Fore- and Background in Conscious Non-Demonstrative Inference

Abstract

Philosophical discussion of conscious, personal-level inference has often focused on simple deductions, with only a small handful of premises, like modus ponens.1 Consciousness has, in this context, often been left as something of a global heading of the relevant inferences. Specifically, such questions as whether the different premises, or the conclusion, differently manifest in consciousness, or whether different notions, forms, or gradations of consciousness are apt for their respective characterization, have not been much explored. When philosophical discussion of inference has turned to unconscious cognition, the focus has often been on quite different, subpersonal processes. For example, it has been discussed whether the alleged unconscious inferences posited by some vision scientists to explain even low-level vision can qualify as genuine inferences.2 In these cases, none of the premises and, in some cases, not even the conclusion of the alleged inferences would be consciously entertained or even available to consciousness. In this chapter, I will look at a class of inferences that seem to fall somewhere between simple explicit deductions and subpersonal inferential processes on dimensions relevant to consciousness, viz. at certain non-demonstrative inferences. These are personal-level. They proceed from a consciously noticed fact, or apparent fact, to a similarly entertained conclusion. Yet they seem also to be sensitive to a rich stock of background information, not all of which seems to be consciously present in quite the same way as certain more explicitly noted or considered elements of the thinker’s overall perspective. These inferences suggest that consciousness can vary, in potentially interesting ways, across the body of assumptions from which a given conclusion is drawn The relevant sort of inferences may, I will assume, be exemplified by such cases as: