History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps HoP 274 - Susan Brower-Toland on Ockham's Philosophy of Mind
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Mar 26, 2017 An interview with Susan Brower-Toland on Ockham's philosophy of mind, exploring topics like intuitive cognition, consciousness, self-awareness, memory, and reactions to Ockham's ideas.
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Intuition As Immediate Justifier
- Intuitive cognition, for Occam, is perception-like and directly occasions immediate, non-inferential judgments about present, contingent facts.
- Abstractive cognition is any cognitive state that does not play this twofold psychological and epistemic role.
Divine Intervention Breaks Epistemic Link
- Occam allows God could cause intuitive cognitions of non-existent things, yet claims such intuitions would not lead to false judgments about existence.
- This stance produces skeptical worries since it blocks the inference that perception might be deceptive like an evil demon scenario.
Contemporaries' Skeptical Reactions
- Occam's allowance that God can cause intuitions of non-existents leads to skeptical responses from contemporaries like Chatton and Adam Wodham.
- Chatton and Wodham argue God-caused intuitions would produce false beliefs, opening perception to skeptical doubt.