-
6125Seeing Through the 'Veil of Perception'Mind 120 (478): 329-367. 2011.Suppose our visual experiences immediately justify some of our beliefs about the external world — that is, justify them in a way that does not rely on our having independent reason to hold any background belief. A key question now arises: Which of our beliefs about the external world can be immediately justified by experiences? I address this question in epistemology by doing some philosophy of mind. In particular, I evaluate the following proposal: if your experience e immediately justifies you…Read more
-
4972The Epistemology of PerceptionIn Mohan Matthen (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Perception, Oxford University Press. 2015.An overview of the epistemology of perception, covering the nature of justification, immediate justification, the relationship between the metaphysics of perceptual experience and its rational role, the rational role of attention, and cognitive penetrability. The published version will contain a smaller bibliography, due to space constraints in the volume.
-
2877Cognitive Penetration and the Epistemology of PerceptionPhilosophy Compass 11 (1): 24-42. 2016.If our experiences are cognitively penetrable, they can be influenced by our antecedent expectations, beliefs, or other cognitive states. Theorists such as Churchland, Fodor, Macpherson, and Siegel have debated whether and how our cognitive states might influence our perceptual experiences, as well as how any such influences might affect the ability of our experiences to justify our beliefs about the external world. This article surveys views about the nature of cognitive penetration, the episte…Read more
-
1971Judgment as a Guide to BeliefIn Declan Smithies & Daniel Stoljar (eds.), Introspection and Consciousness, Oxford University Press. 2012.
-
1911Basic Justification and the Moorean Response to the SkepticIn Oxford Studies in Epistemology Volume 2, Oxford University Press. pp. 108. 2007.My focus will be on two questions about Moore’s justification to believe the premises and the conclusion of the argument above. At stake is what makes it possible for our experiences to justify our beliefs, and what makes it possible for us to be justified in disbelieving skeptical..
-
1903Attention and perceptual justificationIn Adam Pautz & Daniel Stoljar (eds.), Blockheads! Essays on Ned Block’s Philosophy of Mind and Consciousness, Mit Press. 2019.
-
1384The significance of high-level contentPhilosophical Studies 162 (1): 13-33. 2013.This paper is an essay in counterfactual epistemology. What if experience have high-level contents, to the effect that something is a lemon or that someone is sad? I survey the consequences for epistemology of such a scenario, and conclude that many of the striking consequences could be reached even if our experiences don't have high-level contents.
-
1382Consciousness, Attention, and JustificationIn Elia Zardini & Dylan Dodd (eds.), Scepticism and Perceptual Justification, Oxford University Press. 2014.We discuss the rational role of highly inattentive experiences, and argue that they can provide rational support for beliefs.
-
1190Explaining Perceptual EntitlementErkenntnis 76 (2): 243-261. 2012.This paper evaluates the prospects of harnessing “anti-individualism” about the contents of perceptual states to give an account of the epistemology of perception, making special reference to Tyler Burge’s ( 2003 ) paper, “Perceptual Entitlement”. I start by clarifying what kind of warrant is provided by perceptual experience, and I go on to survey different ways one might explain the warrant provided by perceptual experience in terms of anti-individualist views about the individuation of percep…Read more
-
1168Introspection and inferencePhilosophical Studies 163 (2): 291-315. 2013.In this paper I develop the idea that, by answering the question whether p, you can answer the question whether you believe that p. In particular, I argue that judging that p is a fallible yet basic guide to whether one believes that p. I go on to defend my view from an important skeptical challenge, according to which my view would make it too easy to reject skeptical hypotheses about our access to our minds. I close by responding to the opposing view on which our beliefs themselves constitute …Read more
-
944The Structure of Episodic Memory: Ganeri's ‘Mental Time Travel and Attention’Australasian Philosophical Review 1 (4): 374-394. 2017.We offer a framework for assessing what the structure of episodic memory might be, if one accepts the Buddhist denial of persisting selves. This paper is a response to Jonardon Ganeri's paper "Mental time travel and attention", which explores Buddhaghosa's ideas about memory. (It will eventually be published with a reply by Ganeri).
