E SSAY 18

Knowledge and the Internal'

1. I am going to work wit h an idea from Wilfrid Sellars, that

knowledge-at least as enjoyed by rational animals-is a certain sort
of standing in the space of reasons.' My concern is a familiar philo-
sophical dialectic, which I shall app roach in terms of what happens
to th e Sellarsian idea when the image of standings in the space of
reasons undergoes a certai n deformation. That it is a deformation is
so mething we can learn from how unsatisfactory the familiar dialec-
tic is.

2. The deformation is an interiorization of the space of reaso ns, a

withdrawal of it from the external world. This happens when we
suppose we ought to be able to achieve flawless standings in the

1.1 first delivered this essay in the 1989190 lecture series of the Center for the Philoso-
phy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. I presented an ancesto r to a conference on
Belief and Knowledge in Albi, France, in July 1981. Cllarleli Trav is commented helpfully
on the ancestor, and Simon BJackbum on a revised version of it. A less distant descendan t
of some of that material for ms part of Essay 17 above. More recently, I have benefited
from conversations with jonath an Dancy; from romments on a more recent drah by
Roben Brandom; and from the responses of audiences at Ohio State University, Ha verford
CoIkgc, and the Chapel Hill Co lloq uium, especially Robert Kraut, L Arych Kosman, and
Jay Rosenberg. Ro bert Brandom ' s respon se at the Chapel Hill Co lloquium has been pub-
Iished as " Knowledge and the Social Articulati on of the Space of Reasons".
2. " In characterizing an episode or a state as that [bet ter: one) of know ing, we are not
giving an empirica l descripti on of tha t episode or state; we arc placing it in the logical
spac e of reasons, of justifying and being ab le to justify what one says" and
the Philosop hy of Mind", p. 298-9). I put in the parenthcrical qualification so as to allow
that a co ncept of know ledge might be applied to non -rational animal s too; but nothing in
this essay will depend on that.
396 IS S UES I N E P IS T E MO LOG Y

space of reasons by our own unaided resources, without needing th e

world to do us any favours.
Consider the Argument from IlJusion . Seeing, or perhaps having
seen. that things are thus and so would be an epistemically satisfac-
tory stand ing in the space of reaso ns. But when I see that things are
thus and so, I take it that things are thus and so on the basis of hav-
ing it look to me as if thin gs a re thu s and so. And it can look to me
as if things are thus and so when they are not; appearances do not
give me the resources to ensure that I take things to be thus and so,
on the basis of appeara nces, only when things are indeed thu s and
so. If things are indeed thu s and so when they seem to be, the wo rld
is doing me a favour. So if I want to restrict myself to standings in
th e space of reasons whose flawlessness I can ensure without exter-
nal help, I must go no further than taking it that it looks to me as if
things are thus and so.
One might hope that this inward retrea t is only temporary. Take a
particular case in which it look s to me as if things are a certa in way.
H things are indeed that way. that is-so far-a favour the world is
doing me. The hope is th at I might sta rt from the fact that things
look th at way to me; add in anything else th at the ground rules allow
me to avail myself of. if it helps; and move from there. by my own
unaided resour ces, without needing the world to do me any favours ,
to a satisfactory sta nding in the space of reasons with respect to the
fact th at the world is arranged the way it looks. And now that would
no longer be a favour the world is doing me, a kindness I must sim-
ply hope for. Now I would have a derivatively satisfactory stan ding
in the space of reasons, with respect to the fact that things ar e as
they look, that I achieved by myself witho ut needing to be indebted
to the world .
Anyone who knows the dreary history of epistemology knows that
this hope is rather faint. That wiU matter in due cou rse, but it does
not matter for what I am doing now, wh ich is simply reminding you,
in perhaps slightly unfamil iar terms. of a familiar epistemologists'
syndrome.
Of course percepti on could not yield US standings in the space of
reasons at all without some indebtedness to the world. The position I
am describing does not involve the fantasy th at pure unaided reason
could give us knowledge of the externa l world. without our needing
the world to oblige us by affording appearances. The thought is that
 Knowledge and the Internal 397

we need no outside help in avoiding being led astray by whatever ap-

pearances the world is kind enough to afford us.
The Argument from Illusion is of course familiar in the epistemo-
logy of perception . But an arg ument with the same structure is
tempting whenever it can seem right to say tha t we need a favo ur
from th e world if there is to be application for a locution of the rele-
vant kind: a locution that belongs with "see that . . ." in that it is
episremic a nd thereby factive. Th is will be so whenever appearances
can be misleading, in such a way that one cannot blame their poten-
tia l for deception on defects in how one has conducted oneself in the
space of reasons. What is at fault must th en be th e unkind ness of the
world. And when an appearance is not misleading, that is, corre-
spo ndingly, a favour from the wo rld. Whe never we have that struc-
ture, it will seem th at the eplstemic position signa lled by the original
locution can be at best derivative; the true starting-poi nt in the space
of reasons must be something common to the favourab le and the po-
tentia lly misleading cases (like having it look to one as if thin gs are
thus and SO) .3
Factive locutions that are vulnerable to this treatment include " re-
member that ..." (with "seem to remember that " as the upshot
of the retreat), and " learn from so-and-so th at " (with "hear so-
and-so say that ..." as the upshot of th e retreat)." A negative in-
stance may help to make th e point clear: consider "prove th at .. ....
Suppose one is subject to a misleading appearance tha t one has a
proof of something. In that case, surely, one must have miscon-

3. I am deliberately leaving the idea of blameworthiness., in one 's moves in the space of
reasons., unspecific. If sornt<lI'e arrives a t a bIsc belief h om which she would have been
dereered by some investigation she choK not to enpge in because of its high CC5t an d low
probability o f overrurning lhe olher evidence, is she bla meworthy? Different answers are
poaible. BUI no reawn.able interprnation of th e idea of doxasr:ic obIigarions could mak e
falsehood in an em pirical belief show, all by itself, that an obligation has nOl been met.
That is the cmtral insight (a genuine insighl , even thou gh it is typically mishandled ) of the
familiar genre of philosophy acco rding 10 wh ich empi rica l knowledge is pr oblematic. I
want to foclI$ on this ga p, nea rly un iversally ackno wledged, between doxasric blameless-
neSll in a sense that connects w ith doxaslic obligarion, o n the ant: hand, and em pirical
knowledge, on the other, without being distracted by det ails a bout how dcxasoc blame-
lessness should be understood. (Th e epistemological ou tloo k I shall recom mend should
make such questions seem less ur sern.)
4. In the case of testi mony, one is literall y done a favour by an infonnaJll. But the re will
have 10 be,l1gurativdy, a f.avoor from the world at so me point in lhe epiSlemic ancestry of
a piece of knowledge by resrimon y. (At leaSl o utside th e a rea of, for instance, being IOIdof
something tha t ha s been pr oved; sec the text below.]
398 ISSUES IN EPISTEMOLOGY

ducted oneself in the space of reasons; it cannot be that the world is

the only thing one can blame for what has gone wrong.'

