Perception and its givenness
pp. 161-177
in: Maxime Doyon, Thiemo Breyer (eds), Normativity in perception, Berlin, Springer, 2015Abstract
One of the crucial issues raised by the normativity of perception is the problem of the epistemological bearing of perceptual experience on human knowledge. There are obviously at least some of our beliefs, for instance my belief that there is a teapot on my desk right now, that are based on what we see or touch in such a way that it seems perfectly justified or reasonable to entertain these beliefs. But what is it in perceptual experience that grounds the rationality of such observational beliefs? How should we explain the epistemic authority that we spontaneously ascribe to perceptual content?