Disjunctivism

In his book, John McDowell on Worldly Subjectivity, Tony Cheng argues that recent changes to McDowell's theory of perceptual justification should lead him to accept that experiences possess non-conceptual content. In this paper, I take issue with Cheng's conclusion. Instead, I argue that McDowell should adopt Travis's position, where experiences aren't taken to possess content at all. I argue that we can distinguish two separate Myths of the Given in McDowell's writings. While McDowell often seamlessly moves from one to the other, I argue that it is difficult to see how he can justify this due to his recent alterations to his position. I argue that if we reject one Myth and retain the other, then McDowell can both hold on to a version of his view that the space of reasons is the space of the conceptual, all the while he accepts Travis's arguments to the effect that experiences are devoid of content. Finally, I consider some arguments McDowell might present against accepting Travis's position. While these objections do not convince me, what is notable about them is that, if they are sound, then they will equally count against Cheng's intermediary position where non-conceptual contents are ascribed to experiences. Hence, I conclude that there are no grounds on which McDowell can reasonably endorse that experiences possess non-conceptual contents. Either he should stick to his conceptualism, or he should follow Travis and reject that experiences possess contents at all.

In this chapter we will explore new avenues for developing and defending Naïve Realism (also known as Relationalism), understood as a thesis about the phenomenal character of experience. The core claim of Naive Realism is that ‘what it’s like’ for a subject who enjoys a normal, successful perceptual experience of her surroundings consists in her being directly consciously aware of mind-independent entities in her external environment. It is widely agreed that the strongest challenge to Naïve Realism comes from the alleged possibility of total hallucinations, and the orthodox line of response has been to adopt Disjunctivism about perceptual experience. In this chapter, we will instead focus on an emerging alternative family of responses, which we’ll call ‘New Wave Relationalism’ (NWR). The core commitment of NWR is to reject the initial assumption that there can be total hallucinations that are both non-relational and subjectively indistinguishable from genuine perceptions. The primary aim for this chapter will be to explore and defend this broad NWR strategy for responding to the threat posed by hallucinations to Naïve Realism. We will argue that which specific version or species of NWR a Naïve Realist should adopt will depend on their background methodological and metaphysical commitments.

In his 'Scepticism and the External World', Oswaldo Porchat offered a compelling diagnosis of what is problematic about external world scepticism. In outline, he claimed that far from this scepticism representing the true critical spirit of philosophy, whereby doubt is extended to its maximal scope, it instead uncritically turns on contentious claims in the philosophy of mind. While broadly sympathetic to this critique, I argue that it nonetheless misses out an important feature of external world scepticism, which is that this is really two radical sceptical arguments in disguise. While these two sceptical arguments are overlapping, they are nonetheless distinct and either can be used to motivate the radical sceptical conclusion. Porchat's diagnosis, I contend, only targets what is problematic about one of these radical sceptical arguments. I draw out this distinction by comparing how epistemological disjunctivism and Wittgensteinian hinge epistemology responds to external world scepticism.

Evidentialism is usually thought of as an inherently conservative epistemological proposal; indeed, as a kind of antidote to epistemological radicalism. In an irenic spirit, however, I want to argue that the core evidentialist theses are in fact compatible with some quite heterodox positions in epistemology. I focus on two in particular that are close to my heart: Wittgensteinian hinge epistemology and epistemological disjunctivism. My goal is not to defend these positions, much less defend the combination of these positions with evidentialism. It is rather to demonstrate, on the occasion of its anniversary, that what makes evidentialism epistemologically conversative is not the core theses associated with this view, but rather the ancillary commitments of its main proponents. This is a result that, I contend, evidentialists should welcome.

