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2013年1月27日

FORGIE, SWINBURNE & INTERPRETATION OF EXPERIENCE

Kai-man Kwan
        In his book The Existence of God, Richard Swinburne presents an argument from RE which utilizes an epistemological principle which is dubbed the Principle of Credulity:
(PC)     If it seems to me that x is present, then it is rational to believe that x is present unless there are special considerations to the contrary.

SB argues that it is a fundamental principle of rationality apart from which we cannot provide any noncircular justification of either ordinary perception or memory.  Then using this principle, SB formulates the following argument for the existence of God:
A) It seems to me that God is present.
B) There is no good reason to think either God is non-existent or not present.
C) Hence it is rational (at least for me) to believe that God is present.

        In this essay I would like to look at the criticisms of William Forgie.  He has written several articles on RE, especially mystical experience, & his general approach to experience & interpretation is markedly different from the PC.  In his 1986 article, he explicitly directs his criticisms against SB's argument.



Forgie Analysis of Experience & his Criticisms of Swinburne
        Forgie's discussion is confined to perception-like experience.  For such an experience, he thinks we can ask two different questions: "(a) is the experience veridical (genuine, accurate) or is it hallucinatory?" & "(b) assuming it is veridical what is its object, i.e., what is it a veridical experience, a perception, of?  Your visual experience may be entirely veridical, it may accurately "record" what is "out there" to be perceived, but you may be mistaken in your identification of its object." (1986, p.146)  "Answers to these two questions are independent of one another.  One can try to identify the object of his experience without knowing whether or not the experience is veridical.  Alternatively, one can try to decide whether his experience is veridical or hallucinatory without knowing what the object of the experience is" (1984, p.13).  To answer the second question, we need to ask another one first: "Suppose this experience is veridical & so constitutes an accurate perception of something X; then given only the phenomenological content of the experience itself, what would X have to be or what features would X have to have?"  In this way we can isolate the things which the content of an experience itself guarantees will be true of anything of which that experience could be an accurate perception- the "phenomenologically guaranteed" truths about the object of the experience.  "If one identifies or describes the object of an experience mentioning only phenomenologically guaranteed truths about that object, let us say he produces a "phenomenological" account or description of the experience." (1986, p.147)  Let us capture more formally Forgie's concept of phenomenological description of experience:
(A)       For some perception-like experience E, E is veridical.
(B)       E has a phenomenological content C.
(C)       E is of something X or something which is F.
Then (C) is a phenomenological description of E iff (C) is entailed by (A) & (B).
       An identification will normally not be a phenomenological account.  "It will typically rely both on the content of that experience & on various extra-experiential considerations, various beliefs or items of knowledge one already possesses"- one's "epistemic base" (1986, p.147).  In general, he thinks that no SE can be phenomenologically of an individual.  "Sense experiences are not phenomenologically of individuals, but at best only of things that appear in certain ways.  A visual experience, for example, is at best phenomenologically of something that looks a certain way.  And auditory or tactile experiences are at best phenomenologically of things that sound or feel certain ways.  But numerically distinct individuals can look the same, or sound or feel the same." (1984, p.17)  Similarly, causation, "regarded as something over & above mere sequence, does not seem to be "phenomenologically presentable." (1984, p.19)  Nor can agency.
        He illustrates his approach with the example of the twins, Tom Tibbetts & Tim Tibbetts.  Suppose you thought you were seeing Tom.  According to Forgie, this "experience is not phenomenologically of Tom ... for nothing in the content of the experience guarantees that its object is Tom Tibbetts as opposed to Tim Tibbetts, or for that matter any of a number of other things- a third "look-alike", an appropriately made-up dummy, or even a cleverly devised hologram- an accurate perception[1] of which could be phenomenologically indistinguishable from the experience in question." (1986, p.147)  This identification of the object of experience then has to base in part on one's epistemic base.  Forgie writes: "suppose I am looking over the fence with you.  I identify the object of my experience as Tim Tibbetts.  My identification is not, nor is it offered as, a phenomenological account of my experience.  It is based not only on the content of my experience but also on elements in my epistemic base, for example on my reasonable belief that anyone in that yard looking (in the comparative sense) like the young man I see is very probably either Tim or Tom, plus my knowledge that Tom is currently out of town.  Without these anxiliary resources my identification would normally be less specific- e.g., "I see one of the Tibbetts twins" or "I see a young man with blond hair & sandals"." (1986, pp.147-48)  The idea seems to be that the identification of the object of experience has to be inferred from the phenomenological description of the experience together with some auxiliary beliefs in one's epistemic base.  Hence for this identification to be justified, the auxiliary beliefs involved at least need to be reasonable in themselves & they really justify the above inference.  To defeat this identification, several ways are open to the critic (1986, pp.149-50):
a) to show that the identification is false;
b) to show that some auxiliary beliefs used are false;
c) to show that the auxiliary beliefs are not enough to justify the identification;
d) to show a stalemate: when some other experiences the same object but makes a conflicting identification & we have no way of resolving the conflict. 
        He then points out that, given his concept, acceptance of PC will commit us both to the prima facie veridicality of a perception-like experience & to the prima facie accuracy of the experient's identification of its object.  Hence we must also presume both that the auxiliary beliefs from the epistemic base are true & that they justify the identification.  He argues that it then follows that there are more possible "spoilers" (i.e. defeaters) than SB has identified.  He then suggests two spoilers for religious experiences (REs).
1) The Sceptical Challenge:
a) The judgment "this experience is of God" is always underdetermined by, or is never a phenomenological account of, the experience it reports.  No experience could be phenomenologically of God.  So the justification for the claim that an experience is of God can't come solely from the phenomenological content of the experience itself.  It will have to come in part from certain auxiliary beliefs in the percipient's epistemic base. (pp.154-5);
b) the God-experient has no good reason, beyond the content of his experience, for identifying its object as God, i.e., no auxiliary beliefs which are both plausible in themselves & justify that identification.  (It may be added that the identification derives mainly from his upbringing or tradition.)
c) So there is good inductive evidence for supposing that the identifications of the objects of the experiences of God as God are unjustified.