3. I spoke of hoping that the inward retreat is only temporary, and

I suggested that the hope is faint. I think this is true in all the appli-
cations, but I shall stick to perception to bring out what this implies.
One need not restrict oneself to the particular perceptual appear-
ance whose credentials are in question. I allowed that one could add
in anything else that might help, if it is available according to the
ground rules. Here we might think of surrounding appearances and
background knowledge. (It will emerge that it is open to doubt
whether the ground rules make any background knowledge avail-
able, but we can let that pass at this stage.)
Clearly one is not stuck with simply believing, come what may,
that things are as they appear. One can refine one's policies or habits
of basing beliefs on appearance, taking more and more circum-
stances into account, with a view to improving the proportion of
truths to falsehoods in their output. And it is not just that one can
engage in this refining procedure. Surely reason positively requires
one to do so. If it turns out to be an effect of interiorizing the space
of reasons that we become unable to make sense of this critical func-
tion of reason, we ought to conclude that the very idea of the space
of reasons has become unrecognizable. I think that is what turns out;
I want to bring that out by giving the idea of something that is both
5. This is essentially the feature of proof (or computation) that Crispin Wright aims to
generalize, in his account of what it is to have verified a statement ("Strict Finitism",
pp. 210-18). Wright strangely combines an understanding of this feature of proof (or
computation) with applying the Argument from Illusion even here. He writes (p. 210): "If
arithmetical computation is to be a paradigm of verification, then to be entitled to claim to
have verified a statement cannot be to be entitled to claim a conclusive, indefeasible war-
rant for its assertion; for the most painstaking and careful execution of a computation
confers no guarantee that is correct." This is in effect a form of the familiar retreat (in re-
spect of what warrants one's assertion) , from "I have proved that it is so" (which, if true,
surely equips one with a conclusive, indefeasible warrant) to "I have before me what, on
painstaking and careful inspection, appears to be a proof that it is so". To suppose that
this retreat is required is to miss the significance of the fact that if I am misled in such a
case, the fault is in my moves in the space of reasons, not in the world. I suppose it is be-
cause Wright thinks mathematical proof and empirical verification are on a par in respect
of vulnerability to the Argument from Illusion (and so in respect of the defeasibility of
available warrants) that he thinks he can model empirical verification on mathematical
verification without risking an undue concession to scepticism. (In effect Wright is com-
mitted to withholding, in respect of empirical verification, the acknowledgement that in
n. 3 above I described as nearly universal.) I think the epistemology of empirical knowl-
edge that results is disastrous; I try to bring this out in Essay 16 above.
 Knowledge and the Internal 399

interiorized and still recognizably the space of reasons a run for its
money.
So we are to try to reconstruct the epistemic satisfactoriness im-
plicit in the idea of seeing that things are thus and so, using the fol-
lowing materials: first, the fact that it looks to a subject as if things
are that way; second, whatever further circumstances are relevant
(this depends on the third item); third, the fact that the policy or
habit of accepting appearances in such circumstances is endorsed by
reason, in its critical function, as reliable. And now the trouble is
this: unless reason can come up with policies or habits that will
never lead us astray, there is not enough here to add up to what we
were trying to reconstruct. Seeing that things are thus and so is a po-
sition that one cannot be in if things are not thus and so. Given that
one is in that position, it follows that things are thus and so. And if
reason cannot find policies or habits that are utterly risk-free, the re-
constructing materials cannot duplicate that. However careful one is
in basing belief on appearances, if one's method falls short of total
freedom from risk of error, the appearance plus the appropriate cir-
cumstances for activating the method cannot ensure that things are
as one takes them to be.
There are various possible responses to this point. The one I re-
commend is that we should jettison the whole approach to knowl-
edge that structures epistemology around the Argument from Illu-
sion. I shall mention three others.
Obviously one response is scepticism. In my Sellarsian framework,
I can put the sceptical response like this. An epistemically satisfac-
tory position would have to be a standing in the space of reasons-
Sellars is right about that. But the argument I have just sketched
shows that we cannot reconstruct a standing in the space of reasons,
suitable to amount to knowledge, with respect to the fact that things
are as they perceptually appear. So it must be a mistake to think we
can achieve knowledge through perception. This thought clearly gen-
eralizes, in a way that matches the generalization of the Argument
from Illusion.
A second response would be to claim that there must be policies or
habits of basing belief on appearance that are utterly risk-free. It is
obvious how this response might be attractive, in the context of the
threat of scepticism; but I do not think it has any plausibility in its
own right. It would express a rather touching a priori faith in the
power of human reason to devise fully effective protections against
400 I S S U E S I N E P ISTE MOLOGY

the deceptive capacities of appearance. No doubt it wo uld suit Ou r

vanity, or at least help us feel safe, if we could suppose o ur reason
had such power, but obviously that is no gro und to believe it is so; in
fact it is a ground to be suspicio us of th e idea . (I sha ll return to a
point of this son later. )'
A third response is ( 0 keep the Sellarsian idea I began with, in its
interiorized form , but on ly as one element in a com pos ite conception
of knowledge; we are to add an external element in o rder to cope:
with the prob lem I am considering. The upshot is a position that
loo ks like this. At least for rational animals, a satisfact ory sta nding
in the space of reasons is a necessary condition for knowledge. But
since the positions one can reach by blameless moves in the space of
reasons are not facti ve, as ep istemica lly satisfactory positions are, a
satis factory sta nding in the space of reasons cannot be wha t knowl -
edge is.? Rather, know ledge is a status one possesses by virt ue of an
app ropriate standing in the spa ce of reasons when-this is an extra
condition, not ensu red by one's standing in the space of reasons-c-ehe
world does one the favo ur of being so arrange d that wha t one takes
to be so is so.
It calls for comment that the extern al addition I am envisaging is
the familiar truth requ irement for knowledge, that what one ta kes to
be so is indeed so. This figures, in the pos ition I am considering, as a
necessary extra co ndition for knowledge, over and above the best
one can have in the way of reliabili ty in a policy or ha bit of basing
belief on ap pearance. Such reliability figures in th e hybrid pos ition I
am considerin g as part of its inte rna l apparatus: as some thing to be
taken into account when o ne determines, within the space of reasons
conceived in the interiorized way, whether a sta nding in that space is
accepta ble.

