Analysis of Perceptual Knowledge

Analysis of Perceptual Knowledge

Suppose I see a bird in the sky, thereby coming to know there is a bird in the sky (of a certain shape and color). I don’t form the belief that there is a bird in the sky; I simply know by perceiving. I might not be a believer at all, as many knowing animals are not. What is the correct analysis of my state of knowledge? It isn’t going to be that I have a true justified belief about the bird, because I don’t have that belief. Nor do I make a statement to that effect. I simply have the experience. That is a necessary condition of knowing perceptually—I do need to be in some sort of psychological state analogous to belief. But it is not sufficient. Clearly, we need to add that the experience is veridical: there really is a bird there fitting my experience (to some degree). Is thatsufficient? We can add that my experience must justify my claim to knowledge, if I make any such claim. But I might not make any knowledge claim, and we have already said that the experience must occur and it is justification enough—unlike the case of belief, which requires something further (typically an experience). So, the analysis seems very simple: x perceptually knows that p if and only if (a) x has an experience as of p, and (b) x’s experience is veridical.

Are there any counterexamples to this analysis? What if there is no causal connection between bird and experience? Normally, there will be, but what if we set up an abnormal situation in which the causal connection is absent? I don’t think it matters: x will still perceptually know about the bird. Information as to bird presence will still be flowing into x’s nervous system, whether from the bird or otherwise: he is being informed, rightly or wrongly, of a bird up there. And in fact, there is, so he knows. If causality is a myth and the world is ordered by pre-established harmony, it makes no difference to x’s status as knowing. Are there any Gettier-type cases? No, because no inference takes place: it is not like inferring that Jones owns a Ford from seeing him drive up in a Ford, where the Ford is not his, though he in fact owns a Ford. I was not inferring one belief from another in the bird case; I just directly knew that the bird was up there without any inference. Are there any “red barn” cases? I see a red barn after seeing a bunch of fake barns: intuitively, this undermines my claim to know that there’s a red barn there, since I am only right in this one case “by accident”. Actually, I don’t think this is the case for primitive perceptual knowledge: I do perceptually know about the barn despite the veridicality condition failing in the other cases of apparent barns. For the barn in question is seen by me and I have accurate information about it; it doesn’t matter about the fake barns surrounding it. I am in the perceptual state of having information about that barn, since I am seeing it; and seeing is knowing. No one claims that I don’t see the one genuine barn, but then I know about it visually. Perceptual knowing is about the operation of the senses on an occasion; it isn’t about what beliefs one can infer from perception. Do I know that I know about the barn, i.e., have a true justified belief about my perceptual state? Probably not, but that doesn’t stop me from having perceptual knowledge of the barn. There is a real barn there and I have a sense impression of that barn. Veridical experience is sufficient for perceptual knowledge.

Thus, we appear to be in the clear concerning our analysis: we have got it right. This contrasts with what is called propositional knowledge (the true justified belief kind): this kind of knowledge has resisted complete analysis. So, it isn’t that knowledge per se is hard or impossible to analyze; it’s just one type of knowledge that is. Knowledge in general isn’t conceptually problematic, or undermines the whole project of conceptual analysis; perceptual knowledge is easy to analyze, and it shows that conceptual analysis is a feasible undertaking. Epistemologists have not surveyed the field of knowledge widely enough. In the fundamental case of perceptual knowledge, the old bipartite analysis works just fine: a psychological state plus a veridicality condition. Knowledge consists of a psychological state of the knower and correspondence with reality, plain and simple.[1]

[1] The significance of this point is that the whole industry of counterexamples to the traditional analysis of knowledge has been overblown: knowledge is not so recalcitrant to analysis as has been supposed. An important class of knowledge has an easy and pellucid analysis consisting of just two conditions. Of course, that should already have been obvious from the cases of knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge-how: these are clearly not subject to Gettier-type cases. What to say about so-called propositional knowledge is another question (I discuss it in Truth by Analysis).