Higher-Order Evidence

Chapter 10 explores a puzzle about epistemic akrasia: if you can have misleading higher-order evidence about what your evidence supports, then your total evidence can make it rationally permissible to be epistemically akratic. Section 10.1 presents the puzzle and three options for solving it: Level Splitting, Downward Push, and Upward Push. Section 10.2 argues that we should opt for Upward Push: you cannot have misleading higher-order evidence about what your evidence is or what it supports. Sections 10.3 and 10.4 defend Upward Push against David Christensen’s objection that it licenses irrational forms of dogmatism in ideal and nonideal agents alike. Section 10.5 responds to his argument that misleading higher-order evidence generates rational dilemmas in which you’re guaranteed to violate one of the ideals of epistemic rationality. Section 10.6 concludes with some general reflections on the nature of epistemic rationality and the role of epistemic idealization.

Perception

Chapter 3 explores the epistemic role of consciousness in perception. Section 3.1 argues that unconscious perceptual representation in blindsight cannot justify beliefs about the external world. Section 3.2 argues that this is because phenomenal consciousness, rather than access consciousness or metacognitive consciousness, is necessary for perceptual representation to justify belief. Section 3.3 argues that perceptual experience has a distinctive kind of phenomenal character—namely, presentational force—that is not only necessary but also sufficient for perception to justify belief. Section 3.4 uses a version of the new evil demon problem to argue that the justifying role of perceptual experience supervenes on its phenomenal character alone. Section 3.5 defends this supervenience thesis against the objection that phenomenal duplicates who perceive distinct objects thereby have justification to believe different de re propositions.

Epistemic Akrasia

Chapter 9 argues that accessibilism is needed to explain the epistemic irrationality of epistemic akrasia—roughly, believing things you believe you shouldn’t believe. Section 9.1 defines epistemic akrasia and separates questions about its possibility and its rational permissibility. Section 9.2 argues from the premise that epistemic akrasia is never rationally permissible to the conclusion that the JJ principle is true. The remaining sections motivate the premise that epistemic akrasia is never rationally permissible: section 9.3 appeals to an epistemic version of Moore’s paradox, section 9.4 to the slogan that knowledge is the aim of belief, and section 9.5 to the connection between epistemic justification and reflection.

Reflection

Chapter 8 motivates accessibilism by appealing to William Alston’s hypothesis that the value of epistemic justification is tied to reflection, an activity that is the distinctive mark of persons who can be held responsible for their beliefs and actions. Section 8.1 argues that epistemic justification is what makes our beliefs stable under an idealized process of reflection. Section 8.2 uses this proposal in arguing for the JJ principle, which says that you have justification to believe a proposition if and only if you have justification to believe that you have justification to believe it. Sections 8.3–8.6 defend this proposal against a series of objections raised by Hilary Kornblith: the overintellectualization problem, the regress problem, the empirical problem, and the value problem. Section 8.7 concludes with some reflections on the debate between internalism and externalism about epistemic justification.

Accessibilism

Chapter 7 answers the explanatory challenge by combining phenomenal mentalism with accessibilism to yield phenomenal accessibilism. Section 7.1 defines accessibilism as the thesis that epistemic justification is luminous in the sense that you’re always in a position to know which propositions you have epistemic justification to believe. Section 7.2 argues that phenomenal mentalism is part of the best explanation of accessibilism: if accessibilism can be motivated on independent grounds, then phenomenal mentalism is supported by inference to the best explanation. Sections 7.3 and 7.4 use accessibilism to motivate the intuitions about cases that support phenomenal mentalism—namely, clairvoyance, super-blindsight, and the new evil demon problem. Finally, section 7.5 answers the explanatory challenge for phenomenal mentalism: epistemic justification is determined by your current phenomenally individuated mental states because they are luminous by introspection.