O problema da determinação é abordado por Deleuze no capítulo IV de Diferença e repetição (1968) com o intuito de proporcionar elementos para a produção de uma noção de diferença. O capítulo extrai uma série de consequências relevantes para o tratamento desse problema a partir de temas caros à tradição, desenvolvidos notavelmente no contexto do tratamento da noção de Ideia de parte da filosofia kantiana. Nosso estudo tenta identificar a estratégia de leitura desenvolvida por Deleuze em seus estudos sobre Kant. Sem dúvida, essa estratégia é muito difícil de discernir em Diferença e repetição, mas resulta evidente quando recorremos à monografia que dedicou a Kant em 1963, intitulada A filosofia crítica de Kant ou ao curso que ministra sobre o pensador alemão em 1978. Desse modo, será possível compreender a articulação de uma leitura retrospectiva que se utiliza da terceira Crítica para abordar problemas específicos no horizonte da primeira. O assunto que nos interessa se refere à determinação no âmbito da relação entre razão e entendimento na primeira Crítica, pois daí derivam as três dimensões que Deleuze descreve na Ideia, a saber, enquanto indeterminada, determinável e abrindo um horizonte de determinação infinita. Além disso, nosso estudo espera examinar o caso paradigmático que Deleuze utiliza para medir essas três dimensões, que se desenha com a interpretação kantiana do Cogito. A exposição se divide em cinco momentos: 1) esclarecemos a estratégia de leitura de Kant, assumida pelo autor francês; 2) descrevemos o papel do sentido interno enquanto mediação das dimensões constitutivas do Cogito kantiano; 3) estabelecemos as condições da separação entre as dimensões indeterminada e determinante na Ideia e no Cogito; 4) destacamos a relevância da distinção kantiana entre juízo determinante e juízo reflexivo; e, por fim, 5) examinamos a natureza da Ideia dando especial destaque ao ideal de determinação infinita.

Much of contemporary philosophy of perception revolves around the question of whether perceptual experience has representational content. On one side of the debate, we find representationalists claiming that perceptual experience is representational in that it always presents the world as being a certain way. Perceptual experience is therefore said to have content, which can be evaluated for truth or accuracy. Against the idea that perception has content, relationalists have leveled an argument based on the generality of content, which we shall here refer to as the Generality Problem of Perception (GPP). We will analyze and assess existing replies to the GPP. Based on these analyses, we will conclude that representationalists have as yet not offered a convincing answer to the problem and that, after almost 20 years, the problem still stands.

Hilary Putnam (1926–2016) was prone to change his mind on variety of philosophical issues and almost constantly to modify his views. The last period of the development of his philosophy is known as the phase of commonsense or natural realism, eloquently presented in his 1994 Dewey
Lectures. This paper is focused on three facets of his position and tries to identify three difficulties it encounters. Firstly, Putnam claims that in the contemporary realism debate we have, on the one hand, proponents of extravagant metaphysical realism, and, on the other hand, advocates of
various versions of irresponsible antirealism. Unfortunately, the delineation of the debate is too coarse-grained, since there are many forms of metaphysical realism, and lumping together various
antirealisms is confusing and unhelpful. Secondly, Putnam’s naïve direct realism in the philosophy of perception seems incompatible with his transactional account of perception. Thirdly, for some time Putnam was under a spell of Wittgensteinian quietism that distorted the true character
of his philosophical ideas.

It is a utilitarian rationality that one must have spent the whole wealth on the winning lottery ticket because it maximizes welfare. Obviously, it strikes everyone as an unreasonable recommendation because, given the integrity of the lottery system, we never knew before the drawing what the winning lottery ticket is. The orthodox decision theory, the expected utility theory, has an alternative rationality that maximizes only expected utility, with a corresponding better guidance for action in our daily life filled with uncertainties. In this Thesis, I investigate reasonableness through distinguishing it from rationality. I first present a case of the claustrophobic, bringing out his reasonableness even given his irrationality – his irrational fear of confined area. Although it is an issue in ethics, I then borrow from epistemology to discuss context, especially in what alternatives to a decision are relevant to it. Afterwards, I discuss safety, which entails immunity from error, and interact it with context through the margin for error. This brings out what risk is, in contrast to luck, which I discuss next. Given some competence, the success of an act leaves a residue of luck inversely proportional to one’s competence. Lastly, I will discuss responsibility, in interaction with justification in unfavourable situation. These four Chapters include famous cases from epistemology, the case of the cleverly painted mule, the bank case, the case of fake barn, and the new evil demon. Competence minimizes luck whereas safety minimizes risk, and the present externalist rationality entails justification with success: the degree of justification is determined by how much it contributes to success. Since we shall not always know before an act that it would have outputted the outcome of success, some act is irrational though reasonable. The present treatise thus informs any theory of decision under uncertainty in a philosophical way.

