Abstract

In The Epistemic Role of Consciousness, I argue that phenomenal consciousness plays an indispensable role in explaining our knowledge and justified beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. Without phenomenal consciousness, we cannot know anything at all. The book develops a systematic theory of epistemic justification that applies to knowledge of every kind. In this brief summary, however, I will focus on the epistemology of perception, since that is the main topic addressed by the commentators in this book symposium.