The Epistemic Power of Perception

Project summary

This project has positive and negative strands. On the positive side, I argue that perception is epistemically powerful in that it can explain how we have knowledge proper rather than mere belief. And I explain this epistemic power of perception in terms of the idea that perception reveals the world to us. This means that we can explain the epistemic power of perception by appeal to something – the world revealing nature of perception – that many different metaphysical theories of perception can accept.

This brings me to the negative strand: contra to what many assume, we shouldn't expect to be able to settle disputes between different metaphysical theories of perception in terms of how well they can explain the epistemic power of perception. The real explanatory work is being done at a theory neutral level.

 Who's involved:

Craig French