Abstract

Offers the Switching Argument for the claim,, that only reason‐giving relations between perceptual experiences and empirical beliefs could possibly serve the content‐determining role required by. Non‐reason‐giving relations between perceptual experiences and basic empirical beliefs would necessarily leave the subject quite ignorant of which mind‐independent object his belief is supposed to be about, in a way that is incompatible with his having the understanding required for this to be a belief of his, about just that thing, at all. Along with the assumption that we have beliefs about a mind‐independent spatial world, and entail, that perceptual experiences provide reasons for empirical beliefs, the main thesis of Part I of the book.