Epistemic Entitlements and Practical Reasons

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(1)《國立政治大學哲學學報》第二十三期（2010 年 1 月）頁 117-138 ©國立政治大學哲學系. Epistemic Entitlements and Practical Reasons Jih-Ching Ho Institute of European and American Studies Academia Sinica. Abstract The Argument from Illusion has long been dominant in epistemology, action theory, and theory of mind, and this paper attempts to look at it from a holistic point of view. The Argument generates a “sophisticated view” of the connection between mind and world, which accommodates not only experience, knowledge, and action but also illusion, misjudgment, and misguided action. In the paper I propose a “simple view” in place of the sophisticated view. The simple view is preferred because it presupposes no extraordinary states and stays away from the unrealistic goal of reduction and the controversial method of explaining success in terms of failure. Finally, the simple view seeks to understand the phenomenon of subjective indistinguishability—the theoretical ground for the Argument from Illusion—as a normative rather than an ontological issue.. Keywords: the argument from illusion, subjective indistinguishability, practical reason, epistemological entitlement.

(2) 118 NCCU Philosophical Journal Vol. 23. Epistemic Entitlements and Practical Reasons The Argument from Illusion has long been dominant in epistemology, action theory, and theory of mind, and this paper attempts to look at it from a holistic point of view. The Argument generates a “sophisticated view” of the connection between mind and world, which accommodates not only experience, knowledge, and action but also illusion, misjudgment, and misguided action. In the paper I propose a “simple view” in place of the sophisticated view. The simple view is preferred because it presupposes no extraordinary states or entities and stays away from the unrealistic goal of reduction and the controversial method of explaining success in terms of failure. Finally, the simple view seeks to understand the phenomenon of subjective indistinguishability—the theoretical ground for the Argument from Illusion—as a normative rather than an ontological issue.. I. The Argument from Illusion The argument from illusion begins with the apparent fact that sometimes we can have illusion or hallucination which is, from a subject’s point of view, phenomenologically indistinguishable from genuine perception; for instance, one can receive the mirror image of a blue vase in exactly the same way as he sees a real one. The best explanation for the phenomenal indistinguishability, according to the argument, is that illusory and perceptual cases share a common element, namely the subjective phenomenal state, which is usually termed as appearance. The argument concludes that in illusion what a subject is aware of is mere appearance, whereas a subject in perception has the appearance.

(3) Epistemic Entitlements and Practical Reasons 119. based on or caused by some relevant fact. In this sense, appearance is the basic state of all experiences, veridical and illusory alike. The following is a brief formation of the argument from illusion: (1) Our sense perception can be deceptive: it can appear to one exactly as if things were a certain way when they are not. (2) A deceptive case can be experientially indistinguishable from a veridical case. (3) One’s phenomenal awareness is the same in both deceptive and veridical cases. In other words, perception and illusion include the same state, namely appearance. (4) In illusion, one’s phenomenal awareness falls short of the fact. The objects of subjective experience cannot be facts but appearances. (5) Likewise, in perception, the objects of experience are not facts but appearances. This argument employs an unorthodox method of explaining standard situations in terms of non-standard ones, that is, explaining perception in terms of illusion. One main motivation underlying this method is to isolate an “internalist” concept of epistemological justification, according to which epistemological appraisals depend essentially on what is internal to a perceiver. On this envisaged view, an agent’s epistemic status is determined solely by his inner mental conditions which comprise not only what the agent feels and perceives, but also what he holds true and deems reasonable. Given that these internal conditions are completely identical, there seems to be no ground to attribute different epistemological entitlements. In the previous example, the person with the illusion of a blue vase is in exactly the same subjective phenomenal states as he would be were he to perceive the vase; therefore, he is no less entitled to assert “There is a blue vase” than in a genuine perceptual situation. Internal conditions determine a subject’s status of reasonableness, and that is why phenomenally indistinguishable mental states call for the same epistemological status..

