Perception, Perceptual Knowledge, and Perceptual Self-Knowledge

Erkenntnis, 2007

In this chapter, we consider epistemically robust accounts of self-knowledge. We start with recent inner sense theories (§1), which have been proposed by David Armstrong and William Lycan. Their differences notwithstanding, they hold that self-knowledge is the product of a reliable cognitive mechanism that tracks first-order propositional attitudes and produces the corresponding self-ascriptions. The mechanism is physically realised in our brains and is operative at the subpersonal level. Indeed, according to Lycan, there is a real inner sense faculty, dedicated to keeping track of first-order mental states through the operation of attention. Although the model accounts for groundlessness, transparency and authority, it severs the connection between self-knowledge and rationality and concepts' possession. Hence, it is found to be problematical.

Noûs, 1980

definition of propositional knowledge that will be satisfied by any adequate account of particular cases. Belief that such a general account can be given is wide-spread and deeply rooted, but I am well aware that it is not shared by all philosophers. Many have doubted that the construction 'S knows that p' has a sense for which there is an interesting general analysis (even given the restriction that 'p' must express a true or false proposition). Some suggest that although our uses of that construction in various cases interconnect and overlap in such ways as to prevent our saying that the construction is simply ambiguous, those uses are so diverse that it is futile to try to specify a set of conditions that will in general be necessary and sufficient for a person's knowing that a proposition is true. 2 One can make a case that a general definition is possible, and make clear what it is supposed to define, only by offering one and defending it against objections. This is what I propose to do. There are two major dichotomies within the whole of propositional knowledge that I will distinguish: that between inferential and noninferential knowledge and that between fallible and infallible knowledge. I will discuss at some length each of two more specific categories of propositional knowledge: perceptual knowledge, which is one's knowledge that one perceives a certain sort of thing, and memory knowledge, knowledge that p that one can justifiably claim to have because one remembers that p. These are important because one's knowledge in these two categories contains virtually the whole basis of one's knowledge of contingent truths about the world beyond the present content of one's consciousness. (I am confident that this is true of every actual person; whether it is necessarily so is another question, to which I think that the answer is no.) Trying to say what perceptual and memory knowledge are will naturally involve me in trying to say what perception and memory are, what it is to perceive something and what it is to remember something. All these categories of knowledge have been distinguished and much discussed, in one guise or another, by other philosophers; but my definitions of them (like my general definition of propositional knowledge) will not necessarily be the same as anyone else's. On my account, the division between inferential and non-inferential knowledge does not coincide with that between fallible and infallible knowledge, contrary to the way in which some philosophers have viewed those divisions.

