McDowellian Neo-Mooreanism?
TL;DR: In this article, it was shown that the distinction between "favouring" and "discriminating" epistemic grounds only works for "mules-disguised-as zebras" examples, but breaks down in the radical sceptical case.
Abstract: In a series of recent articles, Duncan Pritchard argues for a “neo-Moorean” interpretation of John McDowell’s anti-sceptical strategy. Pritchard introduces a distinction between “favouring” and “discriminating” epistemic grounds in order to show that, within the radical sceptical context, an absence of “discriminating” epistemic grounds allowing one to distinguish brain-in-a-vat from non-brain-in-a-vat scenarios does not preclude possessing knowledge of the denials of sceptical hypotheses. I argue that Pritchard’s account fails. First, the distinction between “favouring” and “discriminating” epistemic grounds only works for “mules-disguised-as zebras” examples, but breaks down in the radical sceptical case. Second, McDowellian disjunctivism neutralizes the radical sceptical threat, but does not refute it. Third, the “highest common factor” conception is itself responsible for generating the sceptical problem and once this is undermined by McDowellian disjunctivism, scepticism no longer stands in need of direct refutation. I conclude by showing that one can either be a McDowellian disjunctivist or a neo-Moorean, but not both.
Citations
More filters
Book•
22 May 2014TL;DR: In this article, a new way to model the context-sensitivity of "knows" is proposed, which suggests a close connection between the content of 'knows' in a context C and what is pragmatically presupposed in C.
Abstract: The paper explicates a new way to model the context-sensitivity of ‘knows’, viz. a way that suggests a close connection between the content of ‘knows’ in a context C and what is pragmatically presupposed in C. After explicating my new approach in the first half of the paper and arguing that it is explanatorily superior to standard accounts of epistemic contextualism, the paper points, in its second half, to some interesting new features of the emerging account, such as its compatibility with the intuitions of Moorean dogmatists. Finally, the paper shows that the account defended is not subject to the most prominent and familiar philosophical objections to epistemic contextualism discussed in the recent literature.
105 citations
Cites background from "McDowellian Neo-Mooreanism?"
...On the standard usage of the term (see, for instance, Pritchard 2007, 2008 and Neta 2003b), a Moorean (or Neo-Moorean) is somebody who believes that sceptical challenges can be legitimately responded to by arguments that are structurally parallel to the argument in Moore’s Proof of an External…...
[...]
TL;DR: In the Nyāya school of classical India as discussed by the authors, trust is a legitimate default position in the space of reasons and the burden of proof is upon the believer to defend her belief.
Abstract: From the early modern period, Western epistemologists have often been concerned with a rigorous notion of epistemic justification, epitomized in the work of D escartes: properly held beliefs require insulation from extreme skepticism. To the degree that veridical cognitive states may be indistinguishable from non-veridical states, apparently veridical states cannot enjoy high-grade positive epistemic status. Therefore, a good believer begins from what are taken to be neutral, subjective experiences and reasons outward — hopefully identifying the kinds of appearances that properly link up to the world and those that do not. Good beliefs, beliefs that are justified (warranted, etc.), are those that a believer has consciously arrived at by such reasoning (or, in a weaker version, those that could be consciously arrived at by such reasoning if required). This approach, which I will occasionally call a Cartesian approach, has two important features. First, it considers doubt a legitimate default position in the space of reasons. The burden of proof is upon the believer to defend her belief. In the absence of such a defense, belief is suspect. Second, one’s cognitive starting point consists in alethically neutral cognitive states as described above. The tradition that I will discuss in this essay, the Nyāya school of classical India, looks at things from a very different perspective. It defends what may be called epistemic trust as the proper default position. Furthermore, Nyāya has a conception of knowledge sources as faculties that directly connect us to a mind-independent world, irrespective of the potential for indistinguishable error states. Despite such potential for error, Nyāya argues that when we get things right, we directly gain purchase on an external world. This notion of direct openness to the world is tied deeply to Nyāya’s epistemic trust. Though, indeed, various sorts of factors trigger review, d efense, and, if required, rejection of belief, the notion that we must step outside our knowledge-producing faculties and pass judgment on their overall effectiveness is held to be a fantasy that is unnecessary, pragmatically troublesome, and ultimately incoherent. This essay will examine a battery of Nyāya arguments in support of default trust and a ground-level realism, which I collectively call arguments from parasitism. These are meant to prove that error presupposes veridical cognition, and, this being the case, we cannot even engage in philosophical reflection and critique unless we appeal to a background of true belief and a baseline cognitive connection with the real world. Given that we must acknowledge such a connection, trust is therefore taken to be the correct default epistemic attitude. I will illustrate and classify various forms that the argument takes, consider allied arguments further offered by Nyāya, and suggest ways in which Naiyāyikas may respond to certain challenges. I conclude
64 citations
08 Oct 2017
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that a visual experience is identical with a form of self-awareness of the relevant visual experience, which they call experiential self-consciousness.
