Disjunctivism

This paper argues that Wittgenstein opposed theories of meaning, and did so for good reasons. Theories of meaning, in the sense discussed here, are attempts to explain what makes it the case that certain sounds, shapes, or movements are meaningful linguistic expressions. It is widely believed that Wittgenstein made fundamental contributions to this explanatory project. I argue, by contrast, that in both his early and later work, Wittgenstein endorsed a disjunctivist conception of language which rejects the assumption underlying the question that such theories seek to answer—namely, the assumption that the notion of a meaningful linguistic expression admits of non-circular analysis. Moreover, I give two arguments in favor of the view I ascribe to Wittgenstein: one based on later Wittgenstein's discussion of meaning skepticism, and one based on considerations concerning the identity of linguistic expressions.

In this paper, I do a few things. I develop a (largely) empirical argument against naïve realism (Campbell, Martin, others) and for representationalism. I answer Papineau's recent paper " Against Representationalism (about Experience) ". And I develop a new puzzle for representationalists - the "puzzle of the laws of appearance".

This paper takes a critical look at the idea that knowledge involves reflective access to reasons that provide rational support. After distinguishing between different kinds of awareness, I argue that the kind of awareness involved in awareness of reasons is awareness of something general rather than awareness of something that instances some generality. Such awareness involves the exercise of conceptual capacities and just is knowledge. Since such awareness is knowledge, this kind of awareness cannot play any interesting role in a story about how knowledge is acquired. After arguing that reflective access to reasons is not a precondition on acquiring knowledge, I look at one motivation for introducing this kind of access requirement. I argue that the argument for the access requirement rests on a mistaken assumption about the relationship between reasons and responsibility. While the target of this critical discussion is a version of epistemological disjunctivism, the criticism applies mutatis mutandis to many traditional internalist views in epistemology.

This is the introductory essay to the collection of essays: 'Acquaintance: New Essays' (eds. Knowles & Raleigh, forthcoming, OUP). In this essay I provide some historical background to the concept of acquaintance. I examine various Russellian theses about acquaintance that contemporary acquaintance theorists may wish to reject. I consider a number of questions that acquaintance theorists face. I provide a survey of current debates in philosophy where acquaintance has recently been invoked. And I also provide brief summaries of the other essays in this volume.

Naïve realism, often overlooked among philosophical theories of perception, has in recent years attracted a surge of interest. Broadly speaking, the central commitment of naïve realism is that mind-independent objects are essential to the fundamental analysis of perceptual experience. Since the claims of naïve realism concern the essential metaphysical structure of conscious perception, its truth or falsity is of central importance to a wide range of topics, including the explanation of semantic reference and representational content, the nature of phenomenal consciousness, and the basis of perceptual justification and knowledge. One of the greatest difficulties surrounding discussions of naïve realism, however, has been lack of clarity concerning exactly what affirming or denying it entails. In particular, it is sometimes unclear how naïve realism is related to the claim that perceptual experience is in some sense direct or unmediated, and also to what extent the view is compatible with another widely discussed thesis in the philosophy of perception, the claim that perceptual experiences are states with representational content. In this essay, I discuss how recent work on these issues helps to clarify both the central commitments of naïve realism, as well as its relation to representationalist theories of perception. Along the way, I will attempt to shed light on the different ways in which each approach tries to address the various theoretical challenges facing a philosophical theory of perception, and also to assess the prospects for views that attempts to combine features of each approach.