6 . It is impoetanr nor to assume Iha t, in reiect ing this response, I am making unavail-
able the oornmon- sense th c e ghr rhal we so meti mes kn ow how things ate by seeing how
Ihey a re. Thai wou kl be so on ly if the epistemic S1at us of such knowledge had to consist in
the excdlmo;:e of ;;l policy()( habit of basing belief 00 appearance. focused a s it we re on the
panicular case a t hand. Bur m at assu mpti on is simply a form of what is under att ack. (The
S1atus con sists, rather, in the fact that one sees thai lhingi are so.)
7 . On " blarne!cu", see n. J a bove. H owever prec isely it is s pelled out, the idea of
b1amew on hinc:ss that we need must belong with an XIea o f o bliga tionl as within one's
power to discharge, on pain of losing con tact wilh the point o f intCfiori zing the space of
reason s. So it is nOl to lhe poin t here 10 sugges t thar one can be blamed for ;;I false belief
based on apPearance iUS! beca use of its falsehood, on the an alogy of the idea that on e can
be blamed fOt" unintended comcquences o f one 's inttmional acts .
 Knowledge and the Internal 401

Thi s internal placement of reliability may seem surprising. in view

of the fact that reliability is part of the stock in trade of full-blown
externalisr approaches to knowledge. But the point of full-blown ex-
ternalist appro aches is to reject the Sellarsian idea I began with , not
to incor porate it as part of an account of knowledge. as in the hybrid
approach I am considering. According to a full-blown exrernalisr ap-
pro ach, knowledge has nothing to do with positions in the space of
reasons; knowledge is a state of the knower, linked to the state of af-
fairs known in such a way that the knower's being in that state is a
reliable indicator that the state of affairs obtains. In the purest form
of this approach. it is at most a matter of superficial idiom that we
do not attri bute knowledge to pro perly functioning rhermometers.f
Now from the fact that the concept of reliability plays this external
role in an approach that simply rejects questions about the knower 's
position in the space of reasons. it clearly does not follow that when
we move to an app roach that does not reject such questions (al-
though. being hybrid, it insists that they do not exhaust the issues
that need to be addressed). the concept must still be conceived as op-
erating outside the space of reasons. And the point I made earlier
stands: if a purported picture of the space of reasons makes no room
for the critical function of reason in raising questions about the relia-
bility of this or that policy or habit of belief-formation, the picture
cannot be what it purports to be. So it would be a mistake to sup-
pose that reliability must be external in a hybrid approach. just be-
cause it figures in full-blown externalist approaches. Reliability must
operate in the internal reaches of a hybrid approach. on pain of the
internal element's becoming unrecognizable as what it was supposed
to be.9 The problem with the resources that are available in an inreri-
orized conception of the space of reasons is that, even including the
best that can be had in the way of reliability. they cannot duplicate
the factiveness of epistemically satisfactory positions. So it is pre-

8. If a full-blown extemalisr approach preserves epistemological relevance for a concept

of justification, il is certainly not one that functions as in the quota tion from Sellars in n. 2
above.
9. For an example of the kind of hybrid account of knowledge that I am here,
see Christc pber Peacocke, Thoughts: An BsIzy on Content, chaps. 9 and 10, especially
pp. 153-5. Peacocke has as an external ingredienr in a hybrid account of knowl-
edge, one that also imposes an internal conditi on involving rat ionality. is something
similar in Simon Blackburn, " Knowledge, Truth, and Reiiabiliry" , pp. 178-9 (although on
pp. 179-80 Blackburn comes dose 10 acknowledging the internal importance of consider-
ations of reliability].
402 I S S U ES I N EP ISTEMOLOGY

cisely the truth requiremen t th at these considerations motiva te con-

ceiving as an external condition tha t needs to be added to internal
requirements fo r kn owl edge.P

4. This hybrid conception o f kn owledge has an evident instability,

in the way it separa tes tr uth, which figures as an externa l element,
from reliability in policies or habits of belief-formation, w hich f ig-
ures as an internal element. The truth requ irement has to be an
added external element, because th e inreriorization of the space of
reasons means t hat th ere ca nnot be stand ings in th at space th at sim-
ply consist in a cognitive purchase o n an objective fact, for insta nce
something th at one perceives to be so, o r reme m bers co h ave been so.
But if there cannot be such standings in th e space of reasons, how
t o. Blackburn, Truth , and Rd iability " , supposes that there is some dttp
erro r in insining th ai a knower must be in a n inform atio nal Slatr th at exc luda all possi-
bility that m ings are not a5 he ta kes them to be (a "g uaran tering" inform ational mu:). ln
react ion to that, he claims that titb to knowledge must be defensible " in the face of an
open, acknowledged, possibility that tht; world might not: be a5 we haye come to tak e it to
be" (p. 179 ). Th is acoou nt for the fact that he seems nd even to co nsider the trut h re-
quirement II an exte rnal condi tion 00 know kdge. But rejecting the idea that a knower 's
in forma tional sta te is "guaranteeing " loo ks to me like rejecting a piece of plain rornmon
sense, that our locu tions mar king epistemicaUy sat isfacto ry positions ("sec that . . . ... " re-
member that ...... a nd the like) a re faaiye. That this is disast rous shows up in Blackbu rn' s
positi ve proposal, that one knows when no real pvuibility ("chance") that things a re not
as one takes them to be is left open by one's informationa l sta re. conceived as the upsh ot
of the retr eat supPClStdly forced by th e Argumen t from ll1usion-an " indica tive" seate, as
opposed to a "gcaranteeing" stare . Blackburn app lies thi s aecounr of knowledge to the
general hypot heses on which skeprical arguments trade (such as that oee is a bra in in a
vat ); the result is tha t whether Qnt counts as kn owing m at such hypotheses do not obtain
depends on who has tht; onus o f proof in a dispute with a Kqltic. But given how things
look to someone on any particular occasion (and a ny other circumstances dllt might be
relevant to reason's decisioo as to whether believins tha t m ings a re that way is extf'Cising
a reliable policy or habi t). there is sure ly a real possibi lity th at things arc: not th at way.
That is jusr the point that (to pu t it in my terms ) blamelessness in the space of reasons docs
not ensure facti veness in the position that results. In Blackburn's terms, misleading percep-
tual appearances, withou t surro undin g clues to their are among "the kinds
of rhil1g$ th at happen" [p, 185). This po int generalizes to ot her " indicative" sta res. So
even if Blackburn ach ieves an on uHwapping standoff wit h the kind of scr:p:ic who at -
tempts to wield general scr:prical hypotheses ro undermine whole regions of knowledge all
at once. his picture will deprive us of pretty much the same knowledg e. on ly piece by
piece. If we deny ourselves a "gu atantering" co nceptio n of a put ati ve knower's informa '
tional seate, the re will always be pt rfcctly real po5Si bilities (not the sceptic' s arguably
unreal possibilities) that he is wro ng, given the lesser informational sta te we ar e commit-
red to limiting him to. Blackburn simp ly misses this point; he: conc rntrates on the genera l
scept ical hypotheses., as if tbere coul d be no threat to ordinary know ledge claims except
from them.
 Knowledge and the Internal 403

