criteria for indefeasible knowledge: john mcdowell and ‘epistemological disjunctivism’

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Synthese (2014) 191:4099–4113 DOI 10.1007/s11229-014-0516-0 Criteria for indefeasible knowledge: John Mcdowell and ‘epistemological disjunctivism’ Peter Dennis Received: 11 April 2014 / Accepted: 23 June 2014 / Published online: 23 July 2014 © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014 Abstract Duncan Pritchard has recently defended a view he calls ‘epistemological disjunctivism’, largely inspired by John McDowell. I argue that Pritchard is right to associate the view with McDowell, and that McDowell’s ‘inference-blocking’ argu- ment against the sceptic succeeds only if epistemological disjunctivism is accepted. However, Pritchard also recognises that epistemological disjunctivism appears to conflict with our belief that genuine and illusory experiences are indistinguishable (the ‘distinguishability problem’). Since the indistinguishability of experiences is the antecedent in the inference McDowell intends to block, I suggest that his argument rests on an inconsistent set of premises. In support of this, I show that Pritchard’s response to the distinguishability problem is incompatible with the conclusion of the ‘inference-blocking’ argument, and that the response available in McDowell’s work relies on a mistaken conception of fallibility. Either McDowell must deny the scep- tic’s premise that perceptual experiences are indistinguishable, or he must give up his conclusion that perceptual warrant can be indefeasible. Keywords Scepticism · Indefeasibility · Fallibility · Epistemological disjunctivism · McDowell · Pritchard 1 Introduction Duncan Pritchard has recently defended a view he calls ‘epistemological disjunc- tivism’, largely inspired by John McDowell (Neta and Pritchard 2007; Pritchard 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012). According to epistemological disjunctivism, we can P. Dennis (B ) Department of Philosophy, Logic, and Scientific Method, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK e-mail: [email protected] 123

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Page 1: Criteria for indefeasible knowledge: John Mcdowell and ‘epistemological disjunctivism’

Synthese (2014) 191:4099–4113DOI 10.1007/s11229-014-0516-0

Criteria for indefeasible knowledge: John Mcdowelland ‘epistemological disjunctivism’

Peter Dennis

Received: 11 April 2014 / Accepted: 23 June 2014 / Published online: 23 July 2014© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Abstract Duncan Pritchard has recently defended a view he calls ‘epistemologicaldisjunctivism’, largely inspired by John McDowell. I argue that Pritchard is right toassociate the view with McDowell, and that McDowell’s ‘inference-blocking’ argu-ment against the sceptic succeeds only if epistemological disjunctivism is accepted.However, Pritchard also recognises that epistemological disjunctivism appears toconflict with our belief that genuine and illusory experiences are indistinguishable(the ‘distinguishability problem’). Since the indistinguishability of experiences is theantecedent in the inference McDowell intends to block, I suggest that his argumentrests on an inconsistent set of premises. In support of this, I show that Pritchard’sresponse to the distinguishability problem is incompatible with the conclusion of the‘inference-blocking’ argument, and that the response available in McDowell’s workrelies on a mistaken conception of fallibility. Either McDowell must deny the scep-tic’s premise that perceptual experiences are indistinguishable, or he must give up hisconclusion that perceptual warrant can be indefeasible.

Keywords Scepticism · Indefeasibility · Fallibility · Epistemological disjunctivism ·McDowell · Pritchard

1 Introduction

Duncan Pritchard has recently defended a view he calls ‘epistemological disjunc-tivism’, largely inspired by John McDowell (Neta and Pritchard 2007; Pritchard2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012). According to epistemological disjunctivism, we can

P. Dennis (B)Department of Philosophy, Logic, and Scientific Method,London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UKe-mail: [email protected]

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reconcile the externalist idea that the warrant for our environmental beliefs must befactive with the internalist idea that any warrant worthy of the name must be reflec-tively accessible to its possessor (2012, pp. 1–2). When a subject enjoys a genuineexperience of the world, the warrant perception affords both entails the proposition itwarrants its possessor in believing and is discoverable through introspection. Crucially,both claims are held to be consistent with the fact that warrant-bestowing and non-warrant-bestowing experiences (e.g. illusions) can be subjectively indistinguishable(2012, pp. 91–92).

As Pritchard himself admits, epistemological disjunctivism is ‘a bewitching com-bination of theses’ (2009, p. 473). How can a perceptual experience equip one with theknowledge that it provides a factive warrant for some belief, even though it gives oneno way to distinguish it as one of the warrant-bestowing ones? This is what Pritchardcalls the ‘distinguishability problem’ (2012, p. 94).

Awareness of this problem has understandably persuaded some readers of McDow-ell that he relies on a version of epistemic externalism, particularly in his responseto scepticism.1 Against such an interpretation, I argue that McDowell’s ‘inference-blocking’ argument against the sceptic succeeds only if epistemological disjunctivismis accepted: unless perceptual warrant is both factive and reflectively accessible, itcannot be true, as McDowell thinks it is, that subjects of genuine experience possessindefeasible warrant for their beliefs.

If McDowell must accept epistemological disjunctivism, he too must respond to thedistinguishability problem. I consider two candidate responses: one from Pritchard,the other from McDowell. Unfortunately, Pritchard’s response cannot accommodateMcDowell’s view that genuine experience yields indefeasible warrant, while McDow-ell’s relies on a mistaken conception of fallibility.

