Perception, Introspection and Functional Consonance

by JOHN DILWORTH Western Michigan University [Theoria 2006.4: 299-318.] Abstract What is the relation between a perceptual experience of an object X as being red, and one's belief, if any, as to the nature of that experience? A traditional Cartesian view would be that, if indeed object X does seem to be red to oneself, then one's resulting introspective belief about it could only be a conforming belief, i.e., a belief that X perceptually seems to be red to oneself--rather than, for instance, a belief that X perceptually seems to be green to oneself instead. I offer some non-Cartesian, functionalist reasons supporting such an introspective certainty view, based on a concept of logical consonance of perceptual dispositions, according to which both experiencebased and belief dispositions cannot diverge in their content, on pain of their having inconsistent manifestations in relevant situations, such as color-sorting tasks. In addition, other views of introspection are criticized from the perspective of this consonance view.