My topic is Wittgenstein's eventual abandonment of his Tractatus idea that a sentence is true if and only if it depicts a possible fact that obtains, and his coming (in the Investigations) to replace this with a deflationary view of truth. Three objections to the initial idea that will be discussed here are: (i) that its theory of 'depiction' relies on an unexplicated concept of word-object reference; (ii) that its notion of a possible fact obtaining (or existing, or being actual, or agreeing with reality) is also left mysterious; and (iii) that Wittgenstein's conception of possible atomic facts makes it difficult to see how any of them could fail to be actual. These problems are resolved by deflationism. But that perspective could not have been incorporated into the Tractatus. For the view of 'meaning qua use', on which deflationism depends, was the key insight enabling Wittgenstein to appreciate the untenability of his other central Tractarian doctrines. I'll conclude the paper with an examination of José Zalabardo's quite different reading of the book, and indicate where and why I'm not persuaded by it.

In this article I try to bring out the different conceptions of representation which lie behind Tyler Burge's and John McDowell's approaches to perceptual experience. As I go along I relate their motivations for defending (or attacking) disjunctivism to such conceptions of representation. In the case of McDowell I look at the origins of his position in his criticism of Daniel Dennett's view of perception and consciousness in the 1980s-1990s. Further differences in the debate are traced back to diverging conceptions of the respective roles of philosophy and cognitive science when dealing with perception. Although it is not directly explored here, McDowell Kantian view of mind as active lies at the background of the dispute with Burge.

There seems to be an important intuition that there is a distinctive value associated with direct cognitive contact with reality, in the sense of a sensory experience of it. This intuition is unpacked. It is claimed that it is important to keep this thesis apart from related debates about the special value of first-hand knowledge, and cognate issues concerning the eudaimonic value of understanding and strong cognitive achievements. It is argued that there is an intellectual value associated with direct cognitive contact with reality. It is maintained that this thesis is not to be understood as a general preference for sensory experience of the world, but rather as the view that one desires to have a conception of reality that is experientially anchored to reality at critical junctures. It is argued that such a claim, while on the face of it in conflict with the veritist thesis that truth is the fundamental epistemic good, is in fact better understood as a natural consequence of veritism, at least insofar as that proposal is properly understood.

This paper introduces a novel perspective on the intricate interplay between the conscious and representational aspects of visual experience. This viewpoint diverges from traditional representationalism and internal physical state theories. I propose that to understand the conscious (phenomenal) properties of experience, one should consider drawing an analogy to Kaplan’s concept of the “character” of demonstratives. Kaplan describes “character” as a mathematical function that maps contexts to content. Similarly, in this analogy, the conscious character of visual experience is depicted as a pattern figure located in the middle level of the visual cortex. The most effective description of this pattern figure’s contribution to visual experience is as a mathematical function. This function maps specific experiential instances—occurring in the context of visual engagement with particular objects and their attributes—to singular contents. These contents are envisaged as sequences of those instances and their associated properties.