Abstract: In having a visual experience, we can come to know facts of at least two kinds: facts about our environment (“there is a red cup before me”), and facts about ourselves (“I am having an experience as of a red cup”). How do these types of knowledge—perceptual knowledge and perceptual self-knowledge—relate?
For a certain type of rationalist a visual experience is identical with a form of self-awareness of the relevant visual experience. For you to be aware of having an experience E is nothing over and above you having E. Specifically, the rationalist holds that this fact is grounded in the way a capacity for thought expresses itself in experience as what I call experiential self-consciousness.
I argue that this form of rationalism provides a novel way of approaching critical debates about visual experience, including the structure of perceptual representation and the grounds for perceptual knowledge. In experience things can self-consciously look to the subject to be specifically thinkable ways: the way experience makes things look to the rational subject can, in part, be expressed through the sort of contents experience makes it available for the subject to think. Moreover, in experience the objects of perceptual knowledge can be self-consciously present to the subject. I argue this type of perceptual presence supports a novel, non-evidentialist internalism about perceptual knowledge and justification. Moreover, I suggest rationalism illuminates an association between experience bearing representational content and a type of self-conscious experiential unity.
I also spend significant time placing rationalism in its historical context, specifically a broadly Leibnizian theme running through Kant’s views on experience. I argue that placing a type of rationalism central to a reading of Kant allows us to (i) appreciate the way Kantian intuitions (Anschauungen) are conceptual and yet non-judgmental representations; (ii) see the way sensations (Empfindungen) figure in Kant’s thinking merely as abstractions from self-conscious states; and (iii) read the Paralogisms chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason as consistent with Kant holding a substantial conception of the thinking and perceiving subject.
15 citations
TL;DR: The authors argued that disjunctivism has anti-sceptical implications and that the Cartesian sceptical challenge against disjunctive perception of experience has some philosophical urgency in that it threatens the very notion that perceptual experience can acquaint us with the world around us.
Abstract: This paper argues that McDowell is right to claim that disjunctivism has anti-sceptical implications. While the disjunctive conception of experience leaves unaffected the Cartesian sceptical challenge, it undermines another type of sceptical challenge. Moreover, the sceptical challenge against which disjunctivism militates has some philosophical urgency in that it threatens the very notion that perceptual experience can acquaint us with the world around us.
12 citations
Cites background from "McDowellian Neo-Mooreanism?"
...Exceptions to this trend are Millar (2008) and, surprisingly, Pritchard (2008)....
[...]
15 Jun 2015
TL;DR: This article argued that there is a conflict between two theses held by John McDowell, namely the claim that we are under a standing obligation to revise our beliefs if reflection demands it; and the view that veridical experience is a mode of direct access to the world.
Abstract: This paper argues that there is a conflict between two theses held by John McDowell, namely i) the claim that we are under a standing obligation to revise our beliefs if reflection demands it; and ii) the view that veridical experience is a mode of direct access to the world. Since (i) puts no bounds on what would constitute reasonable doubt, it invites skeptical concerns which overthrow (ii). Conversely, since (ii) says that there are some experiences which we are entitled to trust, it undermines the prescriptive scope of (i). Drawing on C. S. Peirce's distinction between genuine and contrived doubt, I maintain that critical revisions of beliefs should be triggered only by unwanted disruptions of habits, thereby restoring unity between McDowell's two theses.
10 citations
References
More filters
Book•
[...]
