Phenomenal Epistemic Valence

A peculiar feature of intuitions that sets them apart from states such as perceptual experiences, beliefs or imaginings is theirphenomenal epistemic valence (Koksvik 2011).

So far we have consideredpositive intuitions, i.e. intuitions that represent some content as true. Now suppose it is 1963 and you believe that knowledge is justified true belief.

You’re reading Gettier 1963 for the first time. Following Gettier’s exposition, you finally

37Note content-gradeability is to be understood as a feature of the experience (Bengson 2015, footnote 15, 26; cf. Harman 1990) and, further, as a feature of its content-specific phenomenology (Koksvik 2017, p. 8).

38One way of accounting for this is to say that a visual experience with and without glasses represent the same content, but with a varying degree of determinacy or vividness. Another way would be to say that they actually don’t. What is in fact going on is that the visual experience with glasses simply hasanothercontent than the visual experience without glasses (Bourget 2017).

arrive at Smith’s belief thatthe man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket. As it turns out, this belief is justified and true. Thus: Smith knows that the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket (Inverse Gettier). YetInverse Gettier just seems false to you. Something similar might happen if you consider propositions such as:

• “2 + 3 = 4” (Calc Error)

• “People prefer pain over pleasure.” (Pain)

• “An undermined house will rise up.” (Rise)

• “The earth is a perfect square.” (Square Earth)

• “Water flows up by itself.” (Flow-Up’

• “There are as many numbers between 0 and 1 as there are between 0 and 1000000.”

(Numbers 2)

In such cases, what one experiences is a negative intuition where a proposition seems false instead of true.³⁹ And this it does bydirectly representing aspecific proposition as false. This stands in contrast to representingSmith does not know that the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket or2 + 3 = 5 as true in response toInverse Gettier orCalc Error or to having positive intuitions that represent anested content such asit is false that (Inverse Gettier) as true.⁴⁰ Crucially, positive intuitions differ phenomenally or in how they feel from negative intuitions (Koksvik 2011). This phenomenal contrast is only there when you compare a positive to a negative intuition and not there if you compare two positive intuitions or two negative intuitions. Interestingly, one can have a positiveor a negative intuition that, say,non-conscious physical duplicates of conscious beings are possible.

One way to capture such contrasts is to say that the truth or falsity, i.e. the epistemic valence, of the intuition is not expressed in the content but in the attitude and that their valence is part of their attitude-specific phenomenology (ibid., pp. 188 sq.). Con-sequently, positive intuitions differ phenomenally from negative intuitions not due to a

39Being positive or negative is different from being correct or illusory. For instance, theNa¨ıve Comp intuition is positive because it representsNa¨ıve Comp as true but illusory becauseNaive Comp is false. Similarly, the intuition that representsNumbers 2 as false is negative and incorrect because Numbers 2 is actually true.

40That is not to say that if one has an intuition in response to propositions such asPainorFlow-Upone always has directly corresponding negative intuitions. It is possible that one can just as well have positive contradicting intuitions (with nested contents).

difference in content — this can be, in fact, identical — but due to a difference in atti-tude. In other words, positive intuitions are not the same kind of attitude as negative intuitions in the same way that happiness is not the same kind of attitude as sadness.

Positive and negative intuitions seem to constitute a pair of what Kevin Mulligan has helpfully called ‘polar opposites’ (Mulligan 2007, pp. 217 sqq.). I like to add that they are not only polar opposites butphenomenal polar opposites.

Note that variation along the feature dimension of phenomenal epistemic valence co-varies with characteristic differences along other (phenomenal) feature dimensions. A difference in valence leads to a valence-specific difference in assertiveness and pushi-ness: Positive intuitions assert a proposition to be true while negative intuitions assert a proposition to be false; positive intuitions push one to assent to its content while neg-ative intuitions push one to dissent to its content. This opens up the possibility that the features of assertiveness and pushiness might be not independent of the feature of phenomenal epistemic valence. It might, for instance, turn out that epistemic phenom-enal valence is (part of) the phenomphenom-enal grounds of the assertiveness (or pushiness) of intuitions (see section 2.2.2 and 4.5).

Phenomenal epistemic valence is a peculiar feature of intuitions that sets them apart from perceptual experiences, beliefs or imaginings. Perceptual experience, in general, does not directly represent some (propositional) content as being false. Although one caninfer that some proposition is false from the content of one’s perceptual experience.

At most, it only directly represents some (propositional) content as being true. The contrast with belief is different: belief seems to be able to directly represent that some proposition is false. Nevertheless, the most plausible way it would do so is on the level of content via the above-mentioned nested contents. Although we can believe that p (is true) and we can believe that p is false (or not p), the belief that p and the belief thatp is false seem 1) only to differ in terms of their content and 2) lack a phenomenal contrast. A (conscious occurrent) belief (or judgment) that P-Zombies is true will not phenomenally contrast with a belief that P-Zombies is false. Imaginings, on the other hand, represent contents but they do not by themselves orient their contents in relation to truth or falsity. They have therefore no epistemic valence, let alone phenomenal epistemic valence.