O PROBLEMA DA PENETRABILIDADE COGNITIVA DA PERCEPÇÃO: UM CASO DE VÍCIO INTELECTUAL?

ABSTRACT

Perception, the way we experience the world, is often distinguished from cognition, the way we think about the world. However, even though there is no agreement about how it happens, perception seems to have an important role in the justification of empirical beliefs. The hypothesis of cognitive penetration ofperception contradicts such claims. According to such hypothesis, early cognitive states can affect the etiology of the contents of sensory experience, yielding a kind of insensibility to external stimuli. This casts doubts on impartiality of the “tribunal” of sense experience. The aim of this article is to discuss cases of bad cognitive penetrability which result from intellectual vices. Intellectual vices are character traits, such as dogmatism and prejudice, which prevent the apt and responsible exercise of inquiry and others epistemicpractices. This approach has two advantages: first, it elucidates “illegal trades” between perception and cognition, and second, it answers the problem of epistemic circularity, posed by the cognitive penetrability of perception.

Keywords:
Cognitive penetrability of perception; epistemology of virtue; perception; epistemic justification; intelectual vices.