can reason have the resources it would need in order to evaluate the
reliability of belief-forming policies or habits? If we press this ques-
tion. the idea that something can be both interiorized in the way I
am considering and recognizably a conception of the space of rea-
sons starts to unravel, as I have already hinted that it would .
I shall return to that point; meanwhile I want to urge another
problem about the hybrid conception of knowledge. In the hybrid
conception. a satisfactory standing in the space of reasons is only
part of what knowledge is; truth is an extra requirement . So two
subjects can be alike in respect of the satisfactoriness of their stand-
ing in the space of reasons. although only one of them is a knower,
because only in her case is what she takes to be so actually so. But if
its being so is external to her operations in the space of reasons, how
can it not be outside the reach of her rational powers? And if it is
outside the reach of her rational powers, how can its being so be the
crucial element in an intelligible conception of her knowing that it is
so-what makes the relevant difference between her and the other
subject? Its being so is conceived as external to the only thing that is
supposed to be epistemologically significant about the knower her-
self, her satisfactory standing in the space of reasons. That standing
is not itself a cognitive purchase on its being so; it cannot be that if
the space of reasons is interiorized. But then how can the uncon-
nected obtaining of the fact have any intelligible bearing on an epi-
stemic position that the person's standing in the space of reasons is
supposed to help constitutes How can it coalesce with that standing
to yield a composite story that somehow adds up to the person's
being a knower?
One way to appreciate what I am driving at here is to consider the
familiar point that true belief need not amount to knowledge. Why
not? A good simple answer is that mere truth in a belief leaves it
open that the believer has hold of the truth by accident, and knowl-
edge excludes that. Now in the hybrid conception of knowledge, it is
admittedly not a complete accident, relative to someone's standing in
the space of reasons, if things are as she takes them to be; the posi-
tion of her belief in the space of reasons makes it likely to be true.
But the reason why the extra stipulation that the belief is true-what
is distinctive of the hybrid approach-is needed is that likelihood of
truth is the best that the space of reasons yields, on the interiorized
conception of it: the closest we can come to factiveness. The extra
404 I S S U E S I N E P ISTE MO LOG Y

t ha t we need for knowledge-the fact th at th e case in question is not

one of those in which a largely reliable habit or policy of belief-
formatio n leads the subject astray-c-is, relative to the knower's moves
in the space of reasons, a stroke of good fortune. a favour the wo rld
does her. So if we try to picture epistemic statu s as constituted in
the way the hybrid conceptio n has it, we are vulnerabl e to a version
of the familiar point th at distin guishes knowled ge from mere tr ue
belief.
I thi nk the mor al of thi s is that if we ca nnot see o ur way to accept-
ing the Sellarsia n idea in full, we sho uld reject it, as in full-blown ex-
ternalist accounts. It is not a good idea to suppose a satisfactory
sta nding in the space of reason s might be part but not the whole of
wh at knowledge is.

5. A hybrid conception of knowledge is often taken to be obvi-

11
OU5 . But in the light of what I have just argued, I think th is depends
on not thinking directly about the conceptio n's epistemological cre-
dentials. What mak es the hybrid conceptio n seem obvious is that,
leaving aside the full-blown externali sm according to which stand-
ings in the space of reason s are irrelevant to knowledge, this view o f
kno wledge seems to be th e only alterna tive to scepticism. But this is
one of those set-ups that are fam iliar in philosophy, in which a sup-
posedly exhaustive cho ice confers a spurious plausibility on a philo-
sophical positio n. The apparent plausibility is not intrinsic to the p0-
sitio n, but reflects an assumed framework; when one looks at the
position on its own, th e plausibility crumbles away, or so I have
tried to suggest. In such a situat ion, the thing to do is to query the
assumption that seems to for ce the choice. And in th is case, th e cul-
prit is the interiorized conception of the space of reasons.
I have described that conception in a way that equips it with an in-
telligible motivation. The aim is to picture reaso n as having a proper