-
890Transmission Failure FailurePhilosophical Studies 126 (1): 71-102. 2005.I set out the standard view about alleged examples of failure of transmission of warrant, respond to two cases for the view, and argue that the view is false. The first argument for the view neglects the distinction between believing a proposition on the basis of a justification and merely having a justification to believe a proposition. The second argument for the view neglects the position that one's justification for believing a conclusion can be one's premise for the conclusion, rather than …Read more
-
804The Evil Demon InsidePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 100 (2): 325-343. 2018.This paper examines how new evil demon problems could arise for our access to the internal world of our own minds. I start by arguing that the internalist/externalist debate in epistemology has been widely misconstrued---we need to reconfigure the debate in order to see how it can arise about our access to the internal world. I then argue for the coherence of scenarios of radical deception about our own minds, and I use them to defend a properly formulated internalist view about our access to …Read more
-
727The Epistemology of Perception (short version)In Mohan Matthen (ed.), Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Perception, Oxford University Press. 2015.This is a much shorter version of our entry on the Epistemology of Perception, which will be published in the Oxford Handbook for the Philosophy of Perception in 2013. The longer version has far more references in it, whereas this version is pared down to the essentials.
-
501Experience Does Justify BeliefIn Ram Neta (ed.), Current Controversies In Epistemology, Routledge. pp. 55-69. 2014.According to Fumerton in his "How Does Perception Justify Belief?", it is misleading or wrong to say that perception is a source of justification for beliefs about the external world. Moreover, reliability does not have an essential role to play here either. I agree, and I explain why in section 1, using novel considerations about evil demon scenarios in which we are radically deceived. According to Fumerton, when it comes to how sensations or experiences supply justification, they do not do …Read more
-
496The evil demon in the lab: skepticism, introspection, and introspection of introspectionSynthese 198 (10): 9763-9785. 2020.In part one, I clarify the crucial notion of “introspection”, and give novel cases for the coherence of scenarios of local and global deception about how we access our own minds, drawing on empirical work. In part two, I evaluate a series of skeptical arguments based on such scenarios of error, and in each case explain why the skeptical argument fails. The first main upshot is that we should not over-estimate what it takes to introspect: introspection need not be accurate, or non-inferential, or…Read more
-
440Reading the bad news about our mindsPhilosophical Issues 30 (1): 293-310. 2020.Psychologists and neuroscientists have delivered a lot of bad news about the inner workings of our minds, raising challenging questions about the extent to which we are rational in important domains of our judgments. I will focus on a central case of an unsettling effect on our perception, and primarily aim to establish that there actually is no impact from it on the rationality of our perceptual beliefs. To reach my goal, I will start with a rough review of different ways bad news about ou…Read more
-
241The Conscious Theory of Higher-OrdernessOxford Studies in Philosophy of Mind. forthcoming.The massive debate in philosophy and psychology and neuroscience about higher-order theories of consciousness has not adequately distinguished between the following two claims. (Necessary Awareness): For any conscious mental state M and subject S, if S is in M, then S is aware of M. (The Higher-Order Theory): For any conscious mental state M and subject S, if S is in M, then M is conscious because S is aware of M. While I will assume that the first claim is true, I will argue that we should re…Read more
-
1The epistemology of perceptionIn Mohan Matthen (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Perception, Oxford University Press Uk. 2015.
-
Experience Does Justify BeliefIn Ram Neta (ed.), Current Controversies In Epistemology, Routledge. 2014.
Ithaca, New York, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Mind |
Areas of Interest
Aesthetics |
Asian Philosophy |
Metaphysics |
PhilPapers Editorships
Dogmatism about Perception |
Perceptual Justification |