A reasonable personin similar circumstances would not have an experience that they inferredfrom the ill-founded presumption.
This is why the experience itself should detract from the agent's rational standing--they are the one that holds the ill-founded presumption in the first place.
If Jill goesahead and believes her eyes anyway, then her belief is not as well-foundedas it could be, because it is formed on the basis of an experience that lacksthe baseline amount of epistemic power that the same experience couldhave, if it weren’tinfluenced by fear. Her experience is merelydowngraded,meaning its epistemic power is reduced below the baseline
Alternate explanation
Itcan explain why it is not rational for subjects in these cases to believetheir eyes—even though, to them, they are simply taking in what comestheir way, even when they are not in a position to understand what theepistemically best option is.
Is it even vaguely possible to be aware of all the times we occupy this position in order to respond to it appropriately? It seems to me like we'll all be constantly failing to recognize that we aren't in a position to make these choices and thus making them anyway. In fact, will we ever occupy a position of rationality? (Perhaps so, going back to the mustard example from earlier.)
It is not rational, because theirhijacked experiences are irrational. They are irrational because they areepistemically sensitive to their psychological precursors, in the same waythat conclusions of inference epistemically depend on inferential inputs
"Epistemically sensitive" meaning that it depends on the inferential inputs which lead them to that conclusion (or to that experience).
My label for this property is“epistemic charge.”
"Epistemic charge" = the epistemic status that perceptual experiences can have
Jill is not inany way accountable for her experience, and therefore could not speak tohow rational she i
But why would rationality be essentially tied up with accountability for a phenomenon or control over it?
The Rationality of Perception focuses on theroutetoperceptual experience from other psychological states of the per-ceiver.
Useful clarification--there is no such thing as a perceptual experience that is totally uninfluenced by previously-held beliefs. It's more like an unending chain of beliefs influencing experiences creating further beliefs, etc.
If perceptual experiences can arise from infer-ence, then the Rationality of Perception is true
This is a bit beyond me, honestly. I'm having trouble wrapping my head around how perceptual experiences (rather than perceptual judgments) can arise from inference, despite reading this whole section.
a belief isill-founded if it is formed or maintained irrationally, well-founded if itis formed and maintained rationally.3These notions are also gradable.One belief can be more ill-founded (or well-founded) than another.
The gradability of ill-/well-founded here is interesting. The less rational the path to the belief, the more ill-founded it is.
Perceptual experiences that arose from this kind of reasoning wouldbe rational, in a broader sense that encompasses both good and badoutcomes: they are evaluable as rationally better or worse.
"Rational" just means "rationally (epistemically) appraisable," as in, it can be shown to be better or worse in terms of rationality. So it can be "rational" even if it is evaluated as being rationally worse.
First, merely having a perceptual experiencecan benefit or detract from the subject’s rational standing, and in thatmanner redound on the subject
This is the big move. It adequately describes how I feel we should approach situations where we reasonably expect to encounter implicit bias even when it doesn't feel like we're being biased. I do wonder, though, precisely how often this would lead to a subject's inability to make a decision rationally? It may be shockingly often.
They all assume that thephenomena they govern are epistemically appraisable. They are normsthat purport to describe how a specific aspect of a properly rationalsubject’s mental life would be. The kind of rationality thatfigures inthe Rationality of Perception hypothesis is located at this high level ofabstraction.
Rationality is tied to a phenomena's epistemic appraisability. The Rationality of Perception holds that perceptual experiences themselves are epistemically appraisable.
But what does it mean to be epistemically appraisable? Does it just mean that it is concerned with what is rational/what rationality looks like? Is that not circular?
relative tocertain types of norms—norms of rationality
"Rational" here is inherently normative.
My solution is that it is not rational in these cases for the subjects ofhijacked experiences to believe their eyes. It is not rational because in eachcase, the subject’s having the perceptual experiences detracts from his orher rational standing, and it does that because the experience came aboutthrough an irrational process. These subjects are not in a position toknow, on their own, what the reasonable reaction to their experiences is
Thesis
there is nothingepistemically special about cases where the mind is insulated from realityby its own assumptions.
