The Brains Blog — Susanna Siegel: The Rationality of Perception

4. Inference and Experience: conceptual challenges to inferentialism

I find the challenges to the coherence of inferentialism much more powerful than the objections inherent in alternatives. That’s why I devote more time in the book to making the case that inferentialism is coherent, and to explaining what form it could take. Perhaps a first type of challenge to …

3. Weakening the power of experience

Susanna Siegel April 8, 2017 April 9, 2017 Belief / Epistemology / perception / Susanna Siegel: The Rationality of Perception

In previous posts, I discussed the problem generated by the case of Jack and Jill. When Jill’s fear influences her visual experience that presents Jack as angry, does Jill get as much reason from her experience to believe her eyes, as she could if her fear didn’t influence her experience? …

2. (Ir)rational perception

Susanna Siegel April 5, 2017 April 8, 2017 Epistemology / perception / Susanna Siegel: The Rationality of Perception

Recall the example discussed in my earlier post: Jill and Jack: Jill fears (without good reason) that Jack is angry with her. As a result of her fear, Jack’s face looks angry to her when she sees it. If you saw Jack, you’d see his neutral expression for what it is. There’s …

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John Schwenkler April 4, 2017 April 17, 2017 Susanna Siegel: The Rationality of Perception

We are grateful to Susanna Siegel for blogging this week on her new book The Rationality of Perception (Oxford, 2017). To view all of her posts on a single page, click here.

1. An epistemic puzzle

Susanna Siegel April 4, 2017 April 3, 2017 Epistemology / perception / Susanna Siegel: The Rationality of Perception

On a traditional conception of the human mind, reasoning can be rational or irrational, but perception cannot. Perception is simply a source of new information, and cannot be assessed for rationality. I argue that this conception is wrong. Drawing on examples involving racism, emotion, self-defense law, and scientific theories, The Rationality …