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, 112: 'For to deny that we can perceive something without classifying it is to deny that a question such as 'What is that?,' uttered in a perceptual context, can ultimately have any meaning.'

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If Husserl is correct, phenomenological inquiry produces knowledge with an extremely high level of epistemic warrant or justification. However, there are several good reasons to think that we are highly fallible at carrying out phenomenological inquiries. It is extremely difficult to engage in phenomenological investigations, and there are very few substantive phenomenological claims that command a widespread consensus. In what follows, I introduce a distinction between method-fallibility and agent-fallibility, and use it to argue that the fact that we are fallible phenomenologists does not undermine Husserl's claims concerning the epistemic value of phenomenological inquiry. I will also defend my account against both internalist and externalist objections.The discipline of phenomenology presents us with a bit of a puzzle. On the one hand, Husserl insists that phenomenological inquiry results in knowledge of a very extraordinary type. Perhaps Husserl does not, as Dagfinn Føllesdal has argued, hold that any knowledge is infallible, and given the deep skepticism regarding infallible knowledge that pervades contemporary philosophy, I will not pin such a thesis on Husserl. Nevertheless, it is clear that the knowledge we acquire through phenomenological reflection does, according to Husserl, possess a degree of warrant appreciably greater than we could hope to attain in the sphere of ordinary empirical objects. The objects of phenomenological inquiry, namely the essential features of types of conscious experience, are supposed to be given to us, and given in the most complete manner possible. Phenomenological cognition is, if not infallible, very nearly so, and much more nearly so than, say, your knowledge that you have a left hand.

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