Can we not distinguish some as epistemically special due to the nature of what kind of assumptions we're using to insulate ourselves from reality, or from where we got those assumptions?
Attention(hijacked experience): The pliers look somewhat like a gun,because the state activated by the black prime directs the subjectsattention to features of the pliers that are congruent with beinga gun (metallic), and away from features incongruent with being agun (shape)
For what it's worth, this seems intuitively like the best description of what I feel like has happened whenever I've taken an implicit bias test. I feel most strongly that it's the case that the person being tested sees a gun or something like a gun, indicating a hijacked experience.
In all of the cases, the challenge is to assess whetherthe ultimate conclusions are epistemically appropriate (the stigmatizedapplicant is under-qualified, Jack is angry, the sperm cell contains anembryo, the audience is pleased, the banana is yellow), and to eitherexplain away the appearance of an epistemicflaw in the conclusion, ifthere isn’t one, or else identify the epistemicflaw, if there is one
Full disclosure: at this point, I think there is a flaw.
given yourexperience, and no inkling that it was influenced by your expertise
Again this step seems to be the key: it looks like circular reasoning (probably because it is, if you start with the generalization, or at least some form of confirmation bias). But is it not possible to be more aware of when you hold these generalizations as a way to to question the strength of your own perceptual experience? I suppose it definitely won't be possible in every case, and she could simply come up with a case where I wouldn't have that level of self-reflection.
she has no indication that the experience is misleading
But does she have no evidence? Is recognizing that she's already worried that he's angry enough to warn her that the experience could be misleading and she should put less trust in her perceptual experience?
But if Jill’s fear makes her perceptual experience congruent with thefear, then the situation is epistemically more complicated. When we lookmore closely at hijacked perception that reaches all the way to a visualexperience, wefind a distinctive philosophical problem. I’m going to callthis problemthe problem of hijacked experience
More specific: the move to ONLY when the hijacked perception is at the level of perceptual experience, not perceptual judgment. This is more interesting ethically and epistemically.
It is also possible for a prior outlook toproperly steer the processing that leads to perceptual experience orjudgment. It is properly steered when the prior outlook and perceptualinputs are both given their proper weight.
What determines proper balance? Likely very contextualized. Is ever prior outlook in some way useful or are there some (like vanity, perhaps) which shouldn't ever be given any weight?
When perceptual judgments or perceptual experiences arise fromprocesses that give prior outlooks too much weight and fail to giveproper weight to perceptual inputs (if there are any such inputs), wecan say that the outlookhijacksthe perceptual state
This definition of hijacking a perceptual state (giving too much weight to "prior outlooks" and not enough to perceptual inputs when creating perceptual judgments or perceptual experiences) sidesteps the initial distinction between what exactly gets hijacked--the judgments or the experiences themselves. It is indiscriminate between the two possibilities.
oran inbuilt structural mismatch between our minds and reality, but fromour own individual prior outlook
Are we sure it's not about the structural mismatch between our minds and reality? Obviously the mental states gained from prior experiences, etc. are necessary for the errors to occur, but I don't think it's possible to isolate the mistakes as not being the result of the way our brain processes this info.
The distinction between perceptual experience and judgment gives usat least two broad kinds of potential effects on perception
If the mental states affect perceptual judgment, then the perceiver observes the world as it is but jumps to a particular conclusion that's in line with their mental states. If the mental states affect the perceptual experience, then they do not observe the states as they actually are but see the world itself in a way that aligns with their mental states and make the subsequent (reasonable) judgments about these incorrect perceptions.
The former seems to be the fault of the lacking reasoning faculties of the perceiver, while the latter is almost beyond their control, in that it's a defect of human cognition that is unavoidable and insidious.
irrational perception. Influences on perception could come from beliefs,hypotheses, knowledge, desires, traits, and moods.1They could alsocome from evaluative states that psychologists call“attitudes.”
