Consciousness and Knowledge

Abstract

<p>This chapter focuses on the relationship between consciousness and knowledge, and in particular on the role perceptual consciousness might play in justifying beliefs about the external world. A version of phenomenal dogmatism is outlined according to which perceptual experiences immediately, prima facie justify certain select parts of their content, and do so in virtue of their having a distinctive phenomenology with respect to those contents. Along the way various issues are considered in connection with this core theme, including the possibility of immediate justification, the dispute between representational and relational views of perception, the epistemic significance of cognitive penetration, the question of whether perceptual experiences are composed of more basic sensations and seemings, and questions about the existence and epistemic significance of high-level content. A concluding section briefly considers how some of the topics pursued here might generalize beyond perception.</p>

Speciesism and Sentientism

“…11 For each of the candidates for welfare goods/bads mentioned above, there are philosophers who have argued that consciousness is necessary for that good/bad. For example, Brogaard and Chudnoff (2020) argue that empirical knowledge requires consciousness, Smithies (2019, p. 17) argues that knowledge requires consciousness, Stampe (1987), Strawson (1994, Oddie (2005), and Smithies and Weiss (2019) argue that desire requires consciousness, and Roberts (2009) argues that friendship requires consciousness. More generally, Kriegel (2019) argues that consciousness plays an important role in every major theory of welfare goods, and Lin (2020) argues that every welfare good at least partially involves consciousness.…”

There Are No Irrational Emotions

“…29 29 Immediate justification is frequently motivated as a solution for the regress of justification for belief, and with examples of experiences that seem to justify immediately, such as pains (Pryor 2005). Refer also to Brogaard and Chudnoff, 2020, for a recent overview about perceptual experience and immediate justification.…”