Close Range

Phenomenal Content is Not Existential

A bliger looks like a single animal from afar but, on closer inspection, turns out to be several small animals traveling in formation so as to give the appearance of a large predator. ‘The bliger’ (like ‘TomKat’) is syntactically singular but semantically plural. The bliger isn’t one single thing, it’s several things.

Suppose that at t1, I see a bliger from afar but don’t realize it’s not a single thing. At t2, I learn the truth about bligers. At t3, I again spot one from afar. It seems quite natural to say that things are exactly the way they look to be at t3, even though there is another sense in which it still looks to me as though there is a single animal out there. (Compare: It may sound to me as though a gun has been fired when in fact it was a car backfiring, yet I did not mishear anything.) If so, then it cannot be part of the phenomenal content of my experience at t3 that there is something (i.e., some one thing) that has so and so qualities, for in that case my experience would be nonveridical even at the most fundamental level.

Objection 1: “After learning the truth about bligers, the content of the experience changes. At t1, the content is that there is a thing there with such and such qualities, but at t3 the content is that there are some things there with such and such qualities.” Yet it is quite plausible that, at least at some level, things look the same to me now as they did before I learned the truth about bligers. This would require that the content be plurally existential at both times.

Objection 2: “The several small animals *do* compose something; composition is unrestricted.” But the thesis that composition is unrestricted is open to decisive counterexamples. For instance, bligers. I can give other counterexamples too, if you want.

Objection 3: “You’ve shown only that phenomenal content of the bliger experience does not involve *singularly* existential quantification. But maybe what this shows is that the phenomenal content is plurally existential: there are some things that (collectively) have so and so qualities.” Maybe that’s right. But my bliger experience is not relevantly different from an ordinary experience of a panther from after. So, by parity, the phenomenal content of an experience of a panther is not (singularly) existential. By parity, the phenomenal content of an experience of a panther up close is not (singularly) existential. By parity, none of my experiences are (singularly) existential.

Dogmatism, Perceptual and Intuitive

As I understand it, dogmatism about perceptual justification is the thesis that, for a certain class of empirical propositions p, whenever one has an experience as of p’s being the case, one thereby has immediate prima facie justification for believing p.

Let dogmatism about intuitive justification be the thesis that, for a certain class of non-empirical propositions p, whenever one has an intuition as of p’s being the case, one thereby has immediate prima facie justification for believing p.

It strikes me that Jim Pryor’s discussion of the former thesis in “The Skeptic and the Dogmatist” reveals that these two forms of dogmatism are related in quite interesting ways.

First, Pryor’s main argument for dogmatism about perceptual justification evidently presupposes a form of dogmatism about intuitive justification. In response to the question why we should believe dogmatism about perceptual justification, Pryor writes (p. 536, boldface added):

For a large class of propositions, like the proposition that there are hands, it’s intuitively very natural to think that having an experience as of that proposition justifies one in believing that proposition to be true. …An experience as of there being hands seems to justify one in believing there are hands in a perfectly straightforward and immediate way. …[I]t seems like the mere fact that one has a visual experience of that phenomenological sort is enough to make it reasonable for one to believe that there are hands. No premises about the character of one’s experience—or any other sophisticated assumptions—seem to be needed.

Pryor then recommends that we “take these intuitive appearances at face value,” concluding that we therefore ought to accept dogmatism about perceptual justification.

Curiously, Pryor denies that this argument for dogmatism is itself dogmatic. Rather, he claims that the argument simply “proceeds via standard philosophical methodology” (p. 538). Presumably, Pryor believes that the relevant methodology is epistemically secure. Why? Presumably, because it provides justification: it’s safe to rely on intuitive appearances, as we do when we proceed via standard philosophical methodology, because intuitive appearances justify the corresponding beliefs. In effect, to allow that it is epistemically secure to “take these intuitive appearances at face value” -- i.e., that these intuitive appearances suffice to justify us in accepting dogmatism about perceptual justification -- is to assume that these intuitive appearances provide justification for the corresponding beliefs. This justification is, by all lights, immediate (and prima facie). The argument thus appears to presuppose a form of dogmatism about intuitive justification.

The point, in short, is that while it is probably true that reliance on intuitive appearances is standard philosophical methodology, this alone cannot prevent Pryor's argument for dogmatism about perceptual justification from being dogmatic. For standard philosophical methodology may itself be dogmatic (i.e., may rely on dogmatism about intuitive justification).

Second, Pryor (in note 37) observes that it would be nice to have an answer to the question of why perceptual experiences have the justificatory status that dogmatism about perceptual justification says they do. Many answers suggest themselves. Pryor briefly notes three:

[1] Perceptual beliefs are irresistible in that perceptual experiences involuntarily compel belief in the corresponding contents.

[2] It is constitutive of our concept of justification, or of our perceptual concepts, that perceptual experiences have this justificatory status.

[3] Perceptual experiences have “phenomenal force”: they present their contents as true. (As it turns out, this is the answer Pryor endorses.)

When reflecting on dogmatism about intuitive justification, one might wonder why intuitions have the justificatory status that dogmatism about intuitive justification says they do. Again, many answers, including analogues to those noted by Pryor, suggest themselves:

[1'] Intuitive beliefs are irresistible in that intuitions involuntarily compel belief in the corresponding contents.

[2'] It is constitutive of our concept of justification, or of some other concepts, that intuitions have this justificatory status.

[3'] Intuitions have “phenomenal force”: they present their contents as true. (In a previous post, written in ignorance of Pryor’s discussion of the phenomenal force of perceptual experience, I maintained that intuitions, much as perceptions, have precisely this property, which in my post I called the property of being presentational.)

Apart from the question of whether the answer that the dogmatist about intuitive justification should prefer is just the analogue of the answer that the dogmatist about perceptual justification should prefer, I think it would be interesting to explore other relations between these two forms of dogmatism as well. For instance, do objections to dogmatism about perceptual justification have equal force against dogmatism about intuitive justification? Are there objections to the latter dogmatism that are not objections to the former? And so on. But I'll leave these explorations for another day.