Adieu BonJour: Getting Cognitive Possession of "Getting Cognitive Possession"

If I draw the attention of someone who is not a philosopher to a red patch and ask whether he sees something red will say that he does. If I explain to him the difference between red objects and red sensa, between red patches which are alleged to exist not merely in one's mind but in the world and red patches about which no such commitment is made, he will say that he certainly sees at least a red sensum. Asked how he knows he is seeing it, he will respond with a puzzled stare. If I insist on an answer he will say, in effect, that he understands the meaning of 'I (he himself) am (is) seeing a red patch' and understands the difference between seeing a red object and seeing a red sensum, but that he continues to have at least a red sensum in his visual consciousness and that that is sufficient to justify his belief that he is seeing it. If pressed further, he will want to know what more I could want, what further questions remain to be settled. In the first part of this paper I argue that Lawrence BonJour's coherence theory of how such empirical knowledge is acquired does not work. In the second part I argue that our man-in-the-street has neglected to mention a crucial intellectual operation which has in fact occurred—an operation quite different from anything proposed by BonJour—and that when this operation is identified and made explicit his account will prove to be correct. The argument will be neither foundational ist, in the usual sense of that term, nor coherentist. Nor will it appeal to language, "common sense," or pragmatic values.