11. When dou ble-aspect views of oontmt. involving menml stateS were a novelty, it
used to be routi ne to cite the supposedly obvious composi leness of kll(lwkdgt' as an al-
read y familiar parallel See, e.g., Da niel C Dennen, "Beyond Belief', pp. 11-1 2; and
Co lin McG inn, uThc: Stroo:tun: of Coeeenr", p. 215. In querying 1M credentials of a hybrid
conce ption of knowledge, I mean to do more than remove an expository prop from under
rbose double-aspect views; I believe that direct extensions o f the conside rations in rhis
essay show lhat those views miss the poin t of the oonceptu al appa ratuS they aim 10 ex -
plain-I shall noc be able to elaborate this here, though it will be close to the surface in S6.
 Knowledge and the Internal 405

province in which it can be immune to the effects of luck; not in the

sense of sheer chance. but in the sense of factors that reason cannot
control. or contro l for. The idea is that reason can ensure that we
have only acceptable standings in the space of reasons, without being
indebted to the world for favours received; if we exercise reason
properly, we cannot arrive at defective standings in the space of rea-
sons, in a way that could only be explained in terms of the world's
unkindness.P The upshot of this interiorization is that knowledge of
the external world cannot be completely constituted by standin gs in
the space of reasons. The hybrid view concedes that such knowledge
is partly a matter of luck in the relevant sense. something outside the
control of reason. The hope is that this admission of luck is toler-
able. because it comes only after we have credited reason with full
contro l over whether one's sta ndings in the space of reasons are sat-
isfactory.P
It seems clear where our suspicions should attach themselves. Al-
though the motivation I have suggested for interiorizing the space of
reasons is intelligible, it is surely something we ought to find suspect.
The hybrid view's concession to luck, tagged on to a picture of rea-
son as self-sufficient within its own proper province, comes too late.
Th e very idea of reason as having a sphere of operation within which
it is capable of ensuring, without being beholden to the world, that
one's postu res are all right-like the obvious analogues of this idea
in thought about practical reason-has the look of a fantasy, some-
thin g we spin to console ourselves for the palpable limits on our
powers."
To avoid fanta sy, we would need to see our way to accepting that
we cannot eliminat e what the interiorized conception of reason con-
ceives as a quit e alien factor. the kindness of the world, as a contrib-
utor to our coming to occupy epistemically satisfactory position s in
the space of reasons. This points to a different conception of factive

12. M 1 noted in S2, we owe the world th a nks for presenting us with appearances at
a U. But that po int is accommodated by the form ula tion in the text . (If the world withheld
appea rances from us, reason wo uld achieve its goa l by deterring us from unsu ppcrted
guesses as to hew things are.)
13. Of course one can ma ke mista kes; but the idea is that proper exer cise of ru son
would d iminate them.
14. On the paraUd s in the sphere of pract ical reaso n, sec Bernard W iUiams, " Mo ral
Luck-.
406 I S S U E S IN EPI STEM OL O GY

pos itions such as seeing that things are a cert ain way. Whe n some-
one enjoys such a pos itio n, th at involves, if you like, a stroke of good
fortu ne, a kindness fro m the world; even so, the position is, in its
own right. a satisfactory sta nding i.n the space of reasons, not a com-
pos ite in which such a sta nding is combined with a co nditio n exter-
nal to the space of reaso ns. Jj Whether we like it o r not, we have to
rely o n favours from the world: not just that it presents us with ap-
pearances-which, as I remarked, the fantasy view can already ac-
cept as a favour the world does us-but that o n occasion it actually
is the way it appears to be . But that the world does someo ne th e nec-
essary favour, o n a given occasion, of being the wa y it a ppears to be
is not extra to the person's sta nding in the space of reasons. Her
coming to have an ep istemically satisfactory standing in the space of
reasons is not what the interiorized conception would require fo r it
to count as her own unaided achievement, But o nce she has achieved
such a standing. she needs no extra help from the world to co unt as
knowing.16 lf we rescue th e idea of the space of reasons from the dis-
tortions of fantasy, we ca n say that the particular facts th at the
world does us the favour of vouchsafing to us, in the various relevant
modes of cognition, ac tually shape th e space of reasons as we find it ,

I S. Thi s fOl'mulation shoul d make it dear how wildly off-target Blackburn is ("Knowl-
edge, Truth, and Reliability", p. 176) in supposing that my appea l to "gua ranteeing" in-
formational states belongs within the t;enttal framewor k of the attempt " to ensure that
there is no clement of luck, or even con tingmcy, in the tRIC believer' s title to knowledge" .
The trad ition al effecr of this artempe to transcend luck is that area of known fact
shrinks "po tmrially down to an entirely subjecti ve realm" . Blackbu rn tam me to offer a
diffetmt option with in the same:genera l fra mework , in whkh, instead of that shrinkage in
what ca n be know n, the mind (the seat of these supposed leek- free "guaranteeing" sta ttS)
expands to "embrace" all sorts of wor ldly states of affain. Th is idea. wtUch Blackburn
righrly finds bizarre, has nothing to do with what I am proposing here, and was proposi ng
in the work Blackburn is discussing (Essay 17 Blackburn is so locked in to the
ftamework tho ught that epistemology m ust Centre on a luck-free ZOIlt (a role played in his
favoured epistemol ogy by the "indicatift" sta tes to whach we arc pu shed back by the gen -
era lized Argument from lIIusion ) that he cannot: com prehend how I ca n have been qun-
honing the frame work; 50 he has sadd led me with the insane position that is the onl y in-
terpreta tion my wo rds will bear with in the framework .
16. Exorcizing the fantilsy sho uld weaken the inclination to say that such a standing is
nor one's own unaided achievemen t. Co mpa re one of the practical analogues. The concept
of w hat one docs, understood as applying to one's; inttrventions in the objective wo rld,
cannot: mark out a sphere within which one has total con troJ, immune to luck. It is only if
we recoil from this into a fant asy of a sphere with in which one's control is tota l that it ca n
seem to follow that what one gmuillt ly achicvu is.1ess tha n one's interventions in the ob-
jective world . (fhis is one of many plICa at wh ich much more discussion is needed.]
 Knowledge and the Internal 407

Th e effect is a sort of coalescence between the idea of the space of

reasons as we find it and the idea of the wor ld as we encounter it. 17
Of course we are fallible in our judgements as to the shape of the
space of reasons as we find it. or-what comes to the same thing-as
to the shape of the world as we find it. That is to say that we are vul-
nerable to the world's playing us false; and when the world does not
play us false we are indebted to it. I S But that is something we must

17. S«ing (o r mo re genera lly perceiving) that things ate a certai n way is just one of th e
(or , in Blackburn's term, "guaranteeing") stat es th at is restored to its proper su-