This paper is organised in three main sections. Section 2 describes McDowell’s‘inference-blocking’ argument and shows that it depends on the idea that perceptualwarrant can be factive. Section 3 presents a counterexample to McDowell’s indefeasi-bility claim, and argues that the only consistent response requires us to add that factivewarrants can be reflectively accessible to their possessors. Section 4 addresses thedistinguishability problem and concludes that epistemological disjunctivism, to theextent that it entitles McDowell to the conclusion of the inference-blocking argument,prevents him from acknowledging the sceptic’s premise.

2 Factiveness

The version of the argument from illusion that McDowell is interested in attacking ispremised on the idea that genuine and illusory experiences are subjectively indistin-guishable: from a phenomenological point of view, there is no discernable differencebetween a genuine experience and illusion (McDowell 2008, p. 381). On that basis, theargument concludes that experience can yield no more than inconclusive or defeasiblewarrant for environmental belief. Against this ‘highest common factor’ conception ofperceptual warrant (ibid), McDowell proposes that the content of a genuine experi-

1 See, for example, Greco (2004).

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ence can be ‘the facts’ (1996, p. 113), or ‘objective reality’ (2008, p. 382).2 That isconsistent with the idea that genuine and illusory experiences are indistinguishable,but it is inconsistent with the sceptic’s conclusion: if a subject’s perceptual warrantfor her belief that p is the fact that p, there can be no possibility that they are deceived.Accordingly, McDowell believes, the sceptic’s argument gives us no reason to doubtthat we can have indefeasible warrant for our environmental beliefs (2008, p. 384,2010, p. 245, 2011, pp. 31, 38).3

If this is the right statement of the ‘inference-blocking’ argument, the idea thatgenuine experience entails the beliefs it warrants is crucial. The inference the argumentis intended to block is that all perceptual warrant is defeasible. Yet the most obviousway for a person’s warrant to be defeated is that the warranted belief is refuted.(No one is warranted in believing a proposition whose falsity has been plainly exposed.)If the warrant provided by genuine experience is indefeasible, then, it must be factive.4

As we can state it:

Factiveness: If a subject, S, enjoys a genuine experience that p, her perceptualwarrant entails p.

3 Reflective accessibility

If refutation were the only way in which one’s perceptual warrant could be defeated,McDowell could defend his indefeasibility claim on the basis of factiveness alone.Factive warrants entail the truth of the beliefs they are warrants for, and no true beliefcan be refuted. However, Williamson (2000, p. 265) has shown that one’s warrant canbe factive without being indefeasible. I now build on Williamson’s idea by delineatingthree distinct ways a perceptual warrant might be defeated in addition to refutation.If the warrant provided by genuine experience is indefeasible, it must preclude theseadditional possibilities of defeat as well. Crucially, it cannot do so unless it is bothfactive and reflectively accessible to its possessor. Or so I will argue.

I begin with a familiar thought experiment. Bill is driving through ordinary coun-tryside in clear sunshine. As he nears a bend in the road, he sees a barn head-on andthereby comes to believe that there is a barn on that spot. Now, if anyone has a genuineexperience of a barn, Bill does. Visibility is excellent, the barn is seen from close up,and Bill has no reason (real or imagined) to doubt the excellence of his epistemicposition. So if McDowell is right to say that genuine experience yields indefeasiblewarrant for belief, Bill has an indefeasible warrant for his belief that there is a barnon that spot. After his return, however, Bill opens the travel supplement of his Sundaynewspaper. He sees a feature on the area he visited, which reads:

2 For the difference between these two statements of McDowell’s view, see (2009).3 For an earlier version of this claim, see (1982).4 Williamson (2000, p. 266) has shown that indefeasibility does not logically entail factiveness. However,since his counterexamples are situations where a false belief can never be discovered, one could hardlyexploit them to thwart the sceptic’s conclusion. To all intents and purposes, McDowell’s indefeasibilityclaim requires that perceptual warrant is factive.

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(Case I: Rebuttal)

Newcomers to the area are often impressed by distinctive barns. In fact there areno real barns in the area, only barn facades constructed as part of a film set.

In this, as in each following case, we can suppose that Bill has no problem rememberinghis perceptual experience. As such, he is not deprived of his warrant by the passing oftime. Still, it seems intuitive to think that he is no longer warranted in his belief. Sundaynewspapers are good evidence, especially the kind with travel supplements. Since theyface consequences for printing falsehoods, they generally take steps to guard againstthis (employing fact checkers, editors, and so on). Certainly, Bill’s perceptual warrantwas factive, and was obtained in excellent perceptual conditions. Notwithstanding, itwould be dogmatic of Bill in this context to insist that he plainly saw the barn. This isbecause the newspaper does not merely counter his belief, but offers an explanation ofit (‘Newcomers to the area…’). Since Bill has no way of countering the explanation(he saw the barn ‘head-on’), his perceptual warrant, though factive, is defeated.

If this is right, it is not necessary to refute a person’s belief in order to defeat theirwarrant for holding it. One only need give them a good reason for thinking their beliefis false. So in addition to refutation, rebuttal is a way in which a person’s warrant canbe defeated.

