Is Perception a Source of Reasons

Bibliographic Data

ID20143748
AuthorsSantiago Echeverri (0000-0003-0701-8214, University of Geneva, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume79
Issue1
Pages22-56
Publication date2013-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTheoria (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0040-5825 • E-ISSN: 1755-2567
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1755-2567.2012.01139.x
OpenAlexW2143788044
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited43

It is widely assumed that perception is a source of reasons (SR). There is a weak sense in which this claim is trivially true: even if one characterizes perception in purely causal terms, perceptual beliefs originate from the mind's interaction with the world. When philosophers argue for (SR), however, they have a stronger view in mind: they claim that perception provides pre‐ or non‐ doxastic reasons for belief. In this article I examine some ways of developing this view and criticize them. I exploit these results to formulate a series of constraints that a satisfactory account of the epistemic role of perception should fulfil. I also make a positive suggestion: coherentists are right when they claim that only beliefs can be reasons for other beliefs. Nevertheless, I depart from traditional coherentism, for I do not buy its conception of perception as bare sensation, nor explicate the justificatory status of beliefs in terms of coherence. My point is rather that, when one invokes experience to justify a belief, the justifying state must have structural features of beliefs

Cognitive psychology · Coherence (philosophical gambling strategy) · Coherentism · Doxastic logic · Epistemology · Foundationalism · Perception · Point (geometry) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Mathematics · Philosophy · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Social Psychology

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