Irrational perception seems to be a psychological phenomenon of misinterpretation on the part of the person doing the perceiving. Most of these causes seem to be related to or are themselves mental states, except for perhaps knowledge. What is it about these states that "get in the way" of an objective perception of the world?
I forward the notion that blackness comprises a “cathectic and world-making” apparatus that is indispensable to understanding the cultural politics of African American popular texts.1 By offering an orientation to the discourses of desire that inform Black Panther’s fabulations, I will illustrate how black and queer critical idioms might speak to one another’s respective and mutual interests in the construction of identity, space, and modernity, as well as gender and sexuality.
THESIS
In the interpretation ofBlack Panthercomics thatfollows, I forward the notion that blackness comprises a“cathectic andworld-making”apparatus that is indispensable to understanding thecultural politics of African American popular texts.1By offering an ori-entation to the discourses of desire that informBlack Panther’s fabula-tions, I will illustrate how black and queer critical idioms might speakto one another’s respective and mutual interests in the construction ofidentity, space, and modernity, as well as gender and sexuality.
THESIS!!!
. This essay investigates the production of female virtue in a different but related textual site: vernacular religious drama. My particular focus is the late medieval English dramatic vita of Mary Magd
Thesis
Rhetorically,theDigbyplayofTheConversionofSaintPaulmovesfromanemphasisonthevisualattheoutsettoanemphasisontheverbalatitsclimax.Suchamovementcoincideswithitshistory:straddlingtheborderoftheEnglishReformation,theplaydisplaysanuneasybalancebetweenatraditionalreligionoftheimageandanewerreligionoftheword.Thematically,however,theplayconcentratesonissuescommontobothpre-Reformationandpost-ReformationEnglishsociety:theperennialsinofprideandthetensionbetweenclasses.Alloftheseconcernscanbeseenexemplifiedinthegroom'shoodandtheapostle'sbasket
Thesis
nglian art. The narrator figure, processions, and recapitu- lation of contrasting scenes act as framing devices which mediate between the audience and the Conversion's devotional center. The juxtaposition of sacred and profane space on separate loca necessarily places the audience in a type of liminal territory in or adjacent to the platea. From such a perspective - which is an accurate representation of the audience's status as fallen men and women - they inevitably follow the progress of the action from the secular to the sacred; in the interim they internalize the devotional and didactic content of the play in such a way that they, like St. Paul, can bring the divine word and spirit with them
Thesis
The devotional frame provided by the Poeta, the processions, and the recapitulatory scenes foreground the internal and spiritual nature of Paul's action and demand a proper devotional and ethical response from the play's audience
Thesis
h priests. In most respects the English play resembles its continental analogues, but the Digby Conversion notably is the only one repeatedly and insistently to signal its tripartite struc- ture through the use of a Poeta, the explicit setting of the action at different "stacyons," the addition of scenes, and the curtailing of action at the play's conclusion. Such explicit framing tech- niques highlight t
Maybe?
nd time"^ In the Digby Conversion dramatic structure functions as a frame which, by defining the spiritual significance of the central devo- tional scene, allows the audience to internalize the play's spir- itual message.
Maybe?