Suppose, alternatively, Bill had read:

(Case II: Undermining)

Newcomers to the area are often impressed by distinctive barns. In fact only halfof these “barns” are real, the rest being facades constructed as part of a film set.

In Case II, Bill’s belief is not rebutted since he is not given a good reason for thinkingit false; even if what he reads in the travel feature is true, the barn he saw might havebeen one of the real ones. Nonetheless, his perceptual warrant would not be nearlyas good as he previously thought. In the original scenario, I stipulated that Bill hadno reason (real or imagined) to doubt the excellence of his epistemic position. But ifthe travel feature is right, this is false: had half the barns been fakes, Bill would havehad such a reason (whether he knew about it or not). As before, Bill has good reasonto believe what he reads in the travel supplement. So he should conclude that he wasnot in fact warranted in forming his belief and, at least for the time being, suspendjudgement. Again, his warrant, though factive, is defeated.

If refuting a person’s belief is proving that it is false, and rebutting their belief isgiving them good reason to think it is, we can say that what happens in Case II isthat Bill’s belief is undermined. That is, he is given good reason to think his beliefis unwarranted. Just like refutation and rebuttal, then, undermining is also a way inwhich a person’s warrant can be defeated.

The final kind of defeat I will consider is a case where someone is given goodreason for suspending judgement about whether their belief is warranted. For the sakeof a label, I will say that in such cases one’s belief is confounded. Suppose the areaBill visited is called Barn Valley, but he (knowingly) can never remember whether hevisited Barn Valley or Barnville on account of their similar-sounding names. Now, inthe article entitled Barnville, he reads:

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(Case III: Confounding)

Newcomers to the area are often impressed by the distinctive barns. In fact thereare no real barns in the area, only barn facades constructed as part of a film set.

Unlike in Case I, what Bill reads in Case III does not give him good reason to thinkhis belief about the barn is false. After all, it is consistent with what he reads thathe was in Barn Valley (as indeed he was). And unlike in Case II, what Bill reads inCase III does not give him good reason to think he was unwarranted in forming thebelief. Nothing the travel feature says about Barnville should lead Bill to question theexcellence of his epistemic position in Barn Valley and, again, it is consistent withwhat he reads that he was in Barn Valley. Still, I think we should say that what Billreads in the travel feature brings it about that he is no longer warranted in his belief.This is because the Sunday paper provides good reason for believing that all the barnsin Barnville are fakes. So as long as he can produce no reason for believing that thearea he visited was Barn Valley rather than Barnville, he has no reason for believingthat he was warranted in his original belief. Even though his warrant was a factiveperceptual experience, it would be dogmatic to appeal to that experience in the faceof what he reads. Therefore, more must be required than a factive perceptual warrantto avoid the possibility that Bill’s warrant is defeated.

Cases I–III are offered as counterexamples to McDowell’s claim that subjects ofgenuine experience have indefeasible warrant for their beliefs. To this, there are threelogically available responses. First, McDowell could deny that Bill was the subject ofa genuine experience. Second, he could reply that the purported counterexamples lieoutside the scope of his indefeasibility claim. Alternatively, he could deny the intuitionthat Bill’s warrant is defeated. In the remainder of this section, I argue that the firstand second responses are unpromising, and that the third response succeeds only ifMcDowell also embraces the second tenet of epistemological disjunctivism: namely,reflective accessibility.

According to the first reply, Bill was not the subject of a genuine experience—inother words, he was not in the ‘good’ case. When presented with these counterexam-ples, some audiences have pointed out that although Bill saw the barn from close-to, heonly saw a single face of it. Had he seen it from more angles, he perhaps would knowthat his warrant precludes the error possibilities he reads about in the travel supple-ment and it would not be defeated. The trouble with this reply is that we might easilyhave worked with a different example. Had we imagined (for instance) cast fibreglassbarns, Bill’s having seen the barn from more angles would presumably not preventhis warrant from being defeated. If in the good case we must take precautions againstfacades, we should also have to take them against casts, dreams, drugs, and vats. Soto avoid slipping inadvertently into scepticism, we had better assume a conception ofthe good case that allows clear sightings from a road.

An alternative way to deny that Bill was in the good case is due to McDowell.In response to similar examples from Crispin Wright (2002, 2008), McDowell hasexplained that being in the good case is not simply a matter of being confronted withan object in perception. In addition, your environment must not be such that you couldhave been easily mistaken—you must encounter the object in favourable perceptualconditions—and you must not have any reason to believe conditions are unfavourable

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(2011, pp. 46–52). However, Bill is in favourable perceptual conditions. The barn hesees is a real one, as are all the barns for miles around. And unlike the subject inWright’s examples, he has no reason to believe conditions are unfavourable until hereads the travel supplement. If this happens many years later (as it well might), it isimplausible to suppose that what he reads prevented him from being in the good caseat the time. Facts about the past are necessary, and perceptual facts are no exception.5

The second reply challenges an assumption I have been making about the scopeof McDowell’s indefeasibility claim: namely, that an indefeasible warrant would beinvulnerable to future defeat. Against this, we might suggest that the notion of defea-sibility relevant to McDowell’s claim is a contemporaneous rather than a diachronicidea: to say Bill’s warrant is indefeasible is to preclude defeat contemporaneous withhis experience, not all future defeat. On this view, my examples are no more pertinentto McDowell’s claim than Wright’s: in Wright’s examples, the subject’s warrant isdefeasible but she is not in the good case; in mine, Bill is in the good case and hiswarrant is indefeasible.

