Abstract

In this project, I develop a characterization of the normative character of our primary mental and epistemic concepts, identify its consequences for the prospects of naturalism in the philosophy of mind and epistemology, and explore its ramifications for the problem of the external world. ;In Part I of this study, I argue that there are conceptual truths linking our concepts of the attitudes and our concept of epistemic justification to particular deontic and reason-involving concepts, like the concept of a reason available for deliberative purposes and the concept of an epistemically responsible belief. I then identify which varieties of naturalism in the philosophy of mind and epistemology are compatible with the normative character of our primary mental and epistemic concepts. On the one hand, I argue that the normative character of our primary mental and epistemic concepts rules out the possibility of naturalist conceptual reductions in these two domains. On the other, I argue that the normative character of our concepts of the attitudes and our concept of justified belief is compatible with the existence of a posteriori necessities linking them to concepts which, from a naturalist perspective, are more basic or fundamental. As a consequence, it is compatible with strict realization theses as well as all versions of the identity theory in the philosophy of mind. Thus, the distinction between the conceptual and necessary consequence relations is of prime importance to discussions of normativity and naturalism in the philosophy of mind and epistemology. ;In Part II of this study, I develop a set of sceptical considerations from the bare claim that a justified belief must be one that is reasonably or responsibly endorsed. I argue that the only way to block these considerations is by granting that courses of experience themselves, as opposed to our beliefs about them, provide reasons for belief. Thus, by contraposing on these considerations, we get the conclusion that it is a necessary condition for our possessing justified beliefs about our surroundings that our perceptual experience supplies us with such reasons. If external world scepticism is false, some form of experiential foundationalism must be true