I argue that the phenomenal properties of conscious visual experiences are properties of the mindindependent objects to which the subject is perceptually related, mediated by the subject's practical understanding of their sensorimotor relation to those properties. This position conjoins two existing strategies for explaining the phenomenal character of perceptual experiences: accounts appealing to perceivers' limited, non-inferential access to the details of their sensory relation to the environment, and the relationalist conception of phenomenal properties. Bringing these two positions together by emphasizing their sensorimotor common ground allows each one to respond to damaging objections using the resources of the other. The resulting 'sensorimotor relationalism' about conscious vision provides a promising schema for explaining phenomenal properties of perceptual states, replacing 'Hard' questions with tractable ones about the perceptual relation and its sensorimotor underpinnings.

Um argumento dedutivamente válido é seguidamente caracterizado como um argumento preservador da verdade. O que isso quer dizer é que, satisfeitas certas condições-em linhas gerais, as condições que caracterizam a correção (soundness) de uma regra ou conjunto de regras de inferência-de premissas verdadeiras só inferimos conclusões verdadeiras. 'Preservação da verdade' significa, nesse uso, preservação do valor de verdade, não de verdades particulares. Mas, como Descartes terá sido o primeiro a notar (na terceira das Regras para a Direção do Espírito), há um sentido de 'preservação' que é mais fundamental, e do qual o conhecimento do primeiro é dependente. Pois, embora um argumento possa ser, proveitosamente, representado como uma estrutura abstrata (um par ordenado cujo primeiro termo é um conjunto de proposições chamadas premissas, e cujo segundo termo é um conjunto, usualmente unitário, de proposições chamadas conclusões), uma inferência é uma seqüência temporal de atos judicativos. A capacidade de destacar corretamente a conclusão de um argumento é parasitária, por isso, da capacidade de preservar, ao longo da inferência, a memória dos conteúdos e atitudes proposicionais que constituem suas premissas. Por isso Descartes escreve que 'para a dedução não é necessário, como para a intuição, uma evidência atual, mas é antes à memória que vai buscar a sua certeza' (1908: 370). Por isso, igualmente, Tyler Burge afirma que a memória preservativa-a memória responsável pela preservação de conteúdos proposicionais-é 'necessária para todo raciocínio que transcorra no tempo, portanto, para todo raciocínio' (BURGE 1998a: 363). O tema deste ensaio pode ser descrito como a vulnerabilidade da preservação da verdade: como tentarei mostrar, dada certa concepção pelo menos Paulo Faria* A preservação da verdade 1 o que nos faz pensar n 0 20, dezembro de 2006

This thesis targets the part of Gareth Evans's and John McDowell's view of singular thought which involves the claim that there can be illusions of thought. Singular thought is, according to Evans and McDowell, an object-dependent thought-content; such thought-content could not be entertained unless the object it is about exists. Nevertheless, in a case of perceptual hallucination, where a subject mistakenly takes it that there is an object in front of him or her, Evans and McDowell think that it can seem to a subject exactly as though he or she is having an object-dependent thought, although the subject is in fact not thinking at all due to the absence of any object to think about. The thesis argues for a rejection of this idea of illusions of objectdependent thought. It is further argued that the idea of illusions of thought can be eliminated from Evans's and McDowell's view without abandoning their fundamental insight about how singular thought-content is object-dependent. Following specifically McDowell's development of the view, it is suggested that singular thought is about the world in virtue of how things cognitively appear to the subject. It is suggested that in an alleged case of illusion of thought, the subject has an object-dependent thought about an object whose existence in part is due to the mind's directedness in that very episode of singular thinking. Furthermore, Evans's and McDowell's respective views of acquaintance are criticised, and an idea about acquaintance as awareness of a wider range of objects than just perceivable objects is put forward. In general, the thesis outlines a revised version of Evans's and McDowell's view, a version according to which singular thought, although externalistically individuated, is transparent to the thinker. I am deeply grateful to my supervisors Mark Eli Kalderon, Rory Madden, and José Zalabardo for their insightful guidance, encouragement and patience in helping me with the development of this PhD thesis. I also thank my examiners, Tim Crane and Mark Textor, for helpful written comments and discussion. The material has benefitted from feedback in connection with presentations of earlier versions of it. In particular, the comments from the audience at the Open Sessions of the Joint Sessions of the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association at the University of Stirling in July 2012 have been important to the development of chapter two. I also owe thanks to the audiences and my respondents at the 16 th BPPA