Meine Dissertation Vernünftiges Leben: Zum Naturbegriff in der neo-aristotelischen Tugendethik befasst sich mit der Debatte um den Aristotelischen Naturalismus (AN); einer Position, die die objektive Geltung ethischer Prinzipien, darunter insbesondere der Tugenden, unter Bezugnahme auf die menschliche Natur ausweisen will. Ein Kernproblem der Debatte ist, dass die Kritiker und Vertreter dieser Position mit verschiedenen Naturbegriffen operieren und daher tendenziell aneinander vorbeireden. Meine Zielsetzung ist es daher, die beiden gängigsten Naturbegriffe, nämlich einen szientistischen und einen idealistischen, zu rekonstruieren, sie auf ihre jeweiligen ontologischen und erkenntnistheoretischen Voraussetzungen hin zu befragen, und den AN auf dieser Grundlage zu verteidigen. Mein erstes Kapitel ist deshalb zunächst einer systematischen Darstellung des Programms des AN gewidmet. Die Motivation dieses Programms liegt in der Metaethik, genauer gesagt in einer Abgrenzung vom Nonkognitivismus, insofern dieser Werturteile generell nur als Ausdruck der subjektiven Einstellung des Sprechenden versteht und auch ethischen Normen daher nur eine subjektive Geltung zugesteht. Der Nonkognitivismus ist selbst eine Reaktion auf Moores ‚Open Question Argument' und die damit verbundene Kritik am ethischen Naturalismus. Die Antwort des AN auf beide Positionen besteht darin, ‚gut' als ein attributives Adjektiv zu verstehen, das im Normalfall mit einem teleologischen Begriff kombiniert werden muss, der dann objektive Bewertungskriterien bereitstellt. Vor diesem Hintergrund greife ich dann auf Michael Thompsons Analyse der sogenannten ‚naturhistorischen Urteile' zurück, um auch biologische Artbegriffe als teleologische Begriffe zu verstehen, d.h. als Lebensformen, welche die ideale Struktur eines Lebens von bestimmter Art beschreiben und zugleich natürliche Normen für dessen realen Vollzug implizieren. Schließlich wende ich diese Konzeption auf den Artbegriff des Menschen an und argumentiere, dass (a) Tugenden materiale Formen praktischer Rationalität sind und (b) als solche einen notwendigen Bestandteil der menschlichen Lebensform ausmachen.

The argument from illusion/hallucination have been proposed many times as supporting the strong conclusion that we are always perceiving directly sense-data. In Sense & Sensibilia, Austin argues that this argument is based on a “mass of seductive (mainly verbal) fallacies”. In this paper, I argue that Austin's argumentative moves to deconstruct the argument from illusion is better understood if they are seen as due to his implicit commitment to some disjunctivist conception of perception. His considerations should be taken as a depth discussion about how to conceive perception. If we conceive the perceptual capacity disjunctively, even the weaker conclusion that we sometimes perceive sense-data does not hold. In response to Austin, Ayer claimed that the strong conclusion of the argument from illusion could be sustained by the method of the possibility of error. I argue that this method alone does not sustain that conclusion and the controversy turns back to the conflict between different conceptions of perception. The argument from illusion is philosophically interesting by putting in evidence the  problem of how the perceptual capacity should be articulated and conceived. Although matters of fact are relevant to this question, they alone do not decide it.

This article provides a brief overview and introduction to the debate between McDowell and Travis on the nature and reason-providing potential of experience, as it unfolded up until their exchange in the OUP anthology 'In the Light of Experience' from 2018

The distinction between sense and nonsense is central to Wittgenstein's philosophy. It is at the basis of his conception of philosophy as a struggle against illusions of sense generated by misunderstandings of the logic of our language. Moreover, it informs the notions of "grammar" (in the later work) and "logical syntax" (in the early work), whose investigation serves to clear up those misunderstandings. This Element contrasts two exegetical approaches: one grounding charges of nonsensicality in a theory of sense specifying criteria that are external to the linguistic performance under indictment; and one rejecting any such theory. The former pursues the idea of a nonsensicality test; the latter holds that illusions of sense can only be overcome from within, through the very capacity of which they constitute defective exercises. The Element connects the two approaches to opposite understandings of Wittgenstein's conception of language, and defends a version of the second approach.

What are hallucinations? A common view in the philosophical literature is that hallucinations are degenerate kinds of perceptual experience. I argue instead that hallucinations are degenerate kinds of sensory imagination. As well as providing a good account of many actual cases of hallucination, the view that hallucination is a kind of imagination represents a promising account of hallucination from the perspective of a disjunctivist theory of perception like naive realism. This is because it provides a way of giving a positive characterisation of hallucination—rather than characterising hallucinations
in negative, relational, terms as mental events that are subjectively indistinguishable from veridical perceptual experiences.

Since its first formulation in the 1980’s, the disjunctivist theory has slowly but steadily changed the way philosophers think about perception. Fundamentally, the disjunctivist view is a negative metaphysical thesis about the nature of perceptual experience: it is based on a refutation of the so-called ‘common kind claim’, that is to say, the claim – held by conjunctivists– that perceptions, illusions and hallucinations are conscious experiences of the same fundamental kind. Given the importance granted to perceptual experience in the phenomenological tradition, a few commentators have, in recent years, attempted to situate the phenomenological point of view vis-à-vis these two positions. While Romano (2012) and Bower (forthcoming) have argued that Husserl’s conception of illusions and hallucinations entails a form of conjunctive analysis, Smith (2008), Hopp (2011) and Overgaard (2018) attempted to show that Husserl’s theory of perception amounts to a kind of disjunctivism avant la lettre. In this paper, I side with Staiti (2015) and Zahavi (2017) and argue that the very opposition between conjunctivism and disjunctivism is hardly thinkable on Husserlian grounds. After brushing in very rough strokes Husserl’s normative theory of perception, I defend this claim with two arguments. The first – dubbed the metaphysical argument – targets one core metaphysical commitment of both conjunctivism and disjunctivism, namely their defense of metaphysical realism. In short, I argue that this commitment is incompatible with Husserl’s phenomenology, whether before or after the transcendental turn, for which reason I suggest that Husserl cannot reasonably be held to defend either position. The second argument – called the phenomenological argument – targets another presupposition shared by both parties, namely the idea that ‘perfect hallucinations’ are possible. I lay out a series of reasons as to why this idea should be resisted, and then explain how this impacts the discussion between disjunctivism and conjunctivism.

This thesis aims at laying the groundwork for a research program in philosophy of mind by arguing for two theoretical positions, internalism and representationalism (intentionalism), which are rarely defended jointly, but which together can form the basis for a plausible theory of the mind.

The first chapter argues for internalism against the dominant externalist view. Firstly, it is discussed what the best way is to elucidate the debate between internalism and externalism rooted in the Twin Earth thought experiment. (Putnam 1975) It is argued that the issue between internalists and externalists is whether concrete items that stand in a referential relation to mental states are among the constitutive bases of mental states. The Dry Earth thought experiment (Boghossian 1998) is introduced to make a case for internalism, relying on concepts that do not refer. Externalist counter-arguments are introduced and rejected.

The second chapter argues for representationalism/intentionalism against qualia theory. It is argued that there are no mental qualities (qualia) that account for the qualitative aspects of phenomenology. What do account for the qualitative aspects of phenomenology are apparent qualities of the intentional objects of conscious experiences, the qualities the world is represented as having by the experiences. Three sets of arguments for qualia are introduced and rejected. The first set of arguments are the type of arguments that are variants of the argument from error, which are rejected by an intentionalist analysis of mentality, and an epistemology of experience is developed where experience provides an acquaintance relation between a subject and something abstract such as a possibility. This makes it unnecessary to postulate epistemic relations both to concretely instantiated items in the environment and to mental items such as qualia or sense-data. Arguments based on allegedly non-representational states such as double vision and afterimages are shown to fail by demonstrating that such states are non-endorsed representations. Arguments that rely on spectrum inversion cases where representational content allegedly differs while qualitative phenomenology stays the same are rejected by arguing against the account of representation that underlies such arguments. (The order of the two chapters is largely arbitrary, though a rejection of externalism is useful in arguing against the argument from spectrum inversion.)

The account is completed by briefly discussing and rejecting the disjunctivist theory of perception, and some other motivations for externalism such as externalism’s advantage in providing a naturalistic account of mentality is discussed. The thesis concludes by pointing at the naturalistic prospects for an account of mentality that analyses mental states as representational states while the representational content is based neither on mental qualities like qualia, nor on causal-informational relations to environmental items. I further speculate about the role of powers and dispositions of organisms that might underpin a future naturalistic analysis of mentality, and also consider the plausibility of a mysterian account of mind where the special mystery regarding the explanatory gap about consciousness is downgraded by suggesting that explanatory gaps might be widespread in nature, such as in our failure to logically link qualities like color and sound as we experience them to the lower-level physical phenomena they supervene on.

Merleau-Ponty suggests that to perceive is to be “geared into” the world. In perceiving, we are related to a temporally structured modal space of bodily possibilities that is co-constituted by the body and the world. When we perceive, we are “geared into” this structure and responsive to it; when we misperceive, we are not. In misperceiving, we are unaware of our failure to be geared into the world, and in this respect, we lack awareness of what we are doing. In explaining misperception via this lack of self-awareness, Merleau-Ponty anticipates a key feature of M. G. F. Martin's epistemic disjunctivism: the idea that perceptions and misperceptions can be indiscriminable because of a self-awareness we lack, rather than a set of positive phenomenal features that two experiences share. However, because Merleau-Ponty's account of self-awareness imposes relatively few cognitive demands, he is able to explain how adults, infants, and dogs can be self-aware in the same sense, and how they can fail to discriminate between their experiences in the same way. This provides Merleau-Ponty with the resources to answer Susanna Siegel's objection to epistemic disjunctivism on the basis of “cognitively unsophisticated hallucinators.”