This contemporaneous conception of defeasibility is problematic for two reasons.First, it is at odds with the legal concept to which our philosophical notion is owed.6

Second, it obscures the distinction between an indefeasible warrant and one that ismerely undefeated. Suppose Junior inherits Graytowers from Senior, but will forfeit hisinheritance should he join the circus. In that case, Junior’s legal entitlement to Graytow-ers is defeasible upon him joining the circus. If we understand defeasibility as a contem-poraneous concept, we cannot say that Junior’s entitlement to Graytowers is defeasible.As long as Junior remains in the ‘good case’—that is, as long as he is not a memberof the circus—his entitlement cannot be defeated. So this contemporaneous conceptof defeasibility prevents us from saying precisely what our legal concept is designedfor saying—namely, that Junior will forfeit his inheritance if he joins the circus.

The reason the contemporaneous concept does not allow us to say this is that itcannot make sense of a defeasible entitlement that has not in fact been defeated. Inother words, it cannot make sense of a distinction between indefeasible and merelyundefeated warrant. Therefore, retaining the diachronic conception of defeasibilityis not merely a matter of keeping faith with tradition; it is necessary for the properfunctioning of the term.

This brings us to the remaining kind of reply that could be made to Cases I–III. IfBill was indeed the subject of a genuine experience, and his case is within the scopeof McDowell’s indefeasibility claim, a defender of that claim must reconsider (whatI took to be) the intuitive judgement that Bill’s warrant is defeated. One way to dothis leaves the intuition largely intact, but challenges that description of it. The otherappeals to the second tenet of epistemological disjunctivism.

According to the first approach, it is true that Bill is no longer warranted in hisbelief, but it overstates the matter to say that his warrant is defeated. Suppose Billproves a mathematical theory, but later reads in a textbook that his theory is false.7

5 For an intriguing challenge to this last claim, see Noe (2006) and Phillips (2011).6 For the transition from legal to philosophical usage, see Macagno and Walton (2014, p. 82).7 This example is drawn directly from Williamson (2000, p. 265).

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Even if Bill, being an amateur, is no longer warranted in believing the theory, his proofhas not been defeated. (If it ever was a proof, it is a proof now.) And since his warrantjust is his proof, his warrant has not been defeated either (though we might say it hasbecome epistemically inert, or is in abeyance). If we are willing to say this in the caseof a mathematical proof, there seems to be no reason on McDowell’s view to make anexception of the perceptual case. After all, a perceptual warrant may be no less factivethan a proof. Accordingly, Cases I–III do not show that Bill’s warrant is defeasible,since they do not describe genuine cases of defeat.

The trouble with this objection is that it conflates two different ways of using thedescription, ‘Bill’s warrant’. On one hand, we might use it (referentially) simply to pickout Bill’s proof, whether or not his proof warrants him in believing the theory at all laterstages. On the other, we might use it (attributively) to mean whatever warrants him inbelieving the theory, which in this case happens to be his proof.8 Taking ‘Bill’s warrant’referentially, it would indeed be incorrect to say it is defeated by what he reads in thetextbook, since his proof is in no way vitiated. Taking ‘Bill’s warrant’ attributively,however, it would not be incorrect to say that, since on reading the textbook his warrantis no longer his proof. It cannot be, because on reading the textbook he simply has nowarrant. With this distinction in place, there is no contradiction in saying that Bill’swarrant can be defeated while his proof remains intact—even where his warrant is aproof.

Perhaps it will be insisted that the use of ‘Bill’s warrant’ relevant to defeasibility isreferential rather than attributive. On this view, a warrant is defeasible only if it canbe invalidated. In the mathematical case, this would mean showing that the ‘proof’ isunsound, and in the perceptual case it would mean showing that a perceptual experiencedid not really entail the relevant belief. Since no factive warrant can be invalidated,McDowell would only need to show that the warrant provided by genuine experienceis factive in order to show it is indefeasible.

Again, however, the legal context to which the philosophical notion of indefea-sibility is owed does not bear this out. In our example, Junior’s legal entitlement toGraytowers was defeasible upon him joining the circus. In order to make sense of thisstatement, however, we must take the description, ‘Junior’s entitlement’ attributively,not referentially. What entitles Junior to Graytowers is the fact that he is Senior’s son.So, taken referentially, ‘Junior’s entitlement’ simply picks out the fact he is Senior’sson. But the fact he is Senior’s son is not defeated if he joins the circus. (Senior onlythreatened to disinherit him, not disown him). The problem is avoided if we take‘Junior’s entitlement’ attributively, to mean whatever legally entitles him to Graytow-ers. Nothing entitles Junior to Graytowers if he joins the circus, not even being Senior’sson.