This thesis targets the part of Gareth Evans's and John McDowell's view of singular thought which involves the claim that there can be illusions of thought. Singular thought is, according to Evans and McDowell, an object-dependent thought-content; such thought-content could not be entertained unless the object it is about exists. Nevertheless, in a case of perceptual hallucination, where a subject mistakenly takes it that there is an object in front of him or her, Evans and McDowell think that it can seem to a subject exactly as though he or she is having an object-dependent thought, although the subject is in fact not thinking at all due to the absence of any object to think about. The thesis argues for a rejection of this idea of illusions of objectdependent thought. It is further argued that the idea of illusions of thought can be eliminated from Evans's and McDowell's view without abandoning their fundamental insight about how singular thought-content is object-dependent. Following specifically McDowell's development of the view, it is suggested that singular thought is about the world in virtue of how things cognitively appear to the subject. It is suggested that in an alleged case of illusion of thought, the subject has an object-dependent thought about an object whose existence in part is due to the mind's directedness in that very episode of singular thinking. Furthermore, Evans's and McDowell's respective views of acquaintance are criticised, and an idea about acquaintance as awareness of a wider range of objects than just perceivable objects is put forward. In general, the thesis outlines a revised version of Evans's and McDowell's view, a version according to which singular thought, although externalistically individuated, is transparent to the thinker. I am deeply grateful to my supervisors Mark Eli Kalderon, Rory Madden, and José Zalabardo for their insightful guidance, encouragement and patience in helping me with the development of this PhD thesis. I also thank my examiners, Tim Crane and Mark Textor, for helpful written comments and discussion. The material has benefitted from feedback in connection with presentations of earlier versions of it. In particular, the comments from the audience at the Open Sessions of the Joint Sessions of the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association at the University of Stirling in July 2012 have been important to the development of chapter two. I also owe thanks to the audiences and my respondents at the 16 th BPPA

My purpose is to refute the intentionalist approach to perception. Drawing from mainstream literature, I identify a principle on which any version of intentional theory relies. My paper is a detailed attack on the truth of the principle. In the first section I will introduce terminology and will taxonomize various statements of the intentional view. In the second section I will briefly outline a sketch of the skeletal intentionalist theory that develops from the assumption of the principle alone. Then, in the third section, I will advance my reasons against this theory. In the fourth section, I will set forth an intuitive and definitive counterexample to the adequacy of the principle of intentionalism to accounting for ordinary perception. Moving from this, in the fifth section, I will provide some reasons explaining why intentionalism is condemned at being unsuccessful. Finally, in the last section of the paper, I will give my conclusions.

There is a new theory of perception in the epistemological inventory these days. The fact of its newness (after all these centuries) is surprising enough. Even more surprising is its content. But most surprising of all is the way it is being argued for. In this note I shall not examine the theory in detail. I wish merely to demonstrate that there is a flaw in the method used by its proponents to support it. Approaches to the theory can be found in a number of writings, particularly in those whose authors are impressed with the current state of neurological research and computer simulation of human mental processes. 1 But its most explicit formulation is to be found in the works of D. M. Armstrong and George Pitcher3 The strategies for supporting the theory are nearly identical in both writers. The theory, very inadequately stated, holds that seeing something (or hearing, etc.) is being caused to receive certain beliefs about that thing, where the thing in question is involved in the causal process. Beliefs are explicated as complex dispositions to behavior. And the things we see (hear, etc.) are the ordinary physical objects of everyday life (trees, desks, houses). In Pitcher's words, the theory is causal, behavioral, and directly realistic. This brief sketch does not do justice to the considerable subtlety and sophistication of the theory, especially as it is worked out in Pitcher's book-a model of philosophical prose. But it is enough to indicate the truly new aspect of the theory-the absence of any reference to sensory content. It is the justification of this surprising new feature which I wish to examine. The argument for the theory goes like this: (A) There are just three basic options for a theory of perception: Phenomenalism, Representationalism, Direct Realism.