M when the gene ralized Argume nt from Illusio n is u ndermined; oebers include remem ber-
ing how things were a nd learning from someone else how thing s are (see 51 a bove). In re-
sisting the dama 9ng d' fect of letting the Argu ment from Illusion structu re epistemo logy
(as in Essay 17 aboYe), J do not commit myself to assimilating all these "fective" pos itions
to percep tjoe , Co mpare Cris pin Wright, "Facts and Certainty". Com menting on th at
essay o f mine, he w rites, a t pp, 443-4: "J ust as 'lifting' the veil of percept ion is to p ut us,
o n occasion an yway, in direct perceptual tooch with mate rial states o f affain, so a sto ry
has to be to ld explaining how we are $imilariy, on occasion, in direct perce ptual to uch
with ochc:rt' mental states and with pas t sta tes o f at least, in direct percept ual
touch with sta tes o f affa irs which do better th an provide inconclu sive basis for claims
abou t ether minds and the past. I do think we a re sometimes in direct perceptual touch
with cebees' menral states, and certa inly w ith states o f affairs ehar do better than provide
inconclusive basis for claims a bout them; bu t why mould J accepe the idea th at we
a te in direct peraptuaf mu ch with past sum o f affa irs, when remembe ri ng them w ill
plai nly do instead ? Similarly, w hen one karns something from someooe else, the cogn itive
rr ansaction is of cou rse not a sort of percepecn of the star e of affairs one is told about; re-
sista oce to letting rhe Argumen t from JII usioo structure the epistemo logy of testimony
need not involve denying that o bvious fact (compa re Elizabeth Fricka , "Th r Epist emo-
logy o f T esti mony", pp . 74-5). I discuss the epistemology o f tt5timony in Essay 19 below.
18. Whflt inu m s o ut tha t the wo rtd has played us false, we l;OOC{ude that it has presented
us with a mere appea rance rather tha n a manifest fact. MOROYff, whenthe world does pre-
son us with a manifest fact, it does $0 by presenting us with a n appearance. It is essential noe
to confuse these two piCCl:$ of commo n sense with the conclusio n o f the Argu ment from illu -
sion. O f course th e eoerene of the appearances that th e world us with ("ap pear-
ances" is w e neutral as between and "manifest fact..) is not irreleva nt
to our possession of Iacti ve sta ndings in the space o f reason s. Our being a ble to count as, 5ilY,
seeing rhar thi ngs a re thus and $0 depends on o ur being propert y sensitive (where "properly"
expresses a rati ona l assessment ) to how things look to us. But it is a mistake ro think this de-
pendence is a matter of the appearance' s functioning as a sta rring-poin t in the space o f rea-
son s, with the sta rlit of seeing how rhings ate supposedly recoestreceed in term s of a suf6-
ciently cogen t argument wit h the appearance as a premise. If the addirional premises we ca n
appea l to are rest ricted to what is available ro reason on the interioriud conceprion o f it, no
such arg ument will be sufficiently cogmr; th at is a way o f p utting the rea son wh y, once epi-
stemo logy ha s sta rted a10ag the path marked o ut by the Argument from JUusioo, the ex ter-
na l supplementation is neNed (S3 above], Th is is how we get into the positio n in which we
ha Ye mchoose between scepticism a nd the hybrid view. But tbe ccenmo n-sense point that ap-
pearance bean on the ra tion al sta tus of belid' is detachable from a commitme nt re that
choice. (There is more discussion of this in Essay 19 below.)
408 I S S U ES I N EP ISTE MO LOG Y

simply learn to live with, rather than recoiling into the fantasy of a
sphere in which our contro l is total. 19

6. The space of reasons is the space within which thought moves,

and its topography is that of the rational interconnections between
conceptual contents; we might equa lly speak of the space of coo-
cepts.20 So we can see the interioriaation of the space of reasons as a
form of a familiar tendency in philosophy: the tendency to picture
the objective world as set over against a "conceptual scheme" that
has withdraw n into a kind of self-sufficiency. The fan tasy of a sphere
within which reason is in fuU auto nomous co ntrol is one element in
the complex aetio logy of th is dualism.2t Th e dualism yields a picture
in which th e realm of matter, which is, in so far as it impinges on us,
the Given, conf ronts the realm of forms, which is the realm of
thought, the realm in which subjectivity has its being. It is of course

19. Wright mmti Olls two further rnervarions (be5idcs the o ne I lkalt wit h in P . 17
above) about my wa y with sceptic ism ("F acts and Certainty", p. 444). The first is this:
"McDowell's proposal has . .. to be worked up into a demonstration that me sceptic actu -
ally has me epistemology o f the various kind s of propositions wrong. The mtre depiction
of more comforting altanatiycs is nor enough." I hope the prcsmt fonn ulatiorl of what I
was trying to gel: at makes it: dearer m at this c ririd sm misses me mark. My idea is th at
scepticism looks u rgent onl y in the context of a visibly d ubious assum ption, wh ich im-
poses a certa in shape on the space o f copistemol.lJSicaI possi bilities; so th at the sceptic does
indeed have the epistemology of the various kinds of ptopositions wrong. (But let me re-
mark tha t my move is no r well cut as an amwn to sceptical chal lengco&; it is mo re likco a
justifica tion of a refusal to bother wit h thcm. ) Wright's ot her rC'SCmuion is tha t "'liftin g'
the vcoil of perttption" ha s no obv io us bearing OIl a sty1r: of sceptical arg umcont coxemplified
by the a ttempt to undcnnine perceptual knowkdge, ce C'Yn\ perceptually grounded rea-
sonable belief, on the basis that at any rime at which one takes ooeself to hav e it, one lacks
sufficient reason to believco that o ne is not dreaming. But I should ha ve th ought the bea ring
w as quite o bvious. Only if the veil is suppl)SC'd to be in plac e can it seem that 00C' would
need to esta blish, oe equi p o neself with good reasoe to suppose, tha t one is not dr eam ing
bqon one can be entitled to ra ke cee's a pparent per cepdoes at face value. Ooce the veil is
lifted, things can be the other way round; o ne's good reason to believe one is nor drea m-
ing, 00 the rcolevant occasions, ca n reside in all the knowledge of the convironment rhar
OOC" s senses ar e yidding o ne--somet:hing that does not happen when one is d reaming, (See
Essay 1 I above , S5 ).
20 . I am q uiee u napologetic a bout th e imagery here . Blackbu rn 's de haut ell bas re-
marks abou t my spatial imagery for the: mental ("Knowledge, T ruth, a nd Reliability",
pp. I n -8 ) depend 00 a gross missing of iu point; see n. 15 above.
21. Another e1coment is the: temptation to push all facu wonhy o f the name in to an ob-
jectiyco mo ukl; the dualism resulu if we t ry to COlICeiVCO subject ivity in a n o bjectivistic way .
1" 1 mor e a bou t tN l in Essay I I a bove, and in " Functionalism an d Ano malo us Monism".
A third dement will emer ge at the end o f this essay (S8).
 Knowledge and the Internal 409