If this is right, it is difficult to see how one could avoid the conclusion that Bill’swarrant is defeated without holding that he remains warranted in his belief. But howcould that be, unless he knows on independent grounds that his warrant is in goodorder? This challenge is best appreciated by considering a case in which Bill obviouslywould have such grounds. Suppose Bill had stopped the car and walked around the

8 See Donnellan (1966).

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barn. Then he would have independent grounds for believing his perceptual experience(from the road) was of a barn, not of a facade. That is, he would know his experienceequipped him with a warrant that entailed the falsity of the error possibility he readsabout in Cases I–III. Accordingly, what he reads would be unable to turf him from thegood case and defeat his perceptual warrant.

As we saw, however, we concede too much to the sceptic if we say that Bill is notin the good case unless he has seen the barn from all sides. So if Bill’s experienceequipped him with an indefeasible warrant, he must have been able to know thathis warrant is in good order by reflecting on the experience itself (not, as above, byappealing to corroborating experiences). And since we can devise any number of errorpossibilities that Bill might come across in a newspaper or similarly reliable source, itis not sufficient that Bill merely knows (on the basis of his experience) that his warrantwas a perceptual experience of a barn rather than a barn facade. Instead, he must know(on the basis of his experience) that his warrant excludes any such error possibility.In other words, Bill must know on the basis of his experience that his warrant wasfactive. As we can state it:

Reflective Accessibility

If a subject, S, enjoys a genuine experience that p, she knows on the basis of herexperience that the warrant it yields is factive.

4 Indistinguishability

The combination of reflective accessibility and factiveness may indeed allowMcDowell to deny the apparently intuitive idea that Bill’s warrant was defeasible—indeed, defeated. The trouble is, this seems to conflict with another principle hisargument requires: namely, that genuine and illusory experiences are indistinguish-able. McDowell must accept this thesis as a matter of logic, since it is the premise ofthe argument he intends to block. As he puts it, the disjunctive conception ‘blocks theinference from the subjective indistinguishability of experiences to the highest com-mon factor conception, according to which neither of the admittedly indistinguishableexperiences could have higher epistemic worth than that of the inferior case’ (2008,p. 381). It is difficult to see what one might mean by saying that two experiences are‘subjectively indistinguishable’ if not that the subject is unable to know, on the basis ofa given experience, that it is one of the genuine ones. However, that seems inconsistentwith reflective accessibility: if the subject knows on the basis of her experience thatshe possesses a factive warrant for her belief, how could she fail to know, on the basisof her experience, that it is genuine?

This charge of inconsistency is what Pritchard calls the ‘distinguishability problem’facing epistemological disjunctivism (2012, p. 92). What drives it, he points out, is theseemingly intuitive ‘discrimination principle’, according to which anyone who knowson the basis of their experience that a given error possibility does not obtain must be ableto make the relevant perceptual discriminations between her genuine experience andthe potential illusory one. If the discrimination principle is accepted, Cases I–III wouldindeed constitute counterexamples to McDowell’s indefeasibility claim. Assuming

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the replies canvassed in the previous section are unavailable, McDowell is committedto the claim that Bill’s experience continues to provide indefeasible warrant for hisbelief. This seems to require that Bill knows on the basis of his experience that he sawa barn rather than a mere facade. But the latter claim is impossible, according to thediscrimination principle, if he cannot discriminate barns from barn facades.

The discrimination principle might be thought incontestable were it not forPritchard’s pioneering work. McDowell, I think, also rejects it. In this section, I con-sider two replies to this apparent truism, based on Pritchard’s and McDowell’s workrespectively. I conclude that Pritchard’s response, whatever its merits, is unhelpfulto the inference-blocking argument. On the other hand, the response suggested inMcDowell’s work rests on a mistaken conception of fallibility.

Pritchard thinks we find the discrimination principle most appealing when we con-ceive perceptual warrant in isolation from the rest of our beliefs (2012, p. 82). For themost part, however, perceptual warrant does not function this way (78–79). SupposeBob, a passenger, had suggested to Bill as he rounded the bend that he doesn’t reallyknow what he sees is a barn, since for all he can tell it is a barn facade.9 If Bob hasabsolutely no grounds for believing it might be a facade, this appeal to the discrimina-tion principle is unlikely to succeed. If Bill is asked how he knows it is a barn, he cansimply reply: ‘Because I can see it’. In spite of his inability to discriminate betweenbarns and facades, Bill’s appeal to his experience in this context may be eminentlyreasonable. If Bob continues to insist that Bill doesn’t know, it will be Bob, not Bill,who risks being dogmatic.10

The discrimination principle fails in this context because Bill’s experience warrantshis belief given the rest of his background beliefs. In Pritchard’s terminology, thiscomes out as saying that Bill’s experience provides ‘favouring’, but not ‘discriminatingepistemic support’ for his belief (2012, pp. 77–81). Since Bill’s background beliefsare not themselves impugned, he can legitimately appeal to his experience to dispelthe error possibility.

However, as Pritchard is the first to point out, the distinction between favouring anddiscriminating warrant is no help where the error possibility has been ‘epistemicallymotivated’ (2012, pp. 92–106). The reason we could say that Bill’s experience providesfavouring epistemic support for his belief was that we appealed to his backgroundbeliefs. Plausibly, these militate strongly against the error possibility raised by Bob.However, if good evidence is presented for thinking those background beliefs are false,or do not in fact militate against the error possibility, this must itself be incorporatedinto the background beliefs. Once this happens, they will no longer militate againstthe error possibility. In light of this, Pritchard restricts his reflective accessibility claimto cases where error possibilities are ‘merely raised’ (2012, pp. 92–106). Where theyare motivated, he makes clear, the subject will be ‘in possession of an undefeateddefeater for her belief’, and ‘should instead defer judgement until the defeater hasbeen defeated’ (2012, p. 99).