Various attempts have been recently made to project Husserl into the contemporary analytic discussion on sensory illusion and hallucination. On the one hand, this has resulted in a renewed interest in what one might call a ‘phenomenology of sense-deception.’ On the other hand, it has generated contrasting—if not utterly incompatible—readings of Husserl’s own account of outer perception. The present study critically evaluates the contemporary discourse on illusion and hallucination, reassesses its proximity to Husserl’s reflection on sensory perception, and suggests important corrections to the current debate in light of some of Husserl’s insights. The analysis first provides a synopsis of the argumentative structures, aims, and assumptions informing the conjunctivism-disjunctivism debate. This assessment is then critically elaborated through the lens of Husserlian phenomenology in its historical and theoretical distance from the recent debate. Contrary to certain readings of Husserl, the reconstruction of some cardinal phenomenological themes provides all the elements necessary to dislocate his own account from the conjunctivism-disjunctivism dispute, by means of both a ‘global’ and a ‘local’ analysis, and both exegetically and theoretically. Most importantly, a ‘return’ to Husserl shows the philosophical untenability of the whole controversy as both leaving untouched the core problem of perception and altering some of its essential traits. This critique of the image of experience portrayed in the contemporary discussion is conducted through a phenomenological clarification of perception as a distinct ‘structure of rules’ of consciousness and, more specifically, by means of a descriptive analysis centered on the core notion of horizonal-intentionality.

Much attention has recently been paid to the idea, which I label 'External World Acquaintance' (EWA), that the phenomenal character of perceptual experience is partially constituted by external features. One motivation for EWA which has received relatively little discussion is its alleged ability to help deal with the 'Explanatory Gap' (e.g. Fish 2008, 2009, Langsam 2011, Allen 2016). I provide a reformulation of this general line of thought, which makes clearer how and when EWA could help to explain the specific phenomenal nature of visual experience. In particular, I argue that by focusing on the different kinds of perceptual actions that are available in the case of visual spatial vs. colour perception, we get a natural explanation for why we should expect the specific nature of colour phenomenology to remain less readily intelligible than the specific nature of visual spatial phenomenology. (Forthcoming in Synthese.)

John McDowell articulated a radical criticism of normative inferentialism against Robert Brandom’s expressivist account of conceptual contents. One of his main concerns consists in vindicating a notion of intentionality that could not be reduced to the deontic relations that are established by discursive practitioners. Noticeably, large part of this discussion is focused on empirical knowledge and observational judgments. McDowell argues that there is no role for inference in the application of observational concepts, except the paradoxical one of justifying the content of an observational judgment in terms of itself. This paper examines the semantical consequences of the analysis of the content of empirical judgments in terms of their inferential role. These, it is suggested, are distinct from the epistemological paradoxes that McDowell charges the inferentialist approach with.

Relationalism claims that the phenomenal character of perception is constituted by the obtaining of a non-representational psychological relation to mind-independent objects. Although relationalism provides what seems to be the most straightforward and intuitive account of how experience strikes us introspectively, it is very often believed that the argument from hallucination shows that the view is untenable. The aim of this thesis is to defend relationalism against the argument from hallucination. The argument claims that the phenomenal character of hallucination and perception deserves the same account, and that relationalism cannot be true for hallucinations, therefore relationalism must be rejected. This argument relies on the Indiscriminability Principle (IND), the claim that two experiences that are introspectively indiscriminable from each other have the same phenomenal character. Before assessing the plausibility of this principle, I first consider and dismiss versions of the argument which wouldn’t depend on IND.
Although widely accepted, no satisfactory support for IND has been presented yet. In this thesis I argue that defending IND requires that we understand the notion of ‘indiscriminability’ employed in IND in an impersonal sense. I then identify what underwrites IND: the intuition that, in virtue of its superficiality, the nature of a phenomenal character must be accessible through introspection, together with the claim that it is not possible to deny IND without denying the superficiality of phenomenal characters too.
I argue that the relationalist can deny IND while preserving the superficiality of phenomenal characters. This can be done by adopting a negative view of hallucination and an account of introspection whereby the phenomenal character doesn’t exist independently of one’s introspective awareness of it and where having introspective access to our experience depends on our perceptual access to the world.