a second Sel1arsian idea that this picture is hopeless; it is the source

of the basic misconception of modern philosophy, the idea that the
task of philosophy is to bridge an ontological and epistemological
gulf across which the subjective and the objective are supposed to
face one another.P
This fuU-fledged dualism of subjective and objective-cor inner and
outer- is a good context in which to think about something I
pro mised to come back to: the insta bility of an epistemology in
which truth is external and reliability is internal.
When the dualism becomes full-fledged, it defeats itself. If we con-
ceive what we want to think of as the space of concepts, the realm of
thought, in a way that alienates it so radically from the merely mate-
rial that we seem to be faced with those familiar modern problems of
reconciling the subjective with the objective, we undermine our right
to think of it as the realm of thought at all. When we set it off so
radically from the objective world, we lose our right to think of
moves within the space we are picturing as content-involving. So we
Stop being able to picture it as the space of concepts. Everything goes
dark in the interior as we picture it.D
Now in the epistemological syndrome I have been discussing, the
aim is to set off the inner from the outer, but in a way that stops
short of that disastrous extinguishing of content. The idea is that the
outer injects content into the inner; the world affords us appear-
ances, and we thereby have dealings with content (it seems to us that
things are, or were, thus and so). Appearances ace starting-points
from which we can move abou t in the interior space, the space of
reasons, drawing inferences from them in ways reason can endorse,
for instance on the ground that a par ticular Inference exemplifies a
mode of arriving at beliefs that is reliable. But the instability I
pointed to, the separation of truth as external from reliability as in-
ternal, reveals that this attempt to stop short of disaster is hopeless.
If moves in the space of reasons are not allowed to stan from facts,
riskily accepted as such on the basis of such direct modes of cogni-
tive contact with them as perception and memory, then it becomes
unintelligible how our picture can be a picture of a space whose po-

22. FOI" an elaboration of this Sdlarsia n meme, see Richa rd Rony. Philowphy and tht
MirTor of Nahnt.
23. I tal k abo ut this in Essay 11 above.
410 I S SUES IN EPIS T EM OLO GY

sitions are co nnected by relations reason can exploit, such as that

o ne of them is a reliabl e ground for moving by inference to a nother.
If th e space of reasons as we find it is withdrawn from the o bjective
wor ld as it makes itself manifest to us, then it becom es unin telligible
how it can contain appearances, content-involving as th ey must be,
either. We are here in the vicinity of a third Sellarsian idea. that real-
ity is pri or, in the order of understanding, to appearance; I am dr aw -
ing the moral th at it ma kes no sense to suppose a space sufficiently
interiori zed to be insulated from specific manifest fact might never-
theless con tain appeara nces."

7. Th e conside rations 1 have offered suggest a way to respond to

scepticism ab out, fo r insta nce. perceptual knowl edge; the thing to do
is not to answer the scept ic's challenges, but to diagnose their seem-
ing urgency as deriving from a misguided inte ric rization of reason .
But at least one familiar form of scepticism is not o bviously withi n
reach of this move. At first appearance, at any rate, scepticism about
induction does not tum o n interiori zing the space of reasons. In con-
nect ion with inductive know ledge, we seem not to need an Argum ent
from Illusion to achieve the effect that the Argument from Illusion
achieves in the cases where sceptics do appe al to it : th e effect of fo-
cusing o ur attentio n o n a basis-a starting-point in the space of rea-
sons-that falls sho rt of the facts supposedly known.
24. H aving invoked Sellarsian id eas as a standing in the spac e o f reasom;
!he rejectio n of the Given, o r, w hat comn to the same thing. the reject ion o f a view of our
coecepeual scheme as what is set OYC'r aga inst the Given; a nd the priority of rta lity over
appear.llv;:e), I ooght to con fess thai I do not find in Sellars himself the dieect figuring o f
manifest faa in the space of reasons tha c l am "Empiricism and the Philo-
sophy o f M ind " , whic h is my sou rce for all three of the idea s I ha ve invoke d, co ntain s (in
§J 5 and ff .) a n acoount of the a uthority o f o bserva tional reports that ex presses a good
tho ugh..........mat the capacity to make obse rva tional repo rts cequilU genera l knowl edge o f
the world, even in casn as concq>tua lly unde ma ndi ng as saying wh at colou r something
iJ..---,in what S«I1\S to me a suspect way , in ter ms o f the subject's a bility to infer a judge-
ment about the world from her own rc kening (or pcopmsity to ward s a token ing) o f a n
o bserva tion al foem o f words. I am susp icioos o f th is avoida nce of d"" straightfo rward idea
tha c the au tho rity o f the report consists in tlMo, faa tha t things are manifest ly so. (That idea
is perfect ly consistmt with the good tho ught, nor a re lapse:into a form o f !he Myth o f the
Given .) Sellars 's acco unt rdkcu somr: s uch idea as this: rbe con ten t a n C'Xpressioo has by
virt ue o f iu role in language-entl')' propriet ies is non-coooeprual conte nt; coecepeual con-
lent COf'flC5 into pla y o n the basis of inferentia l p rop rieties . I th ink this view o f
language-eotry propric1ies is a vest ige o f a bad way of th inking. whic h the main themes o f
Sdlarsian phi losophy show us how to unde nnine. But this essay is no t meant as coetrnen-
tary on Sellars, and I shall nee ta ke these issues further bere.
 Knowledge and the Internal 411

With out trying a full treatment, I shall menti on a fourth Sellarsian

idea, whose effect is to bring inductive sceptic ism into the same
fram ework. Co nsider a characteristic Humean formulation of the
predicament that is supposed to invite inductive scepticism:
It may, therefore, a subject worthy of curiosity, to enquire what is
the nature of that evidence, which assures us of any . .. matter of fact,
beyond the present testimony of OU t senses ...15

