The epistemic value of perceptual experience. Wilfrid Sellars vs. John McDowell

Abstract

The author reflects on the epistemic value of perceptual experience. Quoting John McDowell’s conceptual content of perception as an example, he argues that Wilfrid Sellars’ criticism of empiricism is not tantamount to negating the meaningfulness of the epistemological foundationalist idea entirely. He concludes that rehabilitating the value of perception in justification of knowledge is therefore possible after reformulating the notion of perceptual experience. For by accepting the idea of conceptual content of perception and its consequence in the shape of a potential propositional content of experience it could be proved that perception can be engaged in a rational (and not only causal) relationship with a subject’s beliefs. And that justifies the epistemological foundationalist idea that knowledge has indeed an external and epistemically valuable footing.