This paper proposes a classificatory framework for disjunctivism about the phenomenology of visual perceptual experience. Disjunctivism of this sort is typically divided into positive and negative disjunctivism. This distinction successfully reflects the disagreement amongst disjunctivists regarding the explanatory status of the introspective indiscriminability of veridical perception and hallucination. However, it is unsatisfactory in two respects. First, it cannot accommodate eliminativism about the phenomenology of hallucination. Second, the class of positive disjunctivism is too coarse-grained to provide an informative overview of the current dialectical landscape. Given this, I propose a classificatory framework which preserves the positive-negative distinction, but which also includes the distinction between eliminativism and non-eliminativism, as well as a distinction between two subclasses of positive disjunctivism. In describing each class in detail, I specify who takes up each position in the existing literature, and demonstrate that this classificatory framework can disambiguate some existing disjunctivist views.

Recent debates between representational and relational theories of perceptual experience sometimes fail to clarify in what respect the two views differ. In this essay, I explain that the relational view rejects two related claims endorsed by most representationalists: the claim that perceptual experiences can be erroneous, and the claim that having the same representational content is what explains the indiscriminability of veridical perceptions and phenomenally matching illusions or hallucinations. I then show how the relational view can claim that errors associated with perception should be explained in terms of false judgments, and develop a theory of illusions based on the idea that appearances are properties of objects in the surrounding environment. I provide an account of why appearances are sometimes misleading, and conclude by showing how the availability of this view undermines one of the most common ways of motivating representationalist theories of perception.

In his highly valuable book, Duncan Pritchard presents a particular account of perceptual knowledge, epistemological disjunctivism (ED). Pritchard argues that this view seems plainly false at first sight, but if it were right, it would represent the “holy grail of epistemology” (1), a view that allows us “to have our cake and eat it too” (3). This prospect motivates Pritchard to develop and defend an account that prima facie might seem simply false. It is disputable whether ED really seems plainly false at first sight or whether this intuition is based on a particular philosophical tradition. However, in this paper, I will not discuss whether ED is actually true. Rather, I will investigate whether, if true, it has the advantages over rival accounts that Pritchard claims. I will argue that there is no dialectical advantage for ED over alternative liberal accounts concerning skepticism. Thus, ED is not the Holy Grail for the skeptical problem. Either the Holy Grail is simply an account of basic knowledge, in which case any account allowing basic knowledge is an instance of it or it is a conservative anti-skeptical strategy or the search has to go on.

This paper investigates the extent to which ancient philosophers hold positions similar to contemporary epistemological disjunctivism.  It argues that there are some a priori reasons to think that ancient philosophers might be amenable to the disjunctivist position, even if their motivations for holding such a position may be quite different from that of contemporary philosophers.  The body of the paper focuses on the Stoics and their notion of the "cataleptic impression" as a criterion of truth. It compares the Stoic arguments against their Academic skeptical opponents with contemporary epistemological disjunctivism, particularly as it is developed in the work of John McDowell.

Pritchard calls his epistemological disjunctivism ‘the holy grail of epistemology’. What this metaphor means is that the acceptance of this thesis puts the internalism-externalism debate to an end, thanks to satisfaction of intuitions standing behind both competing views. Simultaneously, Pritchard strongly emphasizes that the endorsement of epistemological disjunctivism does not commit one to metaphysical disjunctivism.
In this paper I analyze the formulations and motivations of epistemological disjunctivism presented by Pritchard and McDowell. Then I consider the most common argument for the claim that epistemological disjunctivism can be held without the support of metaphysical disjunctivism.
I conclude that the plausibility of epistemological disjunctivism depends on the plausibility of metaphysical disjunctivism. If the latter is false, the former postulates a set of conditions for epistemic justification that are impossible to be fulfilled.

Recently, the thesis that experience is fundamentally a matter of representing the world as being a certain way has been questioned by austere relationalists. I defend this thesis by developing a view of perceptual content that avoids the objections of austere relationalists. The main thesis of the paper is that on a relational understanding of perceptual content, the fundamental insights of austere relationalism do not compete with perceptual experience being representational. I argue that most objections to the thesis that experience has content are objections only against accounts of perceptual content on which perceptual relations to the world play no explanatory role. With austere relationalists, I will argue that perceptual experience is fundamentally relational. But against austere relationalists, I will argue that it is fundamentally both relational and representational.

The paper discusses some themes in Duncan Pritchard's last book, Epistemic Angst.
Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing. It considers it in relation
to other forms of Wittgenstein-inspired hinge-epistemology. It focuses, in particular, on
the proposed treatment of Closure in relation to entailments containing hinges, the
treatment of Underdetermination-based skeptical paradox and the avail to disjunctivism
to respond to the latter. It argues that, although bold and thought-provoking, the mix of
hinge epistemology and disjunctivism Pritchard proposes is not motivated.

