Abstract

Ordinary language treats reports of perceptual episodes as canonical justifications of beliefs. The challenge for empirically oriented epistemologists is to explain one's right to give credence to one's perceptual judgments. Traditionally, many empiricists have assumed that an epistemic subject is entitled only to some primitive judgments, so that judgments about kinds, modal properties, and dispositions are parasitic upon and less certain than those about the particulars given in perception. This paper contributes to an understanding of C.S. Peirce's alternative perceptual epistemology. According to Peirce's model, perceptual experience must be conceived as including previously encountered content and...