9 This adaptation of the example is based on Pritchard (2012, p. 98).10 As Wittgenstein asks in On Certainty: ‘Doesn’t one need grounds for doubt? (1969, §122).

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As far as Pritchard’s defence of epistemic disjunctivism is concerned, this is a pleas-ing result: while factiveness and reflective accessibility jointly allow us to know weare in the good case, such knowledge is not inconsistent with indistinguishability solong as it is based on favouring, rather than discriminating, epistemic support. On theother hand, Pritchard’s distinction is signally unhelpful if we want to insist that Bill’swarrant is indefeasible. In Cases I–III, the error possibility is strongly motivated, soBill’s perceptual experience can no longer provide favouring warrant for his belief.In the absence of any discriminating support, his warrant is defeated. Whatever itsadvantages for Pritchard’s purposes, then, the distinction between favouring and dis-criminating support abjures from reflective accessibility precisely where McDowell’sindefeasibility claim would need it to hold fast.

A more helpful response to the distinguishability problem can be found inMcDowell. In spite of his advertised aim to block the inference from the ‘subjec-tive indistinguishability of experiences’, McDowell generally prefers to express thesceptic’s premise in terms of fallibility (1982, p. 386, 1986, p. 232, 1995, p. 887, 1996,p. 112, 2008, p. 381). Indeed, he suggests that (rightly understood) subjective indis-tinguishability ‘is just a way of acknowledging that our capacity to acquire knowl-edge through perceptual experience is fallible’ (2008, p. 381). This in itself couldbe disputed. McDowell is apparently dealing with the argument from illusion, whichordinarily involves a direct appeal to the phenomenological indistinguishability ofillusory experience, deceptive or otherwise. Fallibility, on the other hand, is a better fitfor the argument from error, which may or may not appeal to illusions.11 Neverthelessthese arguments are ‘not well defined in the philosophical profession’ (Dancy 1995, p.423), and I will assume that the sceptic acquiesces in this alternative formulation of herpremise. What is more problematic is McDowell’s account of what it is to be fallible.

McDowell asserts that ‘fallibility is a property of capacities, or perhaps of cogni-tive subjects as possessors of capacities’ (2011, p. 37; see also 1982, p. 386; 2010,p. 245). Pointing out that this characterisation ‘puts no restrictions on what a falli-ble capacity is a capacity to do’ (2011, p. 37), he argues that we can acknowledgethat a perceptual capacity is fallible while allowing that it is a capacity ‘to get intostates that consist in having a certain feature of the objective environment perceptuallypresent to one’s self-consciously rational awareness’ (ibid). Accordingly, he believes,the acknowledgement of fallibility ‘does not preclude us from holding that in non-defective exercises of a perceptual capacity subjects get into perceptual states thatprovide indefeasible warrant for perceptual beliefs’ (38).

This conception of fallibility suggests a second response to Pritchard’s distinguisha-bility problem. Factiveness and reflective accessibility jointly entail that you can knowon the basis of your experience that you are in the good case. Barring a response likePritchard’s, this looked inconsistent with indistinguishability. But it is not inconsistentwith fallibility, if fallibility is just the fact that perceptual capacities are sometimesdefective. Provided perception is a capacity to get into reflectively accessible, factivestates, then the possibility of its defective exercise cannot disentitle us, in a non-defective exercise, from drawing the rational inferences the capacity makes available.

11 For an example, see Descartes (1637/1985, p. 127).

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In this vein, McDowell commends Sebastian Rödl’s ‘excellent statement of the point’,who writes: ‘from the fact that, when I am fooled, I do not know that I am, it doesnot follow that, when I am not fooled, I do not know that I am not’ (Rödl 2007,pp. 157–158), cited in (McDowell 2011, p. 43).12

Burge (2005, 2011), at whom McDowell’s argument here is largely directed, con-tests this conception of fallibility. He argues that fallibility is best understood in termsof exercises of capacities (rather than capacities themselves), since ‘it is metaphysi-cally possible for those exercises to be, or to have been, mistaken’ (2011). McDow-ell has replied that it is precisely the point of his disjunctivism to deny this (2011,p. 245). However, we need not contest this ‘metaphysical disjunctivism’ (as Burgedoes) in order to question whether the epistemological disjunctivism McDowellrequires is consistent with our ordinary concept of fallibility.