The aim of the present paper is to provide an elucidation of the commitments and motivations of phenomenal disjunctivism. Such an elucidation is very much needed, for, as far as I can see, the view, originally introduced by Micheal Martin, is often misconstrued. Even though what follows is not a direct defence of the view, this elucidation will dispel some objections, as these will turn out to simply misconceive their target.

In recent years, it has become popular again to endorse relationalism about perception. According to this view, perceptions are essentially relational experiences and thus differ in nature from non-relational hallucinations. In this article, I assume that relationalism is true. The issue that I am generally interested in is rather which version of relationalism we should endorse, given that perceptions are relational. The standard answer to this question is Acquaintance Relationalism, the view that perceptions are relational in so far as they acquaint us with objects in our environment. But my contention is that this view cannot account for two important aspects of perfect hallucinations, namely their property of being introspectively indistinguishable from perceptions and their property of having the same motivational force as veridical perceptions. Which alternative form of relationism should be endorsed instead (if any) is then an issue to be discussed at another ocassion.

Defending a form of naïve realism about visual experiences is quite popular these days. Those naïve realists who I will be concerned with in this paper make a central claim about the subjective aspects of perceptual experiences. They argue that how it is with the perceiver subjectively when she sees worldly objects is literally determined by those objects. This way of thinking leads them to endorse a form of disjunctivism, according to which the fundamental psychological nature of seeings and hallucinations is distinct. I will oppose their central claim by defending a version of the so-called ‘causal argument’, which dwells on ideas about causation and explanation in perception. The aim of this discussion is to highlight that the subjective aspects of perceptual experiences cannot be explained in naïve realist terms. Instead, it will be argued that one needs to appeal to a mental factor which does not involve worldly objects as constituents, and which is common to seeings and hallucinations.

A common argument for perceptual representational content starts from how in experience things look ("perceptual looks"). However, recently anti-representationalists have challenged the idea that perceptual looks can be associated with representation (Breckenridge 2007; Travis 2004, 2013). In this paper I defend the representationalist from these arguments. As I describe, the debate about perceptual looks turns on an issue of self-knowledge: the way the character of experience is subjectively available. On this issue, I argue for a view of experiential self-knowledge that supports the association between perceptual looks and representational content.

Naïve realists traditionally reject the time lag argument by replying that we can be in a direct visual perceptual relation to temporally distant facts or objects.
I first show that this answer entails that some visual perceptions – i.e. those that are direct relation between us and an external material object that has visually changed, or ceased to exist, during the time lag – should also count as illusions and hallucinations, respectively.
I then examine the possible attempts by the naïve realist to tell such perceptions apart from illusions and hallucinations, and after showing the inadequacy of the answers relying on a mere counterfactual or causal criterion, I explain why the problem is solved by introducing a view of visual perception as temporally extended into the past of objects and, in particular, as consisting in the whole causal chain of events or states of affairs going from external material object x to subject S.
But this solution is not immune from defects for the naïve realist. I show that this view of perception raises a number of significant concerns, hence leaving the issue of the time lag problem still open for naïve realism.

The starting point of my investigation consists of three passages from Wittgenstein’s On Certainty, namely: OC 243, 505, 230. In these sections, Wittgenstein addresses three important topics of contemporary  epistemology  that I would like to paraphrase as follows: Is knowledge a mental state? Is it always by favor of nature that one knows something? How strong must justification for knowledge be? I will consider the question of how the epistemological topics relate to each other and in what way they can be combined with each other. In this regard, two positions are distinguished. The first one is the fallibilistic standard view within analytic epistemology. I will criticize this view. Alternatively, I will suggest another possibility to interpret the three topics, which is inspired by John McDowell. According to the unorthodox alternative, knowledge is a compelling reasons requiring mental state.

Wittgenstein’s Tractatus construes the nature of reasoning in a manner which sharply conflicts with the conventional wisdom that logic is normative, not descriptive of thought. For although we sometimes seem to reason incorrectly, Wittgenstein denies that we can make logical mistakes (5.473). My aim in this paper is to show that the Tractatus provides us with good reasons to rethink some of the central assumptions that are standardly made in thinking about the relation between logic and thought. In particular, the rejection of logical mistakes is to be understood in connection with Wittgenstein’s non-psychological approach to the thinking subject (5.641). On Wittgenstein’s view, inference, understanding, and meaning are holistically related; cases of defective reasoning are to be explained in terms of a defective grasp of meaning which manifests in an indeterminate use of signs. Invalid reasoning therefore does not count for Wittgenstein as a species of reasoning, but rather as the mere illusion of reasoning. The rejection of logical mistakes thus gives voice to a radical disjunctivist approach.