(4) 120 NCCU Philosophical Journal Vol. 23. It is for the sake of the internalist concept of epistemic entitlement the argument from illusion starts from a failed case rather than a successful one. In an illusory case one typically has apparently good reason for a certain perceptual belief which, however, turns out to be false. In such a case there is a split between the subject’s internal reasonableness condition and the external truth-conditions, and the internalist approach insists that epistemic assessment depends more crucially on the former than the latter. We may call this type of normative status associated with appearance reasonable entitlement. In the following section I will explain this notion in contrast with that of factive entitlement.. II. Two Types of Epistemological Justification The argument from illusion advocates that appearance is not only the common element of all phenomenal states but also the bearer of the fundamental epistemological status, i.e., reasonable entitlement. Here we should pay attention to another kind of cognitive states that is commonly contrasted with appearances, namely the so-called “factive states.” Roughly speaking, a factive state is a state in which a subject perceives—“takes in”—a relevant fact. As Ludwig Wittgenstein writes, “‘I know’ has a primitive meaning similar to and related to ‘I see.’......‘I know’ is supposed to express a relation, not between me and the sense of a proposition (like ‘I believe’) but between me and a fact. So that the fact is taken into my consciousness (1969: §90).” Seeing, knowing, and remembering are typical factive states, states whose existence implies the obtainment of relevant facts. For instance, that one remembers that it snowed yesterday entails that it snowed yesterday; one knows that there is a tiger only if there is a tiger..

(5) Epistemic Entitlements and Practical Reasons 121. That factive states involve a taking-in relation between a subject and a fact seems to suggest that the fact can be counted as the content of the state. Wittgenstein proposes an immediate connection between meaning (content of sentences) and facts: “When we say, and mean, that such-and-such is the case, we—and our meaning—do not stop anywhere short of the fact; but we mean: this–is–so (1951: §95).” On this view, if our statements are true, what we mean is the case. Meaning is not an entity of some sort; it cannot serve as a medium between words and reality. John McDowell generalizes Wittgenstein’s view from meaning to perception, to the effect that the content of perceptual experience is what is the case. His target is a traditional picture of the mind, according to which there is an ontological gap between mind and world and thus the connection between the two must appeal to some medium. This mediating picture is refuted mainly on the ground that it offers little explanation of philosophical purposes but leaves much room for unwarranted skepticism. Thus McDowell suggests, “To paraphrase Wittgenstein, when we see that such-and-such is the case, we, and our seeing, do not stop short of the fact. What we see is: that such-and-such is the case (1996: 29).” In his terminology, a perceiving subject has “the world in view.” Factive states are not basic mental states—at least they are not as minimal as appearances are supposed to be; nevertheless, they are essential mental states. Timothy Williamson argues that factive states are “central” to mental states (and, moreover, knowing states are “central” to factive states), since in his view factive states indicate a relation of “matching” between mind and the world (2000: 40). The matching relation points toward the perceptual contact (perceptual success) between mind and world, and is therefore fundamental to the very possibility of thought, language, and action—the matching relation between mind and world must be presupposed in any account of the contentfulness of thought, the acquisition of language, and the practical reason for action. Factive states, so understood, enjoy a type of entitlement different from “reasonable entitlement.” As we noted earlier, reasonable enti-.

(6) 122 NCCU Philosophical Journal Vol. 23. tlement is compatible with false belief, since one can maintain this type of entitlement even when one’s belief is false. The falsity of belief does not cancel its reasonable entitlement because this type of epistemic status is attributed on the basis of appearance alone. In contrast, the entitlement one enjoys when he is in a factive state is incompatible with false belief, since when his belief turns out to be false, he is no longer in a factive state and is deprived of such entitlement. The obtainment of the fact is constitutive of this type of epistemological status, which can be labeled as factive entitlement. Let us sum up the two types of epistemological entitlements that we have so far considered. (1) An experience can give its subject a reason for belief, providing rational contribution to the subject’s “opportunities for knowledge.” For McDowell, seeing things to be thus and so—having a fact in view—provides the kind of rational force that is essential to empirical knowledge. Seeing provides factive entitlement. (2) Mere seeming does not offer the type of rational contribution as factive entitlement, but it can render an agent’s judgment intelligible even when the judgment is false. In the previous example, the person with the illusion of a blue vase is in exactly the same subjective phenomenal states as he would be were he to perceive the vase; therefore, he is no less entitled to assert “There is a blue vase” than in a genuine perceptual situation. Mere seeming provides reasonable entitlement. The concept of reasonable entitlement is in accord with the internalistic view of justification. There are two related criteria of internalist justification. First, As Earl Conee and Rich Feldman advocate, “The justificatory status of a person’s doxastic attitudes strongly supervenes on the person’s occurrent and dispositional mental states, events, and conditions (2004: 56).” Second, Anil Gupta argues that “subjectively identical experiences make identical epistemic contribution. More precisely, if e and e’ are subjectively identical experiences of an individual, then the given in e is identical to the given in e’ (2006: 22).” Reasonable entitlement satisfies both requirements. As a type of status that can be achieved independently of the external conditions, reasonable entitlement “strongly supervenes on” the subject’s internal conditions; and.

