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Direct phenomenal beliefs, cognitive significance, and the specious present

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Abstract

Chalmers (The character of consciousness, 2010) argues for an acquaintance theory of the justification of direct phenomenal beliefs. A central part of this defense is the claim that direct phenomenal beliefs are cognitively significant. I argue against this. Direct phenomenal beliefs are justified within the specious present, and yet the resources available with the present ‘now’ are so impoverished that it barely constrains the content of a direct phenomenal belief. I argue that Chalmers’s account does not have the resources for explaining how direct phenomenal beliefs support the inference from ‘this E is R’ to ‘that was R.’

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Notes

  1. See Chalmers (2010, chaps. 8, 9). See also Gertler (2001, 2011) for a similar defense of an acquaintance theory.

  2. Lewis (1946, pp. 331–332).

  3. Fumerton (2006, p. 128).

  4. This section and the next borrow material from Poston (2013).

  5. Chalmers (2010, pp. 254–260).

  6. Chalmers (2010, p. 255).

  7. Chalmers (2010, p. 255).

  8. Chalmers (2010, p. 256).

  9. Chalmers (2010, p. 256).

  10. Chalmers (2010, p. 257).

  11. Arguably, the situation is more complicated. Imagine a person whose location changes every second but whose experience stays the same. It’s not pellucid that the thought expressed by ‘My location is here’ is knowable a priori because the person’s location changes so quickly. This suggests that some indexical expresses require a certain amount of stability. ‘I’ functions to pick out the subject of thought, but, arguably, it succeeds only if the subject of thought is somewhat constant.

  12. Chalmers (2010, pp. 257–258). The following paragraph summarizes Chalmers’ discussion.

  13. Chalmers (2010, p. 258).

  14. Chalmers (2010, p. 272).

  15. Chalmers (2010, p. 278).

  16. Chalmers (2010, p. 282).

  17. Chalmers (2010, p. 282).

  18. The other part is to knowingly identify and discriminate the subject of thought from other possible thinkers.

  19. Chalmers (2010, p. 298).

  20. Chalmers (2010, p. 298).

References

  • Chalmers, D. (2010). The character of consciousness. New York: Oxford University Press.

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  • Fumerton, R. (2006). Epistemology. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

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  • Gertler, B. (2001). Introspecting phenomenal states. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 63, 305–328.

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  • Gertler, B. (2011). Self-knowledge. New York: Routledge.

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  • Lewis, C. (1946). An analysis of knowledge and valuations. La Salle, IL: Open Court.

  • Poston, T. (2013). Bonjour and the myth of the given. Res Philosophica, 90(2), 185–201.

    Article  Google Scholar 

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of South Alabama, 5991 Dr N. RM 124, Mobile, AL, 36688, USA

    Ted Poston

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  1. Ted Poston
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Correspondence to Ted Poston.

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Poston, T. Direct phenomenal beliefs, cognitive significance, and the specious present. Philos Stud 168, 483–489 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-013-0142-6

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