert in his cases has lost underived dispositions to assent. The paper gives grounds for rejecting Williamson’s argument that intuitions, supposing them to exist, cannot be the source of distinctively a priori justification. Finally, it is argued that Williamson’s argument against the existence of intuitions (understood as sui generis states of intellectual seeming) flounders because it rests on a misguided and naïve dichotomy between ‘introspectable’ and ‘postulated’ mental states.

THE NO FREE LUNCH THEOREM: BAD NEWS FOR (WHITE'S ACCOUNT OF) THE PROBLEM OF INDUCTION

Episteme ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Gerhard Schurz
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Bad News ◽  
Prediction Methods ◽  
Free Lunch ◽  
Event Sequences ◽  
A Priori Justification ◽  
No Free Lunch Theorem ◽  
Uniform Probability Distribution ◽  
Alternative Approaches ◽  
No Free Lunch

AbstractWhite (2015) proposes an a priori justification of the reliability of inductive prediction methods based on his thesis of induction-friendliness. It asserts that there are by far more induction-friendly event sequences than induction-unfriendly event sequences. In this paper I contrast White's thesis with the famous no free lunch (NFL) theorem. I explain two versions of this theorem, the strong NFL theorem applying to binary and the weak NFL theorem applying to real-valued predictions. I show that both versions refute the thesis of induction-friendliness. In the conclusion I argue that an a priori justification of the reliability of induction based on a uniform probability distribution over possible event sequences is impossible. In the outlook I consider two alternative approaches: (i) justification externalism and (ii) optimality justifications.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document