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 1999

What is introspective knowledge of one's own intentional states like? This paper aims to make plausible the view that certain cases of self-knowledge, namely the cogito-type ones, are enough like perception to count as cases of quasi-observation. To this end it considers the highly influential arguments developed by Sydney Shoemaker in his recent Royce Lectures. These present the most formidable challenge to the view that certain cases of self-knowledge are quasi-observational and so deserve detailed examination. Shoemaker's arguments are directed against two models of ordinary perception, the "object perception model" and the "broad perceptual model". I argue that the core theses that Shoemaker associated with them are either dubious in their own right or applicable to certain cases of self-knowledge. Overall the aim is to show that there is such a variety of patterns in each case that simple analogies or disanalogies are unhelpful. What is introspective knowledge of one's own intentional states like? Is it in any way like observation or perception? If so, how like? In this paper I hope to make plausible the view that certain cases of self-knowledge, ones in which subjects are authoritative with respect to knowledge of the contents of their own intentional states, are enough like perception to qualify as cases of quasi-observation, and so to justify the claim that authoritative selfknowledge is a form of inner observation. In doing this I am going against the current trend in philosophical literature, which is decidedly hostile to observational models of self-knowledge (Shoemaker 1994, McDowell 1994, Peacocke 1996, 1998, Wright 1998). However, I think that much of this hostility is voiced against the background of assumptions concerning the socalled observation model itself, and specifically, assumptions about what ordinary perception involves, which themselves are questionable. If the perceptual model upon which the analogy with self-knowledge is based is itself a faulty paradigm for ordinary perception, the fact that cases of selfknowledge do not conform to it is neither here nor there. One cannot establish that self-knowledge is not a form of inner observation or perception on the basis of a paradigm that is too crude or inaccurate to fit perception itself. SYMPOSIUM 711 My strategy for making plausible the claim that certain cases of selfknowledge are, broadly speaking, observational, is to focus on various models of ordinary perception and argue that the ones that cause trouble for an observational account of self-knowledge are either unsatisfactory paradigms for ordinary perception, or, where they are not, are applicable to certain cases of self-knowledge. I shall proceed by examining two models that Sydney Shoemaker (1994) discusses extensively, the "object perception model" and the "broad perceptual model", and the reasons he advances for thinking that introspective self-knowledge does not conform to either of these. In the case of the first, I shall argue that the core theses that Shoemaker associates with the paradigm are either dubious in their own right with regard to ordinary perception, or applicable also to certain cases of self-knowledge. In the case of the second, I shall argue that Shoemaker's claim that first-order and secondorder intentional states do not, whereas perceptual states and their objects do, meet the condition of existing, or being capable of existing, independently of one another, is false. Certain cases of self-knowledge, viz. the so-called cogito-type ones, I argue, can be construed as meeting the independence condition. My overall aim is to show that there is such a variety of patterns in each case that simple analogies or disanalogies are unhelpful. If this is right, then the contrast between perception and introspection distorts both modes of awareness. Before embarking on this enterprise, I should make clear what the point of the exercise is and why it is significant. The class of intentional states with which I am concerned is, in the first instance at least, a very restricted but important one. I am interested in what Tyler Burge (1985, 1988, 1996) has referred to as the cogito-type states; states in which one is currently consciously thinking about a thought (with a given propositional content p) while thinking that thought. Such cases of self-knowledge are thought by many to be ones where the subject is authoritative with regard to the nature and contents of the first-order thought. Suppose, for example, that it is true that I am currently, consciously thinking that I am thinking that water is transparent, and that this reflective thought constitutes knowledge. This knowledge seems to be peculiarly immediate or direct (Burge 1985, 1988, 1996, Heil 1988). Descartes (1969) thought that the special status of such knowledge that derives from this immediate relation between subject and thought, or thinker and thought reviewed, makes for a kind of transparency of thought reviewed to the reviewing subject. He thought that it is this difference between a subject's access to the contents of her own intentional states and others' access to those contents that confers an epistemic advantage on the subject in the sense of better placing her to know what the contents of those states are, and so in giving her authority over others with regard to knowledge of such contents (see Burge 1985).

The Philosophy of Perception

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In this chapter, we first present the characteristic features of what may be regarded as truly first-personal self-knowledge—namely, groundlessness, transparency and authority (§1). The key idea defended in the following is that they are not contingent but necessary and a priori aspects of what goes by the name of " (first-personal) self-knowledge ". For massive failures at self-knowledge would display either the lack of the relevant psychological concepts or failures at rationality, understood in a " thick " sense, which is accordingly specified. These characteristic traits of first-personal self-knowledge are then defended against possible objections stemming from scepticism about knowledge of the content of our own propositional attitudes deriving from the endorsement of semantic externalism and from recent findings in cognitive sciences (§2). It is argued that none of this shows that we never have essentially first-personal self-knowledge. Rather, it shows that its scope is limited and does not extend to our deep-seated and future dispositions, to the dispositional elements of our feelings and emotions, and to the causal relations among our various mental states, which are known, if and when they are, in a third-personal way. The various modes of third-personal self-knowledge are then presented and discussed (§3). Yet all this is compatible with the fact that we have essentially first-personal knowledge of a wide range of mental states and at least of their " narrow " content, if and when they have it, such as our ongoing sensations, perceptions, basic emotions and propositional attitudes as commitments.

Logical Investigations

Jaakko Hintikka started in 1969 the study of the logic of perception as a spe- cial case of his more general approach to propositional attitudes by means of the possible worlds semantics. His students and co-workers extended this study to the logic of memory and imagination. The key elements of this approach are the distinction between physical and perspectival cross-identification and the related two kinds of quantifiers, which allow a formulation of the syntax and semantics of various types of statements about perceiving, re- membering and imagining. This paper surveys the main results of these logical investigations.

2009

The paper explicates a new way to model the context-sensitivity of 'knows', namely 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.

In this chapter, we explore and propose a systematisation of the complex geography of the mental. We first distinguish between sensations and perceptions (§1). We then move on to propositional attitudes and distinguish between beliefs, desires and intentions as " dispositions " and as " commitments " (§2). Finally (§3), we consider the complex case of emotions, whose nature still escapes philosophical consensus. After presenting and criticising several contemporary accounts, we put forward a borderline view of emotions.