Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'A Puzzle about Belief', 'Perceptual experience has conceptual content' and 'An Enquiry'

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3 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / c. Empirical foundations
Sense experiences must have conceptual content, since they are possible reasons for judgements [Brewer,B]
     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.
     From: Bill Brewer (Perceptual experience has conceptual content [2005], I)
     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'?
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 7. Testimony
We treat testimony with a natural trade off of belief and caution [Reid, by Fricker,M]
     Full Idea: Reid says we naturally operate counterpart principles of veracity and credulity in our testimonial exchanges.
     From: report of Thomas Reid (An Enquiry [1764], 6.24) by Miranda Fricker - Epistemic Injustice 1.3 n11
     A reaction: What you would expect from someone who believed in common sense. Fricker contrasts this with Tyler Burge's greater confidence, and then criticises both (with Reid too cautious and Burge over-confident). She defends a 'low-level' critical awareness.
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 5. Mental Files
Puzzled Pierre has two mental files about the same object [Recanati on Kripke]
     Full Idea: In Kripke's puzzle about belief, the subject has two distinct mental files about one and the same object.
     From: comment on Saul A. Kripke (A Puzzle about Belief [1979]) by François Recanati - Mental Files 17.1
     A reaction: [Pierre distinguishes 'London' from 'Londres'] The Kripkean puzzle is presented as very deep, but I have always felt there was a simple explanation, and I suspect that this is it (though I will leave the reader to think it through, as I'm very busy…).