On the traditional picture, accidents must inhere in substances in order to exist. Berkeley famously argues that a particular class of accidents-the sensible qualities-are mere ideas; entities that depend for their existence on minds. To defend this view, Berkeley provides us with an elegant alternative to the traditional framework: sensible qualities depend on a mind, not in virtue of inhering in it, but in virtue of being perceived by it. This metaphysical insight, once correctly understood, gives us the resources to solve a central problem that still plagues the philosophy of perception: the problem of how, given the power of the mind to create phenomenally rich experiences, ordinary perception can nonetheless be said to acquaint us with the mind-independent world.

Este texto pretende expor o significado da descoberta fenomenológica da intuição categorial, feita por Husserl, para o tradicional problema das categorias e para o novo encaminhamento da questão do ser, que se deu com a investigação e meditação de Heidegger. Expõe o contexto em que a descoberta foi realizada: o do esclarecimento do conhecimento em referência ao modo de captação do ente em seu ser, a partir da sensibilidade e do entendimento. Indica como o método fenomenológico transcendental, através da tematização da intencionalidade, com sua análise noético-noemática, possibilitou uma retomada do problema das categorias numa nova luz. Seguindo pela via da analogia, aponta-se que o categorial se dá propriamente numa intuição, assim como o sensível, embora de modo diverso. A descoberta da intuição categorial indica que o categorial é mais do que forma. É uma verdadeira e própria datidade. Nela e com ela acontece uma genuína doação do ser. Tradicionalmente, o lógos apophantikós servi...

A formação de conceitos empíricos é um tema recorrente na literatura especializada dedicada à discussão da obra de Immanuel Kant. Neste texto pretendo oferecer, a partir do isolamento daquilo que considero ser a questão lógica sobre a formação dos conceitos empíricos, uma alternativa a uma interpretação muito influente sobre este tema. Assim, o texto que segue está dividido em três partes. Na primeira, me dedico a investigar a questão lógica sobre a formação dos conceitos empíricos. Na segunda parte, trato da interpretação de Béatrice Longuenesse e a aproximo com o tratamento de Meier e John Locke sobre essa questão. Por fim, ofereço, a partir de uma leitura das Reflexões e das Lições sobre lógica uma interpretação alternativa do papel dos atos lógicos na formação de um conceito empírico para Kant.

In Self and World, Carleton Christensen seeks to move ''from analytic philosophy to phenomenology'' through a rational reconstruction of John McDowell's philosophical position as it is presented in Mind and World. Christensen claims that McDowell anticipates a phenomenological conception of experience and world, but due to the deep dogmatic constraints of the analytical tradition he belongs to, he is unable to develop what he ''sees through a glass but darkly'' (p. 9). The book is organized as a step-by-step reconstruction of McDowell, and apart from the last chapter it contains almost no references to phenomenological authors. In fact, Christensen's positive phenomenological agenda is explicitly postponed to a projected second volume, which is to deal with Husserl and Heidegger. Christensen's view on ''self and world'' is therefore not stated as an independent, positive agenda but appears only indirectly through the interpretation of McDowell. This means that the success of Christensen's project in this first volume depends on whether he can convincingly establish that McDowell is on the way to a phenomenological notion of experience but is unable to get there because he cannot break free from key dogmatic assumptions of his analytical tradition. Unfortunately, a problematic and superficial interpretation of McDowell threatens to undermine this very project. Christensen's reconstruction of McDowell's account of experience and world is developed through seven chapters and covers an impressive array of themes. Chapters 1 and 2 contain a detailed reconstruction of McDowell's critique of Donald Davidson's coherentism. Like a number of other critics, Christensen claims that McDowell is unable to separate his position sufficiently from Davidson's coherentism. In his sympathetic reconstruction of McDowell's somewhat sketchy critique, Christensen shows that Davidson's coherentist theory does not adequately

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.