As McDowell himself admits: ‘If we follow the etymology of the word, fallibility isa possibility of being deceived.’ (2008, p. 39) McDowell is right about the etymology,and in this case it is a reliable guide to the meaning of the term. According to theOED, ‘fallibility’ means ‘liability to err’.13 Reading ‘to err’ as ‘to be deceived’ or‘to be mistaken’, fallibility is in the first instance a property of people rather thancapacities. (People are deceived and mistaken; capacities are exercised, successfullyor unsuccessfully.) To be sure, McDowell allows that fallibility can be a property‘of cognitive subjects as possessors of capacities’, which suggests that people arefallible with respect to particular capacities. However, ordinary fallibility claims donot involve reference (implicit or explicit) to capacities, but instead to questions orsubject matters. For instance, if I say that the Pope is fallible, I cannot be asked toclarify my meaning by specifying which capacity of his I believe to be defective.Certainly, the Pope’s fallibility is evidence that some capacity of his is imperfect—say, his capacity to discern the mind of God. But that is not part of what it meansto say he is fallible. Rather, his imperfect capacity to discern the mind of God is anexplanation of his fallibility, i.e. his liability to make mistakes.

On the other hand, I can be expected to clarify my meaning by specifying which sub-ject matter, or question, I believe he is fallible about. Is he fallible, for example, merelyin matters of State? Or does his fallibility extend more generally to questions of ethicsand theology? Being able to answer these questions is not a matter of knowing why thePope is fallible, but is necessary for meaning something by the sentence. Even in thelimiting case (e.g. if I answer: ‘I haven’t thought about it’; or: ‘Just generally’), a ques-tion or subject matter is always involved in a successful deployment of the concept.14

If this is right, our ordinary concept of fallibility is not ‘a property of capacities’,but of ‘cognitive subjects’. And it is a property of cognitive subjects with respectto questions or topics, not with respect to capacities. However, this conception offallibility allows us once again to articulate the distinguishability problem. This time,however, we must phrase it in terms of infallibility:

12 See also (2011, p. 34).13 Oxford English Dictionary Online, accessed 4 March 2014. The Dictionary also contains an archaicsense: ‘liable to mislead’. More on this below.14 By contrast, the following reply would be ungrammatical: ‘I don’t mean there’s something he’s fallibleabout; he’s just fallible.’

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The Infallibility Problem

In the good case. . .1. There is no possibility that S believes falsely that p. (Factiveness)2. S knows she has a factive warrant that p. (Reflective accessibility)3. If S knows she has a factive warrant that p, she would be irrational to believenot-p. (Def. ‘rationality’)4. S is not irrational. (Def. ‘good case’)5. There is no possibility that S believes not-p. (2, 3, 4)6. Whatever S believes about p is true. (1, 5)7. There is no possibility that S is mistaken about p. (6)8. S is infallible with respect to p. (7)

According to this argument, the subject of a genuine experience (‘S’) is infallible withrespect to some proposition that her experience warrants her in believing (‘p’). Premise(1) is entailed by factiveness: if S has a factive warrant that p, there is no possibilitythat S believes that p and p is false, since there is no possibility that p is false. Premise(2) says that perceptual warrant is reflectively accessible. As for premise (3), rationalbeings believe what they have most reason to believe. So a rational being who knowsshe has a factive warrant that p will not fail to believe p. Further, S would not be inthe good case if her perceptual capacities were impaired, and likewise if her rationalfaculties were impaired.15 Accordingly, (4) S is not irrational. Because of this, (5)she will not believe p is false when she is in the good case. Therefore, (6) there is nopossibility that S believes p is true when it is false, or that she believes p is false whenit is true. In other words, (7) S is not liable to be mistaken about p, and is therefore (8)infallible in her judgement whether p.

Two things are important to note about (8). First, it is a far stronger conclusionthan we could arrive at by merely supposing perceptual warrant is factive. Certainly,factiveness ensures that there is no possibility that S believes p where p is false. Butit says nothing about possibilities where she believes p is false where it is true. Sothe most factiveness shows is that there is no possibility that S is mistaken that p;infallibility, on the other hand requires that there is no possibility that she is mistakenabout, or whether p.

Second, the conclusion as expressed in (8) is narrow: it attributes infallibility to Swith respect to one question only. However, this is no reason for thinking it insignif-icant. Given that we are, presumably, very often in the good case, there will be verymany questions about which we are infallible. Accordingly, it is unlikely that McDow-ell can grant the premise of a sceptical argument that begins from an intuitive appealto fallibility if he is only able to grant it in what may in fact be a small minority ofcases. Indeed, it is reasonable to think there is no matter (outside our own minds, atleast) concerning which we are infallible, even if the sceptic may be wrong to inferfrom this that we have no knowledge.

On McDowell’s conception of fallibility, we are free to acknowledge fallibilityacross the board: even in the good case, we can acknowledge the subject is fallible

15 See McDowell (2011, pp. 41–42).

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since we can acknowledge that her perceptual capacities sometimes admit of defectiveexercises. If, on the other hand, fallibility is the possibility of being wrong, we cannotacknowledge it across the board. According to the infallibility problem, subjects inthe good case are incapable of being wrong, hence are infallible.

In the remainder of this paper, I consider two replies that may be open to McDowell.The first is that we were too quick in rejecting his conception of fallibility as theimperfection of our perceptual capacities. As well as the liability to err, the Dictionarygives another (albeit archaic) sense, defined as the liability to mislead.16 This mightseem to sanction McDowell’s view that our perceptual capacities are fallible if theysometimes mislead us. Furthermore, ‘fallible’ is defined: ‘Of persons or their faculties:Liable to be deceived or mistaken; liable to err.’17 This suggestion that faculties canbe fallible might also seem to vindicate McDowell’s contention that fallibility is aproperty of capacities (or persons as possessors of them). And if the admission offallibility means that our perceptual capacities (not our perceptual judgements) areliable to error, (7) would not entail that S is infallible.

