Tim Butzer

It is natural to think that phenomenology must play a central role in any epistemic account of perceptual warrant. I contend that this claim is mistaken. The thesis that I will advance is that the phenomenology of perceptual experiences is irrelevant to their ability to warrant perceptual beliefs. I present various problems for this approach, then consider various fallback positions available to the defender of the epistemic significance of phenomenology and conclude that whatever its place in our metaphysical understanding of the world, perceptual phenomenology is epistemically insignificant with regard to the project of explaining perceptual warrant.

Endre Begby [2021a, 2021b] identifies a phenomenon he refers to as evidential preemption whereby a testifier seeks to preemptively undermine future counter-testimony by noting extant disagreements while simultaneously asserting the claim under dispute. Such preemption is typified by claims of the form: “my opponents will tell you that q; but I say p” (Begby [2021b: 99]). Begby makes a plausible case that this strategy is often employed in ordinary and public discourse. Begby argues further that evidential preemption can often succeed in altering how a subject who has encountered such a preemptive statement ought to treat the future predicted counterevidence when they encounter it. Begby provides both intuitive and Bayesian arguments in favor of this position. I argue that, contra Begby, evidential preemption does not have epistemic force. I then distinguish my arguments from those presented by Kelly [2024] and show how my diagnosis of the failure of evidential preemption can be used to undermine the arguments Begby [2024] makes in response to Kelly’s criticisms.

I argue that racially biased perception can be incompetent in a way that undermines perceptual warrant. This can occur even when the subject is unaware of the influence of the bias upon their beliefs or when they possess no defeating evidence that makes it rational for them to doubt the accuracy of their perceptual experiences. When a subject’s racial bias causes their perceptual system to encode inaccurate information about their environment, or to process information in an epistemically incompetent manner, this can reduce their perceptual competence, and thus their perceptual warrant. I discuss a series of cases that illustrate how my proposals treat various instances of racially biased perception. I then distinguish my view from a competing proposal from Jessie Munton (2019) which claims that racially biased priors are epistemically incompetent because they are gerrymandered. A gerrymandered prior is one whose accuracy depends on ongoing manipulations of the environment. I argue that the kinds of manipulations that Munton cites do not necessarily impact perceptual competence and that my account better explains how racist institutions and societal structures can impact the epistemic competence of perceivers.

I criticize an account of perceptual warrant proposed by [Burge, Tyler. 2003. “Perceptual Entitlement.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 67 (3): 503–548]. Burge contends that a subject's beliefs are entitled only if that subject's perceptual system represents its normal environment in a reliably veridical manner. The normal environment, according to Burge, is the environment in which the contents of the subject's perceptual experiences were fixed. I present a case that shows that the contents of a subject's perceptual experiences can remain fixed while features of its perceptual system relevant to its representational reliability change. This leads to problematic consequences for Burge's view.

I offer an account of perceptual warrant according to which one’s basic perceptual beliefs are immediately and defeasibly warranted if they are formed on the basis of experiences produced by a competent perceptual system. I claim that sub-personal features of one’s perceptual systems can render one competent to perceptually represent a particular environment. When these conditions are met, one is warranted in forming beliefs on the basis of one’s perceptual experiences. I develop my account of perceptual warrant in the context of a Bayesian theory of perceptual processing.

Dogmatism about perceptual warrant claims that if a subject has a perceptual experience as of p, then this can provide immediate and defeasible warrant to believe that p. Crispin Wright has put forward three original criticisms of this view. First, and most extensively, Wright argues that the dogmatist is committed to implausible answers to questions about when subjects are in a position to claim warrant to believe certain propositions. Second, he claims that the view is too permissive in assigning warrant in cases in which a subject has balanced evidence regarding the proper functioning of her perceptual system. Finally, he argues that the oft-included restriction of immediate and defeasible dogmatic warrant to perceptually basic beliefs results in a view that is unable to claim that beliefs about normal external world objects are warranted. I argue that none of these objections can be sustained and that dogmatism does not have the problematic consequences that Wright alleges.

Dogmatists claim that having a perceptual experience as of p can provide one with immediate and defeasible warrant to believe that p. A persistent complaint against this position is that it sanctions an intuitively illicit form of reasoning: bootstrapping. I argue that dogmatism has no such commitments. Dogmatism is compatible with a principle that disallows the final non-deductive inference in the bootstrapping procedure. However, some authors have maintained that such strategy is doomed to failure because earlier stages of in the bootstrapping inference are already problematic. I argue that insofar as these inferences appear problematic, the dogmatist is not committed to sanctioning them. I conclude that the bootstrapping argument presents no significant objection to the claim that perceptual experiences can provide immediate and defeasible warrant to believe their contents.