The "observational categoricals" constitute a very special set of sentences of great importance in the last phase of Quine's work. According to Quine, the grammatical structure and therefore the role played by these sentences considered by the philosopher as the neutral empirical content of theories would solve several difficulties in semantics and epistemology. Most urgent among them would be: the incommensurability of theories, their empirical verifiability, as well as explaining the language learning process. In consequence of the importance of their task and their rather late appearance, we consider quite relevant to investigate in details the origin of these choice, as well as the structure and function of these sentences, very peculiars to Quine's semantical approach.

In a recent issue of the JHP, Matt Bower argues forcefully against A. D. Smith's interpretation of Husserl as a disjunctivist. But I argue in this discussion note that the disjunctive reading of Husserl remains plausible. For it seems Husserl was committed to the idea that perceptions essentially have singular contents, while hallucinations do not.

2020) coined the phrase "the Laws of Appearance" for some underappreciated features of perceptual experience. Pautz suggests that the modal status of the Laws presents a puzzle: it is problematic to regard them as necessary, and also problematic to regard them as contingent. This paper presents possible counterexamples to the laws, suggesting that they are contingent as originally stated (Sect. 1). But the laws are readily modified so as to express constitutive features of normal human visual experience, and thus understood they are metaphysically necessary (Sect. 2). Analogous pictorial laws govern representational painting, and these can be explained by appealing to the representational format of the medium (Sect. 3). This invites the question whether there might be format-based explanations of the Laws of Appearance. If so, can the contingency of the format facts be squared with the necessity of the Laws? The paper answers "Yes" to both questions (Sect. 4).

Many philosophers and scientists rightly take hallucinations to be phenomena that challenge in a most pressing way our theories of perception and cognition, and epistemology in general. However, very few challenge the received views on the hallucinatory experience and even fewer critically delve into the subject with both breadth and depth. There are all kinds of problems concerning hallucinations-including conceptual, methodological, and empirical issues-that call for a multilevel analysis and an interdisciplinary approach which in turn provide the detail and scope that the subject demands. In this paper, I present and briefly discuss four interrelated problems: (1) definitions, (2) dependence on perception, (3) two views on hallucinations, and (4) methodology. Neglect or underestimation of these problems, among other things, continue to prevent a proper understanding of the concept and the corresponding experience, giving rise to misconceptions and even plain myths on the subject. Hallucinations do occur; but in order to productively investigate them (for whatever end), we first need to get clear on the concept and develop a suitable epistemological framework for their analysis.

Stewart Cohen argues that basic knowledge is problematic, as it implies that subjects can acquire knowledge or justified beliefs about certain matters in ways that are supposedly too easy. Cohen raises two versions of the problem of easy knowledge, one involving the principle of closure and the other track-record style bootstrapping reasoning. In this paper I confront the problem of easy knowledge from the perspective of epistemological disjunctivism about perception. I argue that disjunctivism can do a better job than dogmatism at responding to the version of the problem involving closure. I also argue that while disjunctivism would permit subjects to bootstrap their way to justified beliefs about the reliability of their perceptual powers, the disjunctivist can distinguish in a principled manner between this sort of bootstrapping and instances of it that we should agree are objectionable. Keywords Epistemological disjunctivism • Dogmatism • Easy knowledge • Bootstrapping How can we come to know that certain putative knowledge sources are reliable? One way to answer this question is to argue that some knowledge is basic knowledge, or knowledge that can be acquired without knowledge that its source is reliable (Cohen 2002, p. 309). If basic knowledge is possible, it can provide the foundation on which knowledge of the reliability of our knowledge sources is based. However, Stewart Cohen has argued that basic knowledge is problematic, insofar as it implies that subjects have abilities to acquire knowledge or justified beliefs about certain matters in ways that are supposedly "too easy." This is the problem of easy knowledge, and Cohen presents two versions of it. The first is that given the principle of closure under

In law, prescription is a means by which rights against others can be relinquished through failure to enforce them during a specified period of time. In this paper I examine the possibility of a moral analogue of this. Drawing on the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and in particular on his Phenomenology of Perception, I argue that prescription is distinct from related phenomena such as forgiveness, forgetting, acquiescence, and excusing and that it is a genuinely moral phenomenon.

