Towards a phenomenological conception of experiential justification

Berghofer, Philipp

doi:10.1007/s11229-018-1744-5

Cited by 22 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 31 publications

(16 reference statements)

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“…Despite these positive features, the Looks View goes strongly against what might be called the dominant theory of perceptual justification, i.e., dogmatism, which holds that at least some simple visual beliefs are immediately justified on the basis of visual perceptual experience. One important difficulty for dogmatism consists in spelling out which simple visual beliefs enjoy such immediate justification: e.g., whether such beliefs need to have the same contents as the experience (McGrath, 2018; Silins, 2011, 2013), or whether you need to be seemingly aware of a truth‐maker for the content that is presented as true by the experience (Berghofer, 2020; Chudnoff, 2018). Here I will simply skip these difficulties and assume that there is a way in which a dogmatist can delineate a certain class of simple visual beliefs for which it is also intuitive to hold that they can be immediately justified by perceptual experience 2…”

Section: The Looks View Of Perceptual Justificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to these views, the belief that there is now a laptop in front of me is, at least in part, justified in virtue of my perceptual experience of that laptop. Such “experientialist” views of perceptual justification have been defended in different forms: either perceptual experience itself constitutes the perceptual evidence required for perceptual justification (Berghofer, 2020; Chudnoff, 2018; Conee & Feldman, 2004; Huemer, 2001; Moretti, 2015); or perceptual experience gives rise to distinct perceptual seemings, which then constitute the required perceptual evidence (Brogaard, 2013, 2018; Pace, 2017; Reiland, 2015; Tucker, 2010); or perceptual experience immediately justifies propositions about perceptual looks, which then constitute our perceptual evidence (McGrath, 2017, 2018). All of these views take perceptual experience to be an important and sometimes even crucial nexus in the transitioning from perceptual input to perceptual belief, and, because of this, all of these views grant perceptual experience an important role in providing perceptual justification.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Do looks constitute our perceptual evidence?

Ghijsen¹

2020

Philosophical Issues

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Many philosophers take experience to be an essential aspect of perceptual justification. I argue against a specific variety of such an experientialist view, namely, the Looks View of perceptual justification, according to which our visual beliefs are mediately justified by beliefs about the way things look. I describe three types of cases that put pressure on the idea that perceptual justification is always related to looks-related reasons: unsophisticated cognizers, multimodal identification, and amodal completion. I then provide a tentative diagnosis of what goes wrong in the Looks View: it ascribes a specific epistemic role to beliefs about looks that is actually fulfilled by subpersonal perceptual processes.

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Section: The Looks View Of Perceptual Justificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do looks constitute our perceptual evidence?

Ghijsen¹

2020

Philosophical Issues

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“…For more details on a phenomenological epistemology and, in particular, the claim that certain experiences gain their justificatory force by virtue of their distinctive phenomenal character (Berghofer, 2018a;Berghofer, 2018b).…”

Section: The New Evil Demon Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

New Ways to Transcendental Phenomenology: Why Epistemology Must Be a Descriptive and Eidetic Study of Consciousness

2018

HORIZON / Fenomenologicheskie issledovanija/ STUDIEN ZUR PHÄNOM

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Husserl has spilled much ink motivating the transcendental reduction that is supposed to pave the way for the ultimate, subjective science, i.e., transcendental phenomenology. However, Husserl's original ways to the transcendental reduction are problematic. One such issue concerns the (in)fallibility of apodictic evidence. If apodictic evidence must be infallible, the project of transcendental phenomenology seems to be unattainable. However, if apodictic evidence is fallible, the project of transcendental phenomenology is not as well-motivated as seemingly implied by Husserl's Cartesian way. In the present paper, I put forward new ways to transcendental phenomenology that are based on arguments in current analytic epistemology. I show that the new evil demon problem, Laurence BonJour's example of clairvoyance, and the phenomenon of blindsight can not only be used to make a case against reliabilism, but also to motivate the core ideas of transcendental phenomenology. The underlying conviction of this paper is that any argument or line of reasoning that, for epistemological reasons, motivates the study of consciousness in a non-empirical descriptive and eidetic fashion can be considered a way to transcendental phenomenology. The thesis of this paper is that one such way to transcendental phenomenology can be found by engaging in current epistemological debates. I exemplify this new way to the reduction by discussing concrete problems, putting particular emphasis on the new evil demon problem as it allows us to motivate a phenomenological version of epistemic internalism, according to which two experiences that are phenomenologically identical are also justificationally identical, which means that they justify the same beliefs to the same degree.

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“…For how a phenomenological conception of experiential justification might enrich current debates, compare Berghofer ().…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Heffernan, ; Hopp, ). Recently, I have argued that current debates in analytic epistemology could benefit from a phenomenological input in Berghofer (, , ).…”

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On the nature and systematic role of evidence: Husserl as a proponent of mentalist evidentialism?

Berghofer

2018

European J of Philosophy

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In this paper, I shall show that for Husserl, (a) evidence determines epistemic justification and (b) evidence is linked to originary givenness in the sense that one's ultimate evidence consists of one's originary presentive intuitions. This means that in contemporary analytic terminology, Husserl is a proponent of evidentialism and mentalism. Evidentialism and mentalism have been introduced into current debates by Earl Conee and Richard Feldman. Finally, I shall highlight that there is one significant difference between Husserl and Earl Conee and Richard Feldman. Although Conee and Feldman argue that the fundamental principles of epistemology are principles of best explanation, Husserl opts for phenomenological principles as the most fundamental epistemic principles. The main difference is that for Husserl, experiences gain their justificatory force by virtue of their phenomenal character, namely, their originary givenness.

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Towards a phenomenological conception of experiential justification

Cited by 22 publications

References 31 publications

Do looks constitute our perceptual evidence?

Do looks constitute our perceptual evidence?

New Ways to Transcendental Phenomenology: Why Epistemology Must Be a Descriptive and Eidetic Study of Consciousness

On the nature and systematic role of evidence: Husserl as a proponent of mentalist evidentialism?

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