I mentioned in a subsequent post that there was an ambiguity in my original claim. Qualia have been used by philosophers to do two different jobs: 1) as the basis of the hard problem of consciousness, and 2) as the foundation of foundationalist theories of empiricism. Sellars essay, in particular is aimed at (2), not (1), and the mention of ‘qualia’ to which I was responding was probably a case of (1). The question of physicalism and the conceivability of p-zombies isn’t directly related to the epistemic role of qualia, and one could reject classical empiricism on the basis of Sellars’ argument while still believing that the reality of irreducible qualia speak against physicalism and for the conceivability of p-zombies.
Sellers’ argument, I think, rests on a few confusions and shaky assumptions.
That may be, it’s a bit outside my ken. Thanks for posting the quote. I won’t go trying to defend the overall organization EPM, which is fairly labyrinthine, but I have some confidence in its critiques: I’d need more familiarity with Pryor’s work to level a serious criticism, but he on the basis of your quote he seems to me to be missing the point: Sellars is not arguing that something’s appearing to you in a certain way is a state (like a belief) which requires justification. He argues that it is not tenable to think of this state as being independent of (e.g. a foundation for) a whole battery of concepts including epistemic concepts like ‘being in standard perceptual conditions’. Looking a certain way is posterior (a sophistication of) its being that way. Looking red is posterior to simply being red. And this is an attack on the epistemic role of qualia insofar as this theory implies that ‘looking red’ is in some way fundamental and conceptually independent.
Sellars is not arguing that something’s appearing to you in a certain way is a state (like a belief) which requires justification. He argues that it is not tenable to think of this state as being independent of (e.g. a foundation for) a whole battery of concepts including epistemic concepts like ‘being in standard perceptual conditions’. Looking a certain way is posterior (a sophistication of) its being that way. Looking red is posterior to simply being red. And this is an attack on the epistemic role of qualia insofar as this theory implies that ‘looking red’ is in some way fundamental and conceptually independent.
Yes, that is the argument. And I think its soundness is far from obvious, and that there’s a lot of plausibility to the alternative view. The main problem is that this notion of ‘conceptual content’ is very hard to explicate; often it seems to be unfortunately confused with the idea of linguistic content; but do we really think that the only things that should add or take away any of my credence in any belief is the words I think to myself? In any case, Pryors’ paper Is There Non-Inferential Justification? is probably the best starting point for the rival view. And he’s an exceedingly lucid thinker.
I’ll read the Pryor article, in more detail, but from your gloss and from a quick scan, I still don’t see where Pryor and Sellars are even supposed to disagree. I think, without being totally sure, that Sellars would answer the title question of Pryor’s article with an emphatic ‘yes!’. Experience of a red car justifies belief that the car is red. While experience of a red car also presupposes a battery of other concepts (including epistemic concepts), these concepts are not related to the knowledge of the redness of the car as premises to a conclusion.
Here’s a quote from EPM p148, which illustrates that the above is Sellars’ view (italics mine). Note that in the following, Sellars is sketching the view he wants to attack:
One of the forms taken by the Myth of the Given is the idea that there
is, indeed must be, a structure of particular matter of fact such that (a) each
fact can not only be noninferentially known to be the case, but presupposes
no other knowledge either of particular matter of fact, or of general truths;
and (b) such that the noninferential knowledge of facts belonging to this
structure constitutes the ultimate court of appeals for all factual claims --
particular and general—about the world. It is important to note that I
characterized the knowledge of fact belonging to this stratum as not only
noninferential, but as presupposing no knowledge of other matter of fact,
whether particular or general. It might be thought that this is a redundancy,
that knowledge (not belief or conviction, but knowledge) which logically
presupposes knowledge of other facts must be inferential. This, however, as
I hope to show, is itself an episode in the Myth.
So Sellars wants to argue that empiricism has no foundation because experience (as an epistemic success term) is not possible without knowledge of a bunch of other facts. But it does not follow from this that a) Sellars thinks knowledge derived from experience is inferential, or b) Sellars thinks non-inferential knowledge as such is a problem.
But that said, I haven’t read enough of Pryor’s paper(s) to understand his critiques. I’ll take a look.
I mentioned in a subsequent post that there was an ambiguity in my original claim. Qualia have been used by philosophers to do two different jobs: 1) as the basis of the hard problem of consciousness, and 2) as the foundation of foundationalist theories of empiricism. Sellars essay, in particular is aimed at (2), not (1), and the mention of ‘qualia’ to which I was responding was probably a case of (1). The question of physicalism and the conceivability of p-zombies isn’t directly related to the epistemic role of qualia, and one could reject classical empiricism on the basis of Sellars’ argument while still believing that the reality of irreducible qualia speak against physicalism and for the conceivability of p-zombies.
That may be, it’s a bit outside my ken. Thanks for posting the quote. I won’t go trying to defend the overall organization EPM, which is fairly labyrinthine, but I have some confidence in its critiques: I’d need more familiarity with Pryor’s work to level a serious criticism, but he on the basis of your quote he seems to me to be missing the point: Sellars is not arguing that something’s appearing to you in a certain way is a state (like a belief) which requires justification. He argues that it is not tenable to think of this state as being independent of (e.g. a foundation for) a whole battery of concepts including epistemic concepts like ‘being in standard perceptual conditions’. Looking a certain way is posterior (a sophistication of) its being that way. Looking red is posterior to simply being red. And this is an attack on the epistemic role of qualia insofar as this theory implies that ‘looking red’ is in some way fundamental and conceptually independent.
Yes, that is the argument. And I think its soundness is far from obvious, and that there’s a lot of plausibility to the alternative view. The main problem is that this notion of ‘conceptual content’ is very hard to explicate; often it seems to be unfortunately confused with the idea of linguistic content; but do we really think that the only things that should add or take away any of my credence in any belief is the words I think to myself? In any case, Pryors’ paper Is There Non-Inferential Justification? is probably the best starting point for the rival view. And he’s an exceedingly lucid thinker.
I’ll read the Pryor article, in more detail, but from your gloss and from a quick scan, I still don’t see where Pryor and Sellars are even supposed to disagree. I think, without being totally sure, that Sellars would answer the title question of Pryor’s article with an emphatic ‘yes!’. Experience of a red car justifies belief that the car is red. While experience of a red car also presupposes a battery of other concepts (including epistemic concepts), these concepts are not related to the knowledge of the redness of the car as premises to a conclusion.
Here’s a quote from EPM p148, which illustrates that the above is Sellars’ view (italics mine). Note that in the following, Sellars is sketching the view he wants to attack:
So Sellars wants to argue that empiricism has no foundation because experience (as an epistemic success term) is not possible without knowledge of a bunch of other facts. But it does not follow from this that a) Sellars thinks knowledge derived from experience is inferential, or b) Sellars thinks non-inferential knowledge as such is a problem.
But that said, I haven’t read enough of Pryor’s paper(s) to understand his critiques. I’ll take a look.