Precis in Epistemological Disjunctivism

An articulation is offered of the main themes of my book, Epistemological Disjunctivism (Oxford University Press, 2012). Let me first outline about what I was trying to achieve in Epistemological Disjunctivism. The overarching idea behind the book is to defend a broadly McDowellian account of perceptual knowledge, a view which I think it is fair to say is anathema to many in contemporary epistemology. This is the proposal that one’s perceptual knowledge can, in suitable conditions, enjoy rational support which is both reflectively accessible and also factive. In particular, epistemological disjunctivism is at root the idea that in paradigm cases of perceptual knowledge one’s rational support for one’s knowledge that p can be that one sees that p, where this rational support is both reflectively accessible and also factive (i.e., it entails p). It’s easy to see why epistemological disjunctivism would be thought controversial. To begin with, notice that it doesn’t fit into the usual epistemic categories. Consider the epistemic internalism/externalism distinction, for example. That one’s rational support is reflective accessible appears to suggest a form of epistemic internalism, but that’s hard to square with the rational support in question being factive (think here of the new evil demon thesis that epistemic internalists are keen to cite). But while having epistemic support which has direct implications for how the world in fact is sits well with epistemic externalism, epistemic externalists would hardly be keen on such a ‘worldly’ condition being reflectively accessible.