Within the framework of static phenomenology, I will introduce the Husserlian descriptions of the relation between sensible content and apprehension, and the non-representationalist approach to perception of transcendental phenomenology. In order to place Husserlian phenomenology in a context marked by disjunctivism, I will confront some objections that emerge from certain readings of the transcendental method. Finally, I will reject the tightness of the debate between disjunctivists and representationalists, giving way to the possibilities opened by phenomenology in the description of perception.

En el marco de la fenomenología estática, presentaremos la descripción husserliana de la relación entre contenido sensible y aprehensión (Inhalt-Auffassungsschema), así como la propuesta de intencionalidad no-representacionalista de la fenomenología trascendental. Con el propósito de ubicar la fenomenología de Husserl en un contexto delimitado por el disyuntivismo, descartaremos las objeciones que han surgido contra la fenomenología a raíz de una particular lectura del método trascendental. Finalmente, nos opondremos a la estrechez del debate entre disyuntivistas y representacionalistas frente a las posibilidades de la fenomenología en la descripción de la percepción.

Several commentators have recently attributed conflicting accounts of the relation between veridical perceptual experience and hallucination to Husserl.  Some say he’s a proponent of the conjunctive view that the two kinds of experience are fundamentally the same.  Others deny this and purport to find in Husserl distinct and non-overlapping accounts of their fundamental natures, thus committing him to a disjunctive view.  My goal is to set the record straight.  Having briefly laid out the problem under discussion and the terms of the debate, I then review the proposals that have been advanced, disposing of some and marking others for further consideration.  A.D. Smith’s disjunctive reading is among the latter.  I discuss it at length and argue that Smith fails to show that Husserl’s views on perceptual experience entail a form of disjunctivism.  Following that critical discussion, I present a case for a conjunctive reading of Husserl’s account of perceptual experience.

The grounding or motivating intuitions behind internalism and externalism seem to be fundamentally at odds. If there is ever to be a viable or satisfying solution to the problem, it must satisfy the grounding intuitions behind both sides of the debate. Duncan Pritchard claims his theory of epistemological disjunctivism (ED) does just this, arguing that it could be the holy grail we have all been waiting for. However, I believe the holy grail is already out there in the form of the theory that knowledge is a mental state (KMS). In this paper, I defend the idea the KMS is far better able to satisfy the internalist and externalist intuitions than ED. Introduction: One of the most well-known, and most enduring, debates in epistemology is the debate between internalism and externalism. Both sides seem to be motivated by well-founded and intuitively persuasive arguments, and yet finding a satisfactory response to the dilemma has been notoriously difficult. However, Duncan Pritchard has made progress when he defends what he calls the 'holy grail' of epistemology: a conception of paradigmatic perceptual knowledge that satisfies both the internalist and externalist intuitions. He calls this position Epistemological Disjunctivism (ED). But I believe that there is another conception of knowledge (more generally) which satisfies both internalist and externalist intuitions, and it is my aim in this paper to show how it does so far more satisfactorily than Pritchard's ED. It is the view that knowledge is a mental state (KMS). KMS is the thesis that knowledge is an irreducible state that is mental, and distinct from belief. It involves a rejection of the common conception of the mental as a purely internal realm. The KMS thesis, as I defend it here, is not a unified theory in the literature. The view can be primarily attributed to Timothy Williamson, from his book 'Knowledge and its Limits',1 but is also defended by Jennifer Nagel,2 and Alexander Bird.3 The metaphysical underpinnings of KMS can be attributed to John McDowell and his rejection of the outer/ inner distinction.4 I present the view as 'disjunctivism about knowledge,' though Williamson is not technically a disjunctivist, and McDowell is not (straight forwardly) a disjunctivist about knowledge.5 However, how KMS differs from ED will become clear, and I do not think that these particulars matter when it comes to the heart of the issue.

According to epistemological disjunctivism I can claim to know facts about the world around me on the basis of my perceptual experience. My possession of such knowledge is incompatible with a number of familiar skeptical scenarios (for example, that I am currently being deceived by an evil demon). So a paradigmatic epistemological disjunctivist perceptual experience should allow me to rule out such incompatible skeptical scenarios. In this paper, I consider skeptical scenarios which both cast doubt on my conviction that I can trust my purported perceptual experiences and appear to be compatible with my enjoying a veridical perceptual experience of my environment. Such skeptical scenarios draw attention to a significant difference between McDowell's epistemological disjunctivism and Pritchard's. McDowellian epistemological disjunctivism has the resources to rule out such skeptical scenarios but Pritchard's cannot. This is because the Pritchardian epistemological disjunctivist does not, unlike McDowell, insist on the idea that perception is a fallible capacity, self-consciously exercised and possessed, for knowledge.

