Epistemological Disjunctivism and the Basis Problem

The bifurcated conception of perceptual knowledge: a new solution to the basis problem for epistemological disjunctivism

“…This argument expresses what Duncan Pritchard calls 'the basis problem' for disjunctivism (Pritchard 2011(Pritchard , 2012(Pritchard , 2016. 3 It's standard for disjunctivists to shy away from (2) and reject (1), or the SwK thesis.…”

Luck, propositional perception, and the Entailment Thesis

“…This response maintains that rejecting (DEFEATER) is too dogmatic. 17 This premise is drawn out from the following quotation from Pritchard (2011): "But now suppose further that one has been told, by an otherwise reliable informant, that one is presently being deceived (that one is in barn facade county, say), even though this is in fact not the case. Clearly, in such a case one ought not to believe the target proposition […]" (ibid.).…”

“…Clearly, in such a case one ought not to believe the target proposition […]" (ibid.). 18 I draw out (EPISTEMIC OUGHT) from the remaining quotation in footnote 12 of Pritchard (2011): " […] and hence one cannot possibly know this proposition either. (Indeed, if one did continue to believe the target proposition even despite the presence of this undefeated defeater, then one would still lack knowledge)."…”

“…565-566). 4 But despite its intuitive and theoretical appeal, there have been a number of powerful arguments against it (McDowell 2002;Turri 2010;Pritchard 2011Pritchard , 2012. In this paper, I group them into three general kinds of argument.…”

The given in perceptual experience

“…See, for instance,Pritchard (2011Pritchard ( , 2012.27 William Child gives an especially clear statement of the epistemological motivation: "A central motivation concerns the consequences for epistemology and content of the way we conceive of experience. According to the disjunctivist, to think of conscious experience as a highest common factor of vision and hallucination is to think of experiences as states of a type whose intrinsic features are world-independent; an intrinsic, or basic, characterization of a state of awareness will make no reference to anything external to the subject.…”