TL;DR: McDowell as discussed by the authors argues that modern philosophy finds it difficult to give a satisfactory picture of the place of minds in the world, and proposes to return to a pre-modern conception of nature but retaining the intellectual advance of modernity that has mistakenly been viewed as dislodging it.
Abstract: Modern philosophy finds it difficult to give a satisfactory picture of the place of minds in the world. In "Mind and World", based on the 1991 John Locke Lectures, John McDowell offers his diagnosis of this difficulty and points to a cure. He illustrates a major problem of modern philosophy - the insidious persistence of dualism - in his discussion of empirical thought. Much as we would like to conceive empirical thought as rationally grounded in experience, pitfalls await anyone who tries to articulate this position, and McDowell exposes these traps by exploiting the work of contemporary philosophers from Wilfrid Sellars to Donald Davidson. These difficulties, he contends, reflect an understandable - but surmountable - failure to see how we might integrate what Sellars calls "the logical space of reasons" into the natural world. What underlies this impasse is a conception of nature that has certain attractions for the modern age, a conception that McDowell proposes to put aside, thus circumventing these philosophical difficulties. By returning to a pre-modern conception of nature but retaining the intellectual advance of modernity that has mistakenly been viewed as dislodging it, he makes room for a fully satisfying conception of experience as a rational openness to independent reality. This approach also overcomes other obstacles that impede a generally satisfying understanding of how we are placed in the world.
1,857 citations
TL;DR: Wittgenstein apparently regarded G. E. Moore's "Proof of an External World" as one of his finest pieces of philosophical work as mentioned in this paper, which is an important clue for anyone who wants to understand what Wittgenstein thought a satisfactory treatment of knowledge-scepticism should accomplish.
Abstract: Wittgenstein apparently regarded G. E. Moore's "Proof of an External World" as one of his finest pieces of philosophical work.1 That is an important clue for anyone who wants to understand what Wittgenstein thought a satisfactory treatment of knowledge-scepticism should accomplish.2 I do not believe, though, that many of Moore's moder readers would share Wittgenstein's high regard. The greater part of the essay is devoted to exasperatingly slow ruminations on what it means to describe objects as "external", or "outside our minds" or "presented in space" or "to be met with in space". Nothing particularly consequential emerges. And the actual 'Proof-'which everyone on first reading feels blatantly begs the question-is confined to the last few pages. Here is the essence of it:
183 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1998
TL;DR: The meaning, truth, and understanding of meaning, communication, and knowledge are discussed in this paper, where the epistemology of understanding mathematical Platonism and Dummetian anti-realism are discussed.
Abstract: Part 1 Meaning, truth, and understanding: truth-conditions, bivalence, and verificationism meaning, communication, and knowledge quotation and saying that in defence of modesty another plea for modesty physicalism and primitive denotation - Field on Tarski. Part 2 Reference, thought, and world: identity mistakes - Plato and the logical atomists on the sense and reference of a proper name truth-value gaps de re senses singular thought and the extent of inner space intentionality de re Putnam on mind and meaning. Part 3 Realism and anti-realism: on "the reality of past" anti-realism and the epistemology of understanding mathematical Platonism and Dummetian anti-realism. Part 4 Issues in epistemology: criteria, defeasibility, and knowledge knowledge and the internal knowledge by hearsay.
183 citations
[...]
TL;DR: Language matters to epistemology for two separate reasons (although they are no doubt connected) as mentioned in this paper, and this is the main reason for our interest in the work of as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Language matters to epistemology for two separate reasons (although they are no doubt connected).
144 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify and suggest reasons to reject those assumptions about the nature and scope of perceptual knowledge that appear to make an unacceptable scepticism the only strictly defensible answer to the philosophical problem of knowledge of the world in general.
Abstract: This paper is an attempt to identify and to suggest reasons to reject those assumptions about the nature and scope of perceptual knowledge that appear to make an unacceptable scepticism the only strictly defensible answer to the philosophical problem of knowledge of the world in general. The suggestion is that our knowing things about the world around us by perception can be satisfactorily explained only if we can be understood to sometimes perceive that such-and-such is so, where what we perceive to be so is the very state of the world that we thereby know to be so. This is not proposed as a better answer to the philosophical problem, but as a way of seeing how that problem as traditionally understood could not really present a threat to anyone who can think about the world at all.
23 citations