Perception First?

Heather Logue, like Williamson, investigates an analogy—in her case, an analogy between knowledge and perception. This chapter asks if knowledge is unanalysable, might also perception be? After all, the history of attempts to analyse the perceptual relation have been subject to counterexamples in such as way as to broadly mirror the track record of the post-Gettier literature. To the extent that the failure of the post-Gettier project motivates a knowledge-first approach, it is natural to wonder whether an analogous sort of failure to analyse (in a fashion that avoids counterexamples) the perceptual relation motivates a perception-first approach. However, this chapter argues that even if the perceptual relation turns out to be unanalysable, this does not necessarily mean that we should embrace a perception-first approach. Finally, it suggests that there might, nonetheless, be an alternative motivation for a perception-first approach.