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Single Idea 8798

[filed under theme 13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 2. Causal Justification ]

Full Idea

Visual experience is recognized as both the cause and the justification of our visual beliefs. But these are not wholly independent. Presumably the justification that something is red derives partly from the fact that it originates in visual experience.

Gist of Idea

Vision causes and justifies beliefs; but to some extent the cause is the justification

Source

Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §10)

Book Ref

'Epistemology - An Anthology', ed/tr. Sosa,E. /Kim,J. [Blackwell 2000], p.146


A Reaction

Yes, but the fact that certain visual experiences originate in dreams is taken as grounds for denying their truth, not affirming it. So why do we distinguish them? I am thinking that only in the 'space of reasons' can a cause become a justification.


The 20 ideas from Ernest Sosa

Much propositional knowledge cannot be formulated, as in recognising a face [Sosa]
We can't attain a coherent system by lopping off any beliefs that won't fit [Sosa]
It is acceptable to say a supermarket door 'knows' someone is approaching [Sosa]
Fully comprehensive beliefs may not be knowledge [Sosa]
In reducing arithmetic to self-evident logic, logicism is in sympathy with rationalism [Sosa]
Most of our knowledge has insufficient sensory support [Sosa]
Perception may involve thin indexical concepts, or thicker perceptual concepts [Sosa]
Do beliefs only become foundationally justified if we fully attend to features of our experience? [Sosa]
The phenomenal concept of an eleven-dot pattern does not include the concept of eleven [Sosa]
Some features of a thought are known directly, but others must be inferred [Sosa]
Vision causes and justifies beliefs; but to some extent the cause is the justification [Sosa]
If mental states are not propositional, they are logically dumb, and cannot be foundations [Sosa]
There are very few really obvious truths, and not much can be proved from them [Sosa]
Mental states cannot be foundational if they are not immune to error [Sosa]
A single belief can trail two regresses, one terminating and one not [Sosa]
The negation of all my beliefs about my current headache would be fully coherent [Sosa]
What law would explain causation in the case of causing a table to come into existence? [Sosa]
Mereological essentialism says an entity must have exactly those parts [Sosa]
Where is the necessary causation in the three people being tall making everybody tall? [Sosa]
The necessitated is not always a result or consequence of the necessitator [Sosa]