Acquaintance and the Formation of Negative Phenomenal Belief

This paper argues that Gertler’s (2012) account of acquaintance is inadequate because it cannot perform the explanatory role that it’s supposed to perform. My argument builds from two central claims. First, I argue that our judgments about phenomenal absences have the special features that acquaintance is supposed to explain. Second, I argue that Gertler’s take on acquaintance does not allow us to be acquainted with phenomenal absences. This suggests a general methodological lesson: when developing an account of the epistemology of acquaintance, we should make sure that we are capturing all of the relevant sorts of cases.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Philosophy

Department dc:contributor.department

Philosophy

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• Galvani, Eve Antoinette

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Trogdon, Kelly Griffith

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• McPherson, Tristram
• Klagge, James C.

• acquaintance
• phenomenal absences
• introspection
• privileged access
• beliefs

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:7883

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/73666