scholarly journals THE ORIGINS OF PERCEPTUAL KNOWLEDGE

Episteme ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanna Schellenberg
Keyword(s):  
Mental States ◽  
Mental Capacity ◽  
Common Element ◽  
Perceptual Knowledge ◽  
Externalist View

ABSTRACTI argue that the ground of the epistemic force of perceptual states lies in properties of the perceptual capacities that constitute the relevant perceptual states. I call this view capacitivism, since the notion of a capacity is explanatorily basic: it is because a given subject is employing a mental capacity with a certain nature that her mental states have epistemic force. More specifically, I argue that perceptual states have epistemic force due to being systematically linked to mind-independent, environmental particulars via the perceptual capacities that constitute the perceptual states. Thus, capacitivism shows how the epistemic force of experience is grounded in metaphysical facts about experience. Capacitivism is a distinctive externalist view of evidence and knowledge that does not invoke reliability, remains steadfastly naturalistic, and in recognizing a metaphysically substantive common element between perception and hallucination avoids any commitment to disjunctivism.

scholarly journals Perceptual Capacities, Knowledge, and Gettier Cases

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanna Schellenberg
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Common Element ◽  
Gettier Cases ◽  
Perceptual Knowledge ◽  
Good Case ◽  
Externalist View

I will exploit the basic commitments of capacitivism to develop a distinctive externalist view of perceptual knowledge. The basic idea of capacitivism is that perception is constitutively a matter of employing perceptual capacities that function to discriminate and single out particulars in our environment. It is because a given subject is employing perceptual capacities with a certain function that her mental states have epistemic force. Employing such perceptual capacities constitutes a mental state that provides us with phenomenal evidence, and employing such capacities in the good case also provides us with knowledge-worthy factive evidence. Capacitivism is an externalist view that does not invoke reliability, remains steadfastly naturalistic, and by recognizing a metaphysically substantive common element between perception and hallucination avoids any commitment to disjunctivism.

Capacitism and Alternative Views

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanna Schellenberg
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Common Element ◽  
Relevant Alternative ◽  
Externalist View ◽  
The Difference

Chapter 10 discusses the difference between capacitism and relevant alternative views: knowledge-first epistemology, reliabilism, and virtue epistemology. Capacitism is a distinctive externalist view of evidence and knowledge that does not invoke reliability, remains steadfastly naturalistic, and in recognizing a metaphysically substantive common element between perception and hallucination avoids any commitment to disjunctivism.

Human Agency, Reasons, and Inter-subjective Understanding

Philosophy ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 89 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Hasselberger
Keyword(s):  
Mental States ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Action Understanding ◽  
Perceptual Knowledge ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Motivating Reasons ◽  
Internal States ◽  
The Right ◽  
Internal Mental States

AbstractIn this essay I ague that the mainstream ‘Standard Story’ of action – according to which actions are bodily motions with the right internal mental states as their causal triggers (e.g., ‘belief-desire-pairs’, ‘intentions’) – gives rise to a deeply problematic conception of inter-subjective action-understanding. For the Standard Story, since motivating reasons are internal mental states and bodily motions are not intrinsically intentional, an observer must ascribe internal states to others to make rational sense of their outwardly observable bodily motions. I argue this is both phenomenologically distorted and requires, on pain of infinite regress, a deeper, non-inferential, practical-perceptual form of understanding: ‘knowledge-how’, in a broadly Rylean sense. Recognizing the irreducible role of practical-perceptual knowledge-how in inter-subjective understanding, I argue, undermines core assumptions of the Standard Story concerning what an agent can directly perceive in interacting with others, and how our everyday practices of explaining actions with reasons function – and this opens the space for a radically opposed alternative view of inter-subjective action understanding.

scholarly journals The peculiarities of using the computer complex HC-psychotests in the process of psychodiagnosis of the level of development of future specialists’ mental capacity

2020 ◽  
Vol 166 ◽  
pp. 10025 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanna Varina ◽  
Svetlana Shevchenko
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Personal Development ◽  
Social Indicators ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Mental Capacity ◽  
Scientific Article ◽  
Research Strategies ◽  
Computer Complex ◽  
It Revolution

The IT revolution, which has embraced material production, social relations and the whole sphere of culture and education, is more and more contributing to solving the problem of automation of intellectual processes in science, technology and society, as well. This scientific article is devoted to the consideration of topical issues of introduction of the computer complex HC-psychotests in the process of psychological support of professional-personal development of the future specialist during the period of study in high school. The article also presents the analysis of the versatile possibilities of using the NSpsychotest in the paradigm of modern education. In this scientific article, the results of the screening study with the use of HC-psychotest in the process of psychodiagnosis of the level of development of mental capacity of future specialists are analyzed in detail. It is determined that the complex HC-psychotests allowed to give multilevel, multiparametric characteristics of the mental states of the respondents with the use of psychological, psychophysiological, physiological and social indicators. It has been proved that the introduction of computer psychodiagnostics has not only enriched the experimental base with appropriate methods that facilitate the implementation of various research strategies, but also combined empirical work into a single technological cycle.

Justification, Luminosity, and Credences

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanna Schellenberg
Keyword(s):  
Representational Content ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Identical Twins ◽  
Perceptual Content ◽  
Evil Demon ◽  
Externalist View ◽  
The Asymmetry ◽  
Rational Confidence ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Brains In Vats

Chapter 8 discusses the repercussions of capacitism for the justification of beliefs, the credences we should assign to perceptual beliefs, and the luminosity of mental states. In light of this discussion, the chapter explores the consequences of capacitism for various familiar problem cases: speckled hens, identical twins, brains in vats, new evil demon scenarios, matrixes, and Swampman. I show why perceptual capacities are essential and cannot simply be replaced with representational content. I argue that the asymmetry between the employment of perceptual capacities in perception and their employment in relevant hallucinations and illusions is sufficient to account for the epistemic force of perceptual states yielded by employing such capacities. I show, moreover, why capacitism is compatible with standard Bayesian principles and how it accounts for degrees of justification. Finally, I discuss the relationship between evidence and rational confidence in light of an externalist view of perceptual content.

When Mother Earth Rises Up

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 271-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simona Sacchi ◽  
Paolo Riva ◽  
Marco Brambilla
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Natural Disaster ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Disaster Victims ◽  
Willingness To Help ◽  
Mother Earth

Anthropomorphization is the tendency to ascribe humanlike features and mental states, such as free will and consciousness, to nonhuman beings or inanimate agents. Two studies investigated the consequences of the anthropomorphization of nature on people’s willingness to help victims of natural disasters. Study 1 (N = 96) showed that the humanization of nature correlated negatively with willingness to help natural disaster victims. Study 2 (N = 52) tested for causality, showing that the anthropomorphization of nature reduced participants’ intentions to help the victims. Overall, our findings suggest that humanizing nature undermines the tendency to support victims of natural disasters.

Temporal Control of Mental States in Pigeons

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert G. Cook ◽  
Hara A. Rosen
Keyword(s):  
Mental States ◽  
Temporal Control
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