Single Idea 8875

[catalogued under 13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / c. Empirical foundations]

Full Idea

Given that sense experiential states do provide reasons for empirical beliefs, they must have conceptual content, ...where a mental state with conceptual content is one where the content is of a possible judgement by the subject.

Gist of Idea

Sense experiences must have conceptual content, since they are possible reasons for judgements

Source

Bill Brewer (Perceptual experience has conceptual content [2005], I)

Book Reference

'Contemporary Debates in Epistemology', ed/tr. Steup,M/Sosa,E [Blackwell 2005], p.217


A Reaction

This is, I believe, wrong. Even complex observations, like a pool of blood, only become reasons when they have been interpreted. Otherwise they are just the raw ingredients of evidence. How could an uninterpreted red patch be a 'reason'?