(7) Epistemic Entitlements and Practical Reasons 123. subjectively identical experiences yield exactly the same reasonable entitlement. It is for the sake of the internalist concept of epistemic entitlement the argument from illusion starts from a failed case rather than a successful one. In an illusory case one typically has apparently good reason for a certain perceptual belief which, however, turns out to be false. In such a case there is a split between the subject’s internal reasonableness condition and the external truth-conditions, and the internalist approach insists that epistemic assessment depends crucially on the former than the latter. One may obtain reasonable entitlement simply by having the phenomenal appearance that things are thus and so. Another way to illuminate the reasonable entitlement is to examine “reactive attitude” such as blame.1 There are different types of misjudging, which are subject to different ways of blaming. There are many ways a belief can go wrong: some beliefs are made on feeble ground (for example, wishful thinking), and some involve inadequate attitudes such as negligence, haste, or inattention. These beliefs are subject to blame of different sorts. Mere seeming is not blameworthy in this respect, for its mistake is somehow “rationally intelligible.” Mere seeming can give credits to a subject and makes his belief accountable; in this way, the subject is reasonably entitled to his belief. Generally speaking, when S has the appearance of that P, he is entitled to believe (or, to the same extent, assert) that P; so far as his belief is supported by his own appearance, S is not blameworthy even when the belief turns out to be false. He is blameless because the falsity of the belief does not cancel his entitlement to the belief.2. 1. 2. In discussing the relation between internal and external reasons, many scholars appeal to the notion of “reactive attitudes,” of which “blame” is most prominent. A brief reference can be found in Finlay, S. and Schroeder, M. (2008): 15. The internal entitlement is basic in the sense that it is “pure.” Kant’s view on moral worth suggests something along this line: one may perform a moral duty which coincides with one’s emotional inclination; that is, it is possible that one satisfies both moral and self-interest demands at the same time. However, in such a situation the distinctive feature of moral worth is not conspicuous, since one’s moral sense is confronted with real challenge when his duty and interest are in conflict. Thus Kant seems.

(8) 124 NCCU Philosophical Journal Vol. 23. Proponents of the argument from illusion would not deny the characterization of factive states and factive entitlements, but insist that just as factive states (such as perception) has to be explained in terms of appearance-states, factive entitlements are to be understood on the basis of reasonable entitlements. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the priority relation between these two types of entitlements in a grand picture that includes the world, experience, knowledge, and action.. III. Reasons for Action: Belief and Fact In order to explain the contrast between reasonable and factive entitlements, let us start with a similar distinction between two types of practical reasons. It has been hotly debated whether it is belief or fact that constitutes the ultimate reason for action. To see this, let us consider the following two cases. (i) S believes correctly that it is raining, and he takes an umbrella on the way out. (ii) S believes that it is raining—in fact, it is not raining—and he takes an umbrella on the way out. In case (i), the reason for S’s action of bringing an umbrella is obvious: he knows the fact that it is raining. The fact (or, more precisely, S’s being in this factive state) explains and justifies his action. In case (ii), S’s reason for action is not a fact but a belief—he believes that it is raining, and thus performs the same action in the absence of fact.. to hold that we can see the true moral worth of having a certain virtue only when all inclinations are absent. In his scenario, a calm benefactor reveals higher moral significance than a sympathetic helper because the former acts on duty and the latter merely acts in accord with duty (Kant, 1959: 398-399)..