ramas from the region.9 The dramatist of The Con- version of St. Paul exploits the dramatic potential inherent in a frame structure in order to create, in Gail McMurray Gibson's phrase, a "concrete image of devotion."10 He carefully balances his action around the symmetrical center of Paul's conversion by means of the speeches of the Poeta, audience movement, and recapitulatory scenes. These devices in effect mediate between the moment of St. Paul's mystic experience and the audience in order to exp
Thesis
Is the problem on the ëhardí side of the ledger sufficiently well-defined to sustain thedivision as a fundamental empirical principle? Although it is easy enough to agree aboutthe presence of qualia in certain prototypical cases, such as the pain felt after a brick hasfallen on a bare foot, or the blueness of the sky on a sunny summer afternoon, things areless clear-cut once we move beyond the favoured prototypes. Some of our perceptualcapacities are rather subtle, as, for example, positional sense is often claimed to be. Somephilosophers, e.g. Elizabeth Anscombe, have actually opined that we can know theposition of our limbs without any ëlimb-positioní qualia. As for me, I am inclined to sayI do have qualitative experiences of where my limbs are ó it feels different to have myfingers clenched than unclenched, even when they are not visible. The disagreementitself, however, betokens the lack of consensus once cases are at some remove from thecentral prototypes. Vestibular system qualia are yet another non-prototypical case. Is there somethingëvestibular-yí it feels like to have my head moving? To know which way is up? Whateverthe answer here, at least the answer is not glaringly obvious. Do eye movements haveeye-movement qualia? Some maybe do, and some maybe do not. Are there ëintrospectivequaliaí, or is introspection just paying attention to perceptual qualia and talking toyourself? Ditto, plus or minus a bit, for self-awareness. Thoughts are also a bit problem-atic in the qualia department. Some of my thoughts seem to me to be a bit like talking tomyself and hence like auditory imagery but some just come out of my mouth as I amtalking to someone or affect decisions without ever surfacing as a bit of inner dialogue.None of this is to deny the pizzazz of qualia in the prototypical cases. Rather, the point isjust that prototypical cases give us only a startingpoint for further investigation, andnothing like a full characterization of the class to which they belong. My suspicion with respect to The Hard Problem strategy is that it seems to take theclass of conscious experiences to be much better defined than it is. The point is, if youare careful to restrict your focus to the prototypical cases, you can easily be hornswoggledinto assuming the class is well-defined. As soon as you broaden your horizons, trouble-some questions about fuzzy boundaries, about the connections between attention, shortterm memory and awareness, are present in full, what-do-we-do-with-that glory.
Passage 1
In general, what substantive conclusions can be drawn when science has not advancedvery far on a problem? Not much. One of the basic skills we teach our philosophy studentsis how to recognize and diagnose the range of nonformal fallacies that can undermine anostensibly appealing argument: what it is to beg the question, what a non sequitur is, andso on. A prominent item in the fallacy roster is argumentum ad ignorantiam ó argumentfrom ignorance. The canonical version of this fallacy uses ignorance as the key premisefrom which a substantive conclusion is drawn. The canonical version looks like this: We really do not understand much about a phenomenon P. (Science is largelyignorant about the nature of P.)Therefore: we do know that:(1) P can never be explained, or(2) Nothing science could ever discover would deepen our understanding of P, or(3) P can never be explained in terms of properties of kind S. In its canonical version, the argument is obviously a fallacy: none of the tenderedconclusions follow, not even a little bit. Surrounded with rhetorical flourish, much browfurrowing and hand-wringing, however, versions of this argument can hornswoggle theunwary.
Passage 2
llowed by specification of typical stimuli for, or responses to, the ex- perience.
So could you say that the causes/effects actually constitute the missing "similarity" between two experiences that Smart had to say did not exist/could not be articulated because it was a quality? If so, oh man, that's cool. Not sure if that's where this is heading, but it's what jumped out to me.
So it does not discriminate between the two.
The initial objection raised here (against identity theory) seems to be similar to one that Smart considered in Monday's reading, the idea that you cannot ascribe the same property to a brain state that you can to an experience. Instead of relying on the distinction between language and metaphysics that Smart used, Lewis provides a new argument about the fact that experiences have the particular property of being unlocated is not "analytically necessary."
But we materialists believe that these causal roles which belong by analytic necessity to experiences be- long in fact to certain physical states.
What is the significance of saying that the causal roles "belong by analytic necessity" to our experiences? In terms of language, an analytic statement is (loosely) one where the truth of the statement can be known merely by knowing the meaning of all of its parts; it is not necessary to have any additional knowledge of the way the world actually is. That's the only definition with which I'm familiar. In this context, does "analytic necessity" maybe mean that the cause of an experience is logically integral to its definition?
ost philosophers of language, and recently even by some linguists,
What's the difference between the fields of philosophy of language and linguistics? This is a really interesting potential distinction.