However, in order to resist the entailment from (7), we would need to claim thatfallibility is exclusively a property of capacities, at least in its primary sense. As longas fallibility is also a property of people with respect to subjects, an important sense offallibility would go unaccounted for on McDowell’s view. Furthermore, if McDowell’setymology is anything to go by, the reverse is more likely to be true. As I pointed outabove, people are deceived, make mistakes, and err; capacities do not. As far as thelatter can be said to be fallible, then, it is in their tending to cause their possessors todo so.

The second response to the infallibility problem appeals to a distinction betweentype and token propositions. Subjects are fallible, it could be claimed, if they arecapable of making mistakes about propositions of a certain type. On the other hand,(7) says that S is incapable of making mistakes with respect to a token proposition,namely p. Accordingly, the accompanying argument does not show S is infallible, sincethere may be no type proposition with respect to which she is incapable of makingmistakes.

This response may be encouraged by an incautious reading of the grammaticalrequirement on fallibility, noted above, according to which speakers can be expected tospecify that in respect of which a person is fallible. This is easily read as a requirement toname a particular subject matter, for example ‘the layout of her environment’, theology,or ethics. In such a case, fallibility would indeed be liability to make mistakes about aproposition type, for example: propositions about the environment. And (7) need notconflict with that, even where p is a proposition about S’s environment.

However, while fallibility claims often are relative to a subject matter, this is notmilitated by grammar. While specifying that in respect of which a person is fallibleoften involves citing a subject matter, a polar question will do equally well. For exam-ple, it makes good sense to say: ‘The Pope is not infallible with respect to the questionof God’s existence’, or to ask: ‘Is the Pope infallible with respect to God’s existence?’

16 Oxford English Dictionary Online, accessed 4 March 2014.17 Oxford English Dictionary Online, accessed 4 March 2014. (My emphasis.)

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Likewise, it makes good sense to point out that the weather forecaster is not infalliblein her prediction that it will rain. In these cases, fallibility is not relative to a subjectmatter (or type proposition), but to a token proposition (God exists; it will rain). Inthe same way, it makes good sense to say that (8) S is infallible with respect to p. Theproblem with (8) is not that it is ungrammatical, but that it is inconsistent with thepremise McDowell’s argument needs to grant.

5 Conclusion

In Sect. 3 I argued that, in order to defend McDowell’s claim that a subject of genuineexperience has indefeasible warrant for their beliefs, one would need to insist that Billremains warranted in his belief in Cases I–III. That insistence, I maintained, wouldrequire that perceptual warrant is not only factive, but reflectively accessible. This mayhave seemed an odd tack. If it is anyway counterintuitive that Bill remains warrantedin cases I–III, we ought to have a direct reason to reject McDowell’s indefeasibilityclaim—if that is what it commits us to thinking.

While we may indeed have a direct reason, intuitions vary. Moreover, a strongerargument is available. The stronger argument is that the resources McDowellwould need to stand by his indefeasibility claim—namely, factiveness and reflectiveaccessibility—are apparently inconsistent with the indistinguishability of genuine andillusory experience. That would be disastrous for the ‘inference-blocking’ argument,since McDowell’s disjunctive conception of experience would be inconsistent withthe premise of the inference he intends it to block.

While Pritchard has done much to address this distinguishability problem, his solu-tion is unavailable to McDowell. Defeasibility is built into the very idea of favouringepistemic support, since the latter is dependent on merely assumed rational relationsbetween perceptual experience and background beliefs. Inevitably, it will be defeatedin the face of ‘motivated’ error possibilities such as the ones in Cases I–III.

Unlike Pritchard’s solution to the distinguishability problem, McDowell’s is notobviously inconsistent with indefeasibility. Provided the sceptic agrees to expressher premise in terms of fallibility, McDowell’s conception of this as the property ofcapacities allows him to grant the sceptic’s premise while insisting that the successfulexercise of our perceptual capacities gets us into factive, reflectively accessible states.I have argued that this relies on a mistaken view about fallibility: pace McDowell,fallibility is not a property of capacities or cognitive subjects as their possessors; it is aproperty of cognitive subjects with respect to the way things are. Once this correction ismade, Pritchard’s distinguishability problem can be restated as an infallibility problemwhich is no less threatening to the brand of epistemological disjunctivism McDowell’sargument requires.

In recent work, Pritchard has exploited epistemological disjunctivism to advancea ‘neo-Moorean’ argument against the sceptic (2007, 2008). ‘McDowell’, he tells us,‘can be bolder in his treatment of scepticism’ (2008, p. 302). If what I have arguedis correct, McDowell makes the bolder argument. Moreover, it is a mark of estimablecaution on Pritchard’s part that, in his writing, McDowell’s indefeasibility claim isnowhere to be found.

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Acknowledgments I am grateful to Max de Gaynesford, Andrew Khoury, and James Stazicker for com-ments on previous drafts, to Asya Passinsky for discussion, and to audiences at Reading University, LSE,and the Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association 2013.

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