This work presents two chapters on the problematic of disjunction in contemporary philosophy. His brief introduction addresses both our encounter with the issue through poststructuralist continental philosophy, as our critical building of a positive distance in relation to that perspective. The first half of our first chapter consists in a general exposure of the problem through the clue of a genealogy of disjunction including its well-known conception as the disjunction problem. The final half of this chapter takes up the problematic by way of the contemporary controversy about the disjunctivism; in particular, we conducted a detailed exposition of the most severe criticism of that perspective. The accuracy of this critical social holism leads us in our second chapter toward an investigation in the Critique of Pure Reason in a quest for the kantian origins of the problem of disjunctive perception. In the first half of this chapter we defend the hypothesis of disjunction as the clue to discover of the categories of understanding. In the last half of this final chapter we face the problem of the nature of disjunction (double sense) through its registration as an onto-phenomenological disjuntivism. Finally, our conclusion rearticulates an overview of our work in search of a future investigation.
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Este trabalho apresenta dois capítulos sobre a problemática da disjunção na filosofia contemporânea. Sua breve introdução aborda nosso encontro com a questão através da filosofia continental pós-estruturalista e, ao mesmo tempo, nossa construção de uma distância crítica em relação àquela perspectiva. A primeira metade do capítulo primeiro constitui-se numa exposição geral da problemática através do fio de uma genealogia da disjunção, inclusive, abrangendo sua concepção como problema da disjunção. A metade final deste capítulo primeiro retoma o problema por via da controvérsia contemporânea acerca do disjuntivismo e, em particular, realiza uma detalhada exposição da crítica mais severa àquela perspectiva. O rigor crítico deste holismo social nos remete, em nosso segundo capítulo, rumo à Critica da Razão Pura numa investigação sobre as origens kantianas da problemática da percepção em disjunção. Na metade primeira deste capítulo defendemos então a hipótese da disjunção como único fio condutor para a descoberta das categorias do entendimento. Na última metade deste capítulo final enfrentamos enfim o problema da natureza da disjunção (duplo sentido) pelo registro de um disjuntivismo onto-fenomenológico. Por fim, nossa conclusão rearticula uma visão geral de nossa investigação em forma de esboço para um projeto futuro.

How are we to account for the epistemic contribution of our perceptual experiences to the reasonableness of our perceptual beliefs? It is well known that a conception heavily influenced by Cartesian thinking has it that experiences do not enable the experiencing subject to have direct epistemic contact with the external world; rather, they are regarded as openness to a kind of private inner realm that is interposed between the subject and the world. It turns out that if one wants to insist that perceptual experiences provide epistemic reasons for perceptual beliefs about the external world as we pre-reflectively take it to be, then one should find a way of avoiding Cartesianism. Here are the two main aims of this paper: firstly, identify the premise that is doing the heavy-lifting work in the Cartesian thinking; and, secondly, formulate an adequate way of denying that premise. The adequacy I claim for my formulation of a way of denying the premise will roughly amount to this: the way I offer is not as susceptible to Cartesian traps as other apparently available ways of denying the premise are.

A paper on the epistemological disjunctivist view defended by McDowell and Pritchard.  I argue against the view on the grounds that the view inherits a problem from more traditional versions of evidentialism. As the evidentialist sees it, evidence grounds status. The evidence you possess explains how your beliefs are justified or constitute knowledge. This gets things back to front. We need status to understand how reasons are possessed.  Specifically, we need knowledge to possess reasons, so possessed reasons cannot be the means by which we acquire knowledge. (Not in the non-inferential case, at least.)

According to the phenomenological argument
for disjunctivism, the reasons why we should
prefer the disjunctive theory over its rivals is
that (1) the disjunctive theory conforms the
most to our pretheoretical or natural convictions
about perception (what Michael Martin
calls naïve realism), and (2) we should commit
ourselves to naïve realism because it conforms
the most to the phenomenology of the perceptual
experience of objects. In this paper I try to
explain why is the phenomenal argument exceptionally
strong argument for disjunctivism and
at the same time against sense-datum and intentional
theories. Furthermore I try to show that
the disjunctivist’s explanation of hallucination
(which is allegedly the weak point of the theory)
is as plausible as its rivals’.