(9) Epistemic Entitlements and Practical Reasons 125. There can be two theories, the belief theory and the fact theory. The belief theory is the idea that in both cases the agent’s belief constitutes the reason for action, whereas the fact theory would claim that fact is the primary reason for action and thus (ii) may be regarded as a case of acting for a reason only in a derivative sense. The difference between the two theories can be made clearer by the following question: “In the two cases, does S have the same reason for action?” The belief theory would reply that S has the same reason for action, for he has the same belief in both cases, even if the belief has different truth-values in situations (i) and (ii). The point is that one acts in accord with one’s belief and whether the belief is true is a further question: given the same belief, the agent would perform the same act. On this theory, belief is the proximal reason for action, while fact distal. An immediate problem with the belief theory is that it can explain the sameness of the cases but not their difference, since it implies that the two actions are essentially the same—they are the same type of actions caused by the same reason (namely the same belief). What makes the two cases different is therefore something accidental: the belief happens to be true in the first case and false in the second. In other words, the truth of belief does not play a crucial role in the rational explanation of the action, since belief exhausts the explanation and leaves no room to truth in practical reason. The belief theory seems to sever the vital connection between belief and truth. In the following I will present two accounts that show why the fact theory is preferred over the belief theory: “essentially taking-true attitude” and “objective favorer theory.” (1) Believing as essentially taking-true attitude Nishi Shah and David Velleman contend that believing, expecting, and imagining are “accepting attitudes,” that is, attitudes in which a subject takes the conjoined proposition to be true. For example, “S expects that it is raining” means something like “S takes-true the proposition that it is raining.” According to Shah and Velleman, believing has.

(10) 126 NCCU Philosophical Journal Vol. 23. a special feature that distinguishes it from other accepting attitudes, namely that it is subject to a “normative constraint of truth”: [Conceiving] of an attitude as a belief, rather than an assumption or an instance of imagining, entails conceiving of it as an acceptance that is regulated for truth, while also applying to it the standard of being correct if and only if it is true…… The concept of belief includes a standard of correctness. (Shah & Velleman, 2005: 497) Thus the authors claim that believing is “essentially” take-true attitude, while expecting, imagining, and hoping are not. We can assume, imagine, expect, or hope a proposition to be true when the likelihood of the proposition is extremely low, but we cannot conceive of an attitude as a belief on such a feeble ground. We appear to have a higher standard on belief, to the effect that a belief is “correct if and only if it is true.” Other accepting attitudes may be said to be correct or incorrect, but their standard of correctness are not tied up with truth alone. These attitudes may be regarded as correct when the possibility of truth of the proposition included is, say, less than 50% and, in some extreme occasion, a take-true attitude can remain correct even when the embedded proposition is apparently false. For instance, it is okay to say that S imagines or expects that he will win a lottery, but it doesn’t sound right to say that S believes he will win a lottery. To put it another way, S can correctly imagine that he will win, but he can only incorrectly believe so. The belief theory seems to overlook the normative constraint of truth that is essential to the attitude of believing. It brings in the concept of mere belief—belief independent of truth—which is inconsistent with the feature of belief of being “regulated for truth.” In the case we consider, S does not accept that it is raining for whatever reason—his accepting is constrained by the truth of the embedded claim. What is essential to the explanation is not just that he has the belief, but that he has the belief whose truth rationalizes his action. It is S’s accepting that.

(11) Epistemic Entitlements and Practical Reasons 127. it is raining as a fact—not just any other way of accepting—rationalizes his action.3 (2) Objective favorer theory Lately many have proposed important insights along the line of the fact theory, which is coined “objective favorer theory” (Dancy, 2000; Mele, 2007; Parfit, 2001). The idea is, in brief, R is a reason for action A only if R “objectively favors” A, where reasons for action are construed as actual states of affairs external to the agent. The approach aims to abolish the traditional model of reason for action as an agent’s psychological state. Jonathan Dancy, for instance, maintains that reasons for action are “objective rather than subjective or relative to our psychology” (2000: 157). In his view, reasons for actions are actual states including “yesterday’s bad weather and the current state of the dollar,” for if reasons are nothing but subjective states such as belief and desire, we would “loose contact with the realities that call for action from us” (2000: 115). Derek Parfit claims that it is important to distinguish, in theory of action, between reason and rationality. He writes, “while reasons are provided by the facts, the rationality of our desires and acts depends on our belief (2001: 17, 25).” There appears to be many puzzles concerning practical reason, but Parfit argues that these puzzles are not about reason but about rationality. His view is that the puzzles can be solved or illuminated if we carefully distinguish different kinds of rationality so as to accommodate various sources of irrational cases (such as inconsistency between belief, desire, and action) (Parfit, 2001: 32-36); and in so doing we need not relinquish the central claim of the objective favorer theory, namely that reason for action are provided by the facts.. 3. This point can be further supported by the following consideration. In a misleading case, the subject may have reason of some sort, but he does not have the reason he thinks he has. What does the person have in mind when he performs the action? The reason he thinks he has should be a fact-related reason, namely the kind of reason that he can have when he is in a standard factive situation—it is a situation in which he simply sees the fact and acts accordingly..