If we are to take it seriously that what is in qu estion is testimony of

our senses. we must think in terms of something content-involving-
somethin g in which, say, colours figure as apparent properties of ob-
jects. A mere wash of chromatic sensation, not referred to a suppos-
edly perceived environment, could not co unt as testimony of our
senses. Now my fourth Sellarsian idea can be put like this: there can -
not be a predicament in which one is receiving testimon y from one's
senses but one has not yet tak en a ny inductive steps. To stay with the
experience of colour, whose simplicity presumably makes it maxi -
mally favourable to the co ntr ary view: colour experience's being tes-
tim ony of the senses depends on th e subject's already knowing a
great deal about, for instan ce, the effect of different sorts of illumi-
nation on colour a ppearances; and a subject could not know th at
without knowing a great deal. outside th e immediate deliverances of
th e senses. about the objective world and our cognitive access to it.
This makes for an easy extension to inductive scepticism of th e
epistemological move I have been recommending. The key th ought
so far has been that if we refuse to make sense of the idea of direct
openness to me manifest world, we undermine the idea of being in
the space of reasons at all, a nd hence th e idea of being in a position
to have thin gs appear to one a certa in wa y. There is no making sense
of perceptual appearances-e-the testimon y of one's senses-without
making sense of th e po ssibility that me objective world can be imme-
diately pr esent to the senses. Now Sellars's point about colour expe-
rience is a specific case of that point; th ere is no makin g sense of that
po ssibility unless one's conceptual space already embraces a world
with more to it than is immediately present to the senses. N othing
could be immediately pr esent to one's senses unless one already had
knowledge that goes beyond what is imm ediately present to the

25. An Enquiry Com:nning Human UruInsw nding S4.

412 I SS U ES IN E P IS T E MO L O G Y

senses. So th e supposed pred icament o f th e inductive sceptic is a fie-

tion. And the mistake is reall y th e same as the o ne I have a lrea dy dis-
cussed: th at we can make th e inward withdrawal that th e Argume nt
fro m Ulusion is supposed to com pel, but stop sho rt of extinguishing
content. It is superficial to object that an Argument from Illusion
does not typically figu re in recommendati ons of ind uctive scepticism.
Hume's formulati on can seem ( 0 descri be a pred icament o nly if one
does not th ink through the idea th at its subject a lready has the testi -
mony of th e senses. and this means th at scept icism about ind uction
ca n seem gripp ing o nly in co mb ination with a stra igh tforwardl y inte-
riorizing epistemo logy for perception.

8. There may be a temptation to object that the interiorization I

have been discussing cannot be a fantasy, as I have bee n suggesting it
is; it is simply a ver sion o f a perfectly intuitive th ought, a p iece o f
commo n sense, to th e effect th at th e mental is int ernal. If thi s int u-
itive th ought is ta ken anything like literally, it can seem to compel
th e conclusio n th at minds make contact with the external world
at an inter face, an d th en cognitive sta tes, with th eir factive na ture,
surely cannot but be composites of int erior and exterior circum-
stences." And a literal constr ual can be very tempting; after all, it is
unquestio nable that human beings do literally have insid es, and th at
th ey are partly occupied by complex m echanisms about whose oper-
ations we can in principle, and to so me extent in p ractice, do natural
science, in such a way as to accoun t in so me sense fo r behaviour-
the very thing th at appealing to th e mental w as supposed to do.
I ca nnot deal w ith thi s properly now; but I shall end by mention -
ing two reasons for d oubt about this line of o bjection.
First, th ere is a fami liar an d impres sive tr adition o f reflection
a bo ut common-sense psychology, according to wh ich th e po int of its
concepts lies in th eir provid ing a kind o f un derstandi ng o f perso ns
an d th eir doings th at is radically unlike the understanding that th e
natural sciences ca n yield. This tr adition's insigh ts are never ta ken
sufficientl y serio usly by people wh o sugges t "folk psyc ho logy" is a
p roto-theory o f th e ope ra tio ns of th o se internal mech anisms, to be
refined and perhaps wholl y superseded as we learn more about wh at
26. This is the basis of me denial, t"ommon in philosophy, that knowkdgc is a mental
state: see, e.g., A. J. Ayer, Tbe Probk m 0( pp. 14-26. (Compare also n. 11
above.)
 Knowledge and the Internal 413

goes on inside our heads. For instance, natural-scientific investiga-

tion of how what is literally internal controls behaviour would seek
theories whose power to explain would be proportional to their
power to predict. But folk-psychological concepts can express a kind
of understandin g of a person that seems to have little or no relation
to predictive power. And we do not find this kind of understanding
any the worse for that, at least until methodologically inclined peo-
ple try to put us on the defensive. If the understanding that common-
sense psychology yields is sui genetis, there is no reason to regard it
as a primitive version of the understanding promised by a theory of
inner mechanisms. The two sorts of understanding need not compete
for room to occupy.
Second, about the intuitive idea that the mental is internal . I sup-
pose this idea makes it natural. when we learn about advances in the
scientific understanding of how our behaviour is controlled by liter-
ally internal mechanisms, to suppose that that is what we must have
had some dim conception of all along. But I think this is a confusion.
At its most abstract, the content of the pre-theoretical notion of the
menta l as inner lies in such facts as that at least some mental states
and occurrences. unlike perceptible states of affairs, are "internal ac-
cusatives" to the consciousness of their subjects." But the character
of the notion comes out more concretely in the idea that one can
sometimes see what someone's mental state is by (as we say) looking
into her eyes. And this idea carries its nature on its face: it is a pic-
ture. a piece of imagery.2B (This is not something to be embar rassed
about .) It has nothing to do with the idiotic thought that one can
look through the eyes into the interior of a person's skull. There is
no comfort to be derived here, by way of a literal construal of a piece
of common sense. for the idea that the mental is withdrawn from di-
rect engagement with the world-the idea expressed by the differ-
ently figurative interiorizarion that has been my main target.
27. Thi s is haw it is wit h the mental sta r" and occurrences that arc most: congenial to
the norion of the ment al as inna. Th e idea of the mental is comp lex, and it can easil)'
spread to cove r stat" and occurrences of w hich this claim is n(lt true. But these ou tlicn do
not trigger the philoso phical moves th at focus on the idea of interiority.
28. At PhiloscphiuJ Inwstigatio'u 5423, the idea of things that go on in soeeoee fig-
ures as a pi«ure that Wingcnstein docs no t reject, thou gh he suggests there arc difficulties
in understa nding its app lication. Sec also 5427, on wan ting to know what is going on in
somconc's head: "The pictur e should be ta ken scriousl y." (8)' "se riously" here he c1earl),
docs noc mean "literally" .J