Anil Gupta

This chapter argues that classical empiricism offers a striking approach to the problem of empiricism and experience—an approach that occupied center stage in epistemology for about 300 years but which has been the subject of incessant attacks since about the middle of the 20th century. It acknowledges the problems that classical empiricism faces, which are serious and seem to be insoluble within the confines of classical assumptions. Although classical empiricism is indeed fundamentally flawed, the chapter highlights some of its virtues.

This chapter develops an account of experience and knowledge that takes seriously the interdependence of our conceptions of the self and the world. It argues that without an adequate conception of the world, we cannot have an adequate conception of the self. And, conversely, without an adequate conception of the self, we cannot have an adequate conception of the world. We do not begin our inquiry with adequate conceptions of the self and the world; it is rather the goal of inquiry to furnish us with such conceptions. The account of experience and knowledge that respects these facts is given.

This chapter presents a synthesis of the preceding discussions and some concluding thoughts. The book is built around the idea that of the interdependence of perceptual judgments and view. The rationality of our view depends upon the rationality of our perceptual judgments, and the rationality of our perceptual judgments depends in turn upon the rationality of our view. This interdependence is not a threat to the unconditional rationality of our view and perceptual judgments. Rather, it provides the best route to understanding this rationality. The interdependence dictates that the given in an experience is hypothetical, not propositional. The present proposal respects both the Multiple-Factorizability of Experience and the Insight of Empiricism. By acknowledging the invariable interdependence of perceptual judgments and view, it respects the idea of Multiple-Factorizability. By recognizing experience to be the force behind the rational dynamics of views, it accommodates the Insight of Empiricism.

A foundationalist account of our empirical thinking divides propositions we accept into two classes, basic and derivative, and sees the warrant of derivative propositions as accruing to them through their derivation from basic propositions. Such an account needs to answer two questions: which propositions are basic, and whence do basic propositions acquire their warrant? A natural and ancient answer to these questions is that basic propositions are observational and that these propositions gain their warrant from perceptions. I critically examine this view and also a variant view offered by Wilfrid Sellars. I put forward an alternative conception, dialectical foundationalism, that sees the distinction between the basic and the derivative as issuing from a distinction between two kinds of reasoning, derivational and dialectical. This type of foundationalism provides a more accurate account of our empirical thinking, I argue, than its traditional and Sellarsian counterparts.

Adam Marushak raises a dilemma for the proponents of the hypothetical given. On one of its horns, the proponents are said to be committed to rationalism; and on the other horn, to skepticism. I argue, in response, that even if we grant that the arguments of both horns are sound, the commitments incurred are light and unproblematic. I argue also that the dilemma is based on a reading of the hypothetical that, though valuable, needs to be refined in light of certain distinctions. These distinctions concern the different support relations that can obtain between beliefs are various elements of a view.

This book aims to offer an account of conscious experience and of concepts that help us understand empirical reasoning and empirical dialectic. The account offered possesses, it is claimed, two virtues. First, it provides great theoretical freedom. It allows the theoretician freedom to radically reconceive the world. The theoretician may, for example, begin with the conception that colors are genuine qualities of physical bodies and may, in light of empirical findings, shift to the conception that colors are not genuine qualities at all. Second, the account grants empirical reason a great power to constrain: empirical reason can force a particular conception of the self and the world on the rational inquirer. These seemingly contrary virtues are reconciled through a novel treatment of presentation and appearances in the account offered of conscious experience and a novel treatment of ostensive definitions in the account offered of concepts. The argument of the book is buttressed by a critical study of the principal approaches to experience and reason found in the philosophical literature.--