I propose an account of desire that reconciles two apparently conflicting intuitions about practical agency. I do so by exploring a certain intuitive datum. The intuitive datum is that often when an agent desires P she will seem to immediately and conclusively know that there is a reason to bring P about. Desire-based theories of reasons seem uniquely placed to explain this intuitive datum. On this view, desires are the source of an agent's practical reasons. A desire for P grounds conclusive knowledge of a reason to bring P about because that desire makes it true that there is a reason to do so. However, this implies that a basic desire for P can never be in error about there being at least some reason to bring P about. We have the conflicting intuition that basic desires sometimes rationally count for nothing. The guise of the good explains this intuition about the fallibility of desires. On this view, a desire for P represents P as good in some respect. Desires and reasons are independent, so a desire might misrepresent one's reasons. But this independence is usually taken to rule out that desires ever provide conclusive knowledge of reasons. Capturing the intuition about conclusive knowledge rules out capturing the intuition about fallibility, and vice versa. I propose an epistemological disjunctivist version of the guise of the good that reconciles fallibility with the possibility of conclusive knowledge.

In a theory of representational or intentional states content is generally supposed to play various roles. It has to be the bearer of a truth-value, it has to determine the way a representation is about something (its mode of presentation), and finally it has to 6e used in order to give intra-and interpersonal psychological explanations. It has been argued that no unique kind of content can play all these roles. What criterion should one adopt in order to draw the dividing line? We suggest that the divide be based on ontological considerations related to the way content depends on external factors. There is a fundamental difference, we submit, between objectdependent and propertydependent contents. The requirements concerning modes of presentation as well as cognitive significance can be met by one kind of content.

An overview of epistemological disjunctivism is offered, including its relationship to metaphysical disjunctivism. Particular focus is then placed on how such a thesis might be cast specifically in terms of evidence. Two issues in particular are discussed: (i) how to locate the proposal within the epistemic externalism/internalism distinction; and (ii) how one might motivate the viability of the proposal.

Against an externalist view popularized, among others, by Evans and McDowell I shall show fiat object-dependent thoughts are psychologically spurious. This version of externalism is contrasted with the picture that thoughts are object-independent. It is argued that object-independent thoughts are perspectival and context-sensitive and that these perspectival thoughts, unlike object-dependent thoughts: (i) deal with delusion in an intuitive and elegant way; (ii) support psychological generalizations in a straightforward way; (iii) do not need to be fully articulated and, as such, fit with an economical rule governing our thinking activity. To state my point I shall mainly concentrate on perceptual thoughts and emphasize how they are contextually related to the external world.

In this paper, I defend a new theory of the nature and individuation of perceptual capacities. I argue that we need a theory of perceptual capacities to explain modal facts about what sorts of perceptual phenomenal states one can be in. I defend my view by arguing for three adequacy constraints on a theory of perceptual capacities: perceptual capacities must be individuated at least partly in terms of their place in a hierarchy of capacities, where these capacities include the senses themselves; an adequate account of perceptual capacities must be sensitive to empirical considerations; and an adequate account should accommodate the nature of the capacity to perceive. I arrive at these constraints by considering how Schellenberg's view fails, before defending and developing my alternative in line with the constraints. I defend a view on which there are few, coarse-grained perceptual capacities which can fulfil complex explanatory roles because they are evaluatively gradable on many axes. Finally, on my view, perceptual capacities bear a particularly close relation to the sensory modalities themselves.