(12) 128 NCCU Philosophical Journal Vol. 23. The objective favorer theory encounters a major problem: some intentional actions may involve false beliefs or irrational desires; they can, nevertheless, be actions done with a reason; but clearly these actions do not have any objective favorer; thus not all reasons for action are objective favorers; therefore the objective favorer theory is false. In response, Dancy is forced to say that these misguided actions are actions “done for a reason that is no reason” (2000: 144). A way to avoid this seeming contradiction of the objective favorer theory is to resort to the distinction between acting for a reason and acting for a purpose. A misguided action has no objective favorer and, in this sense, is not done for a reason. Such an action, as Alfred Mele notes, can be done for a purpose, where an agent’s purpose is “spelled in terms of causal roles played by agents’ psychological states or their neutral realizers” (2007: 110). In sum, “typical reasons for action are understood as states of, or facts about, the agent-external world,” whereas in some non-typical context, intentional actions can be done with a purpose specified as the agent’s belief-desire pair (Mele, 2007: 100). This approach, similar to Parfit’s, insists that reasons for action are always facts but admits that in some situations intentional actions can be done with no reason but a purpose. Both accounts of essentially taking-true attitude and objective favorer lend support to the fact theory, treating facts—not beliefs—as the primary source of justification for action. The remaining question is, given that in the misconceived case S does not have a fact-related reason for action, what reason does he have? S thinks he acts on a fact-related reason but he doesn’t; nevertheless, he acts according to his belief, and his belief is supported by his phenomenal state in exactly the same way it would be in a veridical case; and in this light, S’s action is reasonable. Thus, a misguided subject’s action can be attributed with a reason, which is derived from a corresponding perceptual case—he would act for a genuine reason were he in a factive state. In other words, the reason for a misguided action is obtained from a (prospective) fact-related reason via phenomenal indistinguishability..

(13) Epistemic Entitlements and Practical Reasons 129. IV. Factive and Reasonable Entitlements The relation between fact-related and belief-related reasons for action can shed light on the relation between factive and reasonable entitlements. Again, let us consider the following contrast: (i) S believes that it is raining because he sees the fact. (ii) S believes that it is raining because he has a mere appearance which is phenomenally indistinguishable from seeing that it is raining. In (i), S’s perceptual belief is justified because he perceives the fact. His being in this factive state explains and justifies his belief. In (ii), S’s reason for his belief is not fact but the mere appearance that it is raining—he believes that it is raining on the basis of the appearance but in the absence of fact. The question concerning us is, “in the two cases, does S have the same entitlement or reason for belief?” It is tempting to reply, as the argument from illusion would recommend, that S has the same entitlement for belief because he has the same appearance state in both cases, except that only in the first case the appearance is supported by a relevant fact. In both cases the subject’s belief has reasonable entitlement in the sense specified above. The idea is that one forms a belief in accord with one’s appearance and whether the appearance is veridical is a further question: given the same appearance, the agent is equally entitled to foster the same belief. An immediate problem with this view is that it can explain the sameness of the cases but not their difference, since it construes the two perceptual beliefs as essentially the same—the same appearance determines their content. What makes the two cases different is something accidental: the appearance in the first case turns out to be veridical and its being veridical is external to the entitlement of perceptual belief. On this account, appearance alone determines epistemic entitlement, in which the veracity of experience has no role. The consequence is misleading because the ultimate source of justification for perceptual belief.