Seemings

Chapter 12 concludes the book by contrasting phenomenal accessibilism with Michael Huemer’s phenomenal conservatism. Section 12.1 defines phenomenal conservatism as the global principle that you have epistemic justification to believe a proposition just when it seems strongly enough on balance to be true. Section 12.2 explains the concept of a seeming and outlines an argument that there are no nonperceptual seemings. Section 12.3 argues that phenomenal conservatism imposes implausible restrictions on evidence: all seemings are evidence, but not all evidence is seemings. Section 12.4 argues that phenomenal conservatism gives an overly simplistic account of the evidential support relation: it cannot explain why epistemic rationality requires not only perceptual coherence, but also introspective coherence, logical coherence, and metacoherence. Section 12.5 argues that phenomenal accessibilism is needed to explain these essential characteristics of epistemically rational thinkers. Section 12.6 concludes by summarizing why phenomenal accessibilism is superior to phenomenal conservatism.

Introspection

Chapter 5 explores the epistemic role of consciousness in introspection. Section 5.1 presents a simple theory of introspection, which says that some mental states provide introspective justification that puts you in a position to know with certainty that you’re in those mental states. Section 5.2 defends the simple theory against Eric Schwitzgebel’s arguments for the unreliability of introspection. Section 5.3 motivates the simple theory on the grounds that it explains a plausible connection between epistemic rationality and introspective self-knowledge. Section 5.4 argues that all and only phenomenally individuated mental states fall within the scope of the simple theory of introspection. Section 5.5 explores the role of consciousness in explaining our introspective knowledge of what we believe. Section 5.6 concludes with some pessimism about the prospects for explaining the connection between consciousness and introspection in more basic terms.

Luminosity

Chapter 11 defends the thesis that some phenomenal and epistemic conditions are luminous in the sense that you’re always in a position to know whether or not they obtain. Section 11.1 draws a distinction between epistemic and doxastic senses of luminosity and argues that some conditions are epistemically luminous even if none are doxastically luminous. Section 11.2 uses this distinction in solving Ernest Sosa’s version of the problem of the speckled hen. The same distinction is applied to Timothy Williamson’s anti-luminosity argument in section 11.3, his argument against epistemic iteration principles in section 11.4, and his argument for improbable knowing in section 11.5. Section 11.6 concludes by explaining why this defense of luminosity is not merely a pointless compromise.

Mentalism

Chapter 6 develops a theory of epistemic justification designed to capture the epistemic role of phenomenal consciousness: namely, phenomenal mentalism. Section 6.1 defines epistemic justification within the framework of evidentialism. Section 6.2 defines mentalism about epistemic justification and explores its connection with evidentialism. Section 6.3 argues for phenomenal mentalism, the thesis that epistemic justification is determined solely by your phenomenally individuated mental states, by appealing to intuitions about clairvoyance, super-blindsight, and the new evil demon problem. Section 6.4 argues for a phenomenal conception of evidence, which says that your evidence is exhausted by facts about your current phenomenally individuated mental states, and defends it against Timothy Williamson’s arguments for the E = K thesis. Finally, section 6.5 outlines an explanatory challenge for phenomenal mentalism, which sets the agenda for the second part of the book.

Cognition

Chapter 4 explores the epistemic role of consciousness in cognition. Section 4.1 argues that all beliefs provide epistemic justification for other beliefs. Section 4.2 contrasts beliefs with subdoxastic states, which provide no epistemic justification for belief. Section 4.3 argues that this epistemic distinction between beliefs and subdoxastic states cannot be explained in terms of the functional criterion of inferential integration. Section 4.4 argues that this epistemic distinction must be explained in terms of the phenomenal criterion of conscious accessibility: the contents of beliefs are accessible to consciousness as the contents of conscious judgments. Section 4.5 argues that conscious judgments have phenomenal contents that supervene on their phenomenal character. Section 4.6 concludes with some proleptic remarks to explain why beliefs can provide epistemic justification for other beliefs only if their contents are accessible to consciousness.