Why (getting) the phenomenology of recognition (right) matters for epistemology

Abstract

ABSTRACT Are kind properties (e.g. being a eucalyptus tree) presented to us in visual experience? I propose an account of kind recognition that incorporates two conflicting intuitions: (1) Kind properties are not presented in the content of visual experience, (2) the application of kind concepts affects the phenomenology of experience. The conjunction of these claims seems puzzling only given the uniformity assumption that dominates theories of experience, according to which experience presents all properties in the same way: either by representing them (‘the content view’) or through acquaintance with the object that instantiates them (‘the object view’). I have developed a hybrid account, according to which experience has sensory content (i.e. of colors and shapes), but is also an acquaintance with objects that are recognized as instantiating kind properties. The motivation for the hybrid account is that it can preserve the conflicting intuitions in a way that shows them to be essential to a proper account of perceptual reason and perceptual knowledge.