(14) 130 NCCU Philosophical Journal Vol. 23. must trace back to veridical experience, i.e., experience directly connected with what is the case. The point of the epistemological appraisals of perceptual experiences is to reflect the extent of a subject’s sensitivity to the world surrounding him, and the point goes missing if the evaluation is done in a way that is indifferent to veridical experiences. If perceptual experience is not sensitive to the fact beyond subjective appearance, then knowledge becomes an “opaque” state, a resultant state of impenetrable appearance plus external conditions. To avoid the problem of opacity, McDowell proposes a concept of experience as “openness to reality” and that of knowledge as a “transparent” state in which “a fact makes itself manifest to us.” We may begin with McDowell’s defense of the conceptual content of perceptual experience, which is sometimes labeled as “conceptualism,” according to which the conceptual content “that things are thus and so” which is generally attached to judgments can also be attributed to experiences and even facts. He states, In a particular experience in which one is not misled, what one takes in is that things are thus and so. That things are thus and so is the content of experience, and it can also be the content of a judgment: it becomes the content of a judgment if the subject decides to take the experience at face value. So it is conceptual content. But that things are thus and so is also, if one is not misled, an aspect of the layout of the world: it is how things are. (McDowell, 1996: 26) In the state of knowledge, the mind is open to the world, and the world is present to the mind. McDowell’s idea of transparent openness to the world is nicely recapitulated by Dancy as follows: Knowledge is not to be thought of as a state reached by adding conditions on to something which in its own right is inherently unreliable. Indeed, if we are in the business of adding conditions so as to make things better we can tell that we are not talking about knowledge at all. A state reached by piling on extra helpful thoughts, such as that human cognitive system.

(15) Epistemic Entitlements and Practical Reasons 131. are truth-effective, will only be a better form of the opaque state, never the transparent state which is knowledge. Knowledge does not need this sort or support. It is already perfect in its own right. (2009: 124-125) In the transparent picture, where paradigmatic factive states such as experience and knowledge dominate, factive entitlement obtains the fundamental epistemological status. Reasonable entitlement has to play the second fiddler because it cannot reflect the central role played by the factive states. It seems adequate to say that one may have a factive entitlement in a normal context and a reasonable entitlement in a abnormal one. In a deceptive case S thinks he sees the fact but he doesn’t; nevertheless, his belief is based on his appearance just like the way that a belief in a perceptual case can be supported; for that reason, S’s belief is reasonably entitled. Thus, the justification of an illusory subject’s belief comes from a (prospective) factive entitlement via phenomenal indistinguishability.. V. A Simple View We have seen that both practical reason and epistemological entitlement rely on the type of reason or entitlement that is fact-dependent. There is no priority relation between practical reasons and epistemological entitlements; rather, the two concepts are mutually illuminating. In fact, they are parts of a bigger picture of the connection between mind and world: practical reason involves the link between knowledge and action, whereas epistemological entitlement elucidates the link between experience and knowledge. Moreover, we can expand this picture to include the world so that there is a configuration of the world, experience, knowledge, action. At the end of this paper, I will briefly consider the merit of this picture. In McDowell’s elucidation of conceptualism, we have seen how facts, experiences, judgments are hanged together in a transparent.

(16) 132 NCCU Philosophical Journal Vol. 23. manner. This picture, in my view, also indicates the way our thinking and doing have rational constraint from reality, that is, the way the rationality of our deeds can go all the way down to the facts in the world. The focal point is experience. To have a perceptual experience is, in essence, to adopt a normative stance to how things are in the world. The rationality of experience does not, as the argument from illusion suggests, depend on how it is supported by subjective appearance. The normative character of experience stems from two factors: the external world and the social upbringing. Experience is “wrung” by the impact of the world, but it is not merely causal product, since experience is shaped by cultural upbringing—social cultivation trains or adjusts our eyesight toward the world surrounding us, teaching us the proper way to see what is the case. In this vein, experience receives “rational constraint” from the world (McDowell, 1996: 27). Here is the picture we are considering. (1) A relevant aspect of the layout of the world—a fact—can be the content of experience, if one is not misguided. (2) The fact can also be the content of one’s knowledge, if one actively accepts what he sees to be true. (3) The fact can be the reason of one’s action, if he pursues the deed on the basis of the fact (that is, the fact objectively favors his action). In this manner, the world, experience, knowledge, and action are aligned up in such a way that the rationality of human thoughts and deeds is rooted all the way down in the facts about the world. This picture does not assume any medium in between the factors, and merits the title the simple view: Fact → Perception → Knowledge → Action. VI. A Sophisticated View The argument from illusion, on the other hand, suggests a very different grand picture. It should be noted that the argument from illu-.

(17) Epistemic Entitlements and Practical Reasons 133. sion has often been duplicated, in different forms, in many areas. Here are four cases.4 (a) Perception and illusion Perception and illusion can be indistinguishable to the subject. Subjectively identical experiences must share some element. In illusion the subject has mere appearance. Therefore perception must consist of appearance plus something else (fact?). Hence, appearance is an element of perception. (b) Reason and belief Acting with a reason and acting without a reason can be indistinguishable to the agent. Subjectively identical states must share some element. Acting without a reason is acting on a belief. Therefore acting with a reason must consist of acting on a belief plus something else (truth of belief?). Hence, acting on a belief is an element in acting with a reason. (c) Acting and trying Acting and failed acting can be indistinguishable to the agent. Subjectively identical states must share some element. Failed acting is mere trying. Therefore acting must consist of trying plus something else (success?). Hence, trying is an element in acting. (d) Knowledge and belief Knowledge and mere justified belief can be indistinguishable to the subject. Subjectively identical states must share some element. Mere justified belief is justified belief. Therefore knowledge must consist of justified belief plus something else (truth?). Hence, belief is an element in knowledge.. 4. Many have contributed to the discussion of the various forms of the argument from illusion. An adequate general view can be seen in Dancy (2009, 119-128)..

(18) 134 NCCU Philosophical Journal Vol. 23. The argument from illusion provides another scenario. (1) In order to explain illusion, appearance is introduced. (2) In order to explain misjudgment, mere belief is assumed. (3) In order to explain misguided action, trying is brought in. In this picture, in addition to experience, knowledge, and action, three factors are in place: appearance, mere belief, and trying. More important, the three new factors are treated as elements into which experience, knowledge, and action can be reduced. This reductive picture can be called the sophisticated view, in contrast with the simple view: Perception ↗ World → Appearance → ↘ Illusion. Knowledge ↗. Belief. Action ↗. →. Trying. ↘ Mere. ↘ Failed action. justified belief. VII. Concluding Remarks The simple view seems to be preferable to the sophisticated view. The simple view is simpler and more intuitive, since it presupposes no extra states or entities and is congenial to the commonsense view of the world. Moreover, the simple view steers clear of the controversial method of explaining success in terms of failure and eschews the unrealistic goal of reduction. On the other hand, the sophisticated view may boast its explanation of the misleading cases which include illusion, misjudgment, and misguided action. However, it should be noted that what is really puzzling about the misleading cases is not their existence, but their phe-.

(19) Epistemic Entitlements and Practical Reasons 135. nomenological indistinguishability from the veridical cases of experience, knowledge, and action. Due to the subjective indiscernibility, we feel obliged to give more concerns or credits to the misleading cases—they are not simple mistakes. But we don’t need, as the argument from illusion proposes, to assume that there are some ontologically basic states that are shared by the misleading and veridical cases. All we have to do, as I try to show in this paper, is separate two different but interrelated entitlements to them. The distinction between reasonable and factive entitlements is devised to exhibit the normative connection between the veridical and misleading cases. The best explanation for phenomenological indistinguishability, according to the simple view, is that it is not an ontological issue but a normative one..

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(21) Epistemic Entitlements and Practical Reasons 137. Wittgenstein, L. 1951. Philosophical investigations (G. E. M. Anscombe, Trans.). Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Wittgenstein, L. 1969. On certainty. Oxford: Basil Blackwell..

(22) 138 NCCU Philosophical Journal Vol. 23. 知性權限與行動理由何志青中央研究院歐美研究所. 摘要幻覺論證長久以來在知識論、行動理論以及心靈哲學中佔有重要地位。本文試圖從較整體的角度來探討此論證。關於心智與世界二者之連結，幻覺論證提出一「複雜觀點」(sophisticated view)，其中不僅審視經驗、知識和行動，並且說明了幻覺、錯誤判斷以及誤導行動。本文提出「簡單觀點」(simple view) 以取代「複雜觀點」。簡單觀點的優勢在於不預設特殊狀態，避免不切實際的化約目的以及具爭議性的方法學（藉由失敗案例來解釋成功案例）。最後，簡單觀點嘗試解釋幻覺論證的主要理論依據──主體無法區分性現象 ──將其視為一種規範的而非本體論的議題。. 關鍵詞：幻覺論證、主體無法區分性、行動理由、知覺權限.

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