2) Even if we don't accept the sceptical view above, a spoiler is available "so long as we are merely familiar with the sceptical view ."(p.155)
a) "it would be utterly arbitrary to accord a presumption of truth only to auxiliary beliefs which actually enter into one's identification of the object of his experience but not to extend that presumption to all the other beliefs in his epistemic base.  Any of these beliefs could in principle be employed in identifying or describing the object of some experience.  When they are used they will enjoy a presumption of truth.  Why won't they also do so even when they are not in fact being so employed?"(p.155)
b) Assuming the PC, we must suppose
(T)       There is prima facie evidence that a God-experient's relevant auxiliary beliefs are true; &
(J)        They justify his identification of the object of his experience.
c) It would be arbitrary to accept T without assigning prima facie truth to any belief by any person- including the belief that J is false. Namely, the fact that "God-experiences occur is prima facie evidence that J is true, but the fact that Scholem, e.g., believes that J is false is prima facie evidence that J is false." (p.156)  (Scholem is a Jewish scholar on mysticism.)  Hence an epistemological stalemate results.  The PC does not seem to be able to settle anything.


Reply to Forgie
        There are many problems with Forgie's whole scheme.  It is terribly vague at many points & many of his terms are left undefined.  For example, what does he mean by the 'content of experience'?  Is this supposed to include the propositional content or not?  We have to bear in mind that this content is supposed to be prior to the identification of the object of the experience & also the phenomenological description of the experience.  Now Forgie takes it that "the content of sense experiences (SEs) & ... of mystical experiences is exhausted by their phehomenological content." (1984, p.27)  And "in a non-dream experience any relevant epistemic base is not thought of as something one possesses within that experience.  It is thought of instead as something extrinsic to that experience & so not part of its content at all. ...  It might be that at the very moment that one has a mystical experience he also suddenly acquires the conviction that its object is such & such.  But such a case is best described as one in which one has both a mystical experience & a sudden addition ... to his (extrinsic) epistemic base.  There is no reason to think one has an experience which includes "non-phenomenological" content." (1984, p.30, n.23)  But what then is meant by "phenomenological content"?  Forgie does not give explicit elucidation of this concept.  However, from the above comments, a reasonable guess is that Forgie intends to exclude all propositional element from the content of an experience.  In other words, an experience is individuated by its phenomenological, i.e. non-propositional, content alone.  Any propositional content then is extrinsic to any experience.  Now Forgie does not give us any clue as to how he intends to describe such content.  For example, we don't know whether he would approve of the sense-data language.  Perhaps the content is supposed to be described by how it looks or sounds or feels to the subject.  For example, when I look at a chair, I have a visual experience whose content is described by "it looks chairly to me."  Typically, this experience is accompanied by a conviction that "there is a chair" but this is just a belief suddenly added to my extrinsic epistemic base.  This belief is no part of the visual experience. 
        Now various problems arise in relation to such analysis of experience.  Firstly, if we take the word "phenomenological content" in the narrow sense, it may just mean "sensory content".  Forgie seems to take this interpretation.  However, if it is taken in the broad sense, it may mean "the characteristic of an experience which is accessible to one by introspection", i.e. that which is "on the surface".  Then the above characterization of the visual experience of the chair can be doubted.  Isn't it true that if we examine introspectively that experience, we would also be inclined to think "it seems (epistemically) to me I am seeing a chair" is also an integral part of the experience?  In this sense why can't it be part of the phenomenological (broad sense) content of the experience?  The awareness of the presence of the chair, though it might be illusory, seems also given[2] in the visual experience.  It should be noted that the adverbial description of the content of the experience can be understood in different ways.  "It looks chairly to me" can mean either
a) the sensory content of my present experience is similar to the sensory content of those experiences which are usually accompanied by my belief that "I am seeing a chair."  or
b) it seems (epistemically) that I am seeing a chair or
c) both (a) & (b). 
        Clearly (b) consists of propositional content & hence on Forgie's account can't be part of the content of that experience.  So for Forgie, "it looks chairly to me" can only mean (a) or something similar.  Now a problem arises: Forgie proposes that we can separate the question of veridicality & the question of the object of the experience.  The problem is: given his understanding of the content of experience, what is meant by "an experience being veridical"?  It can't be a matter of the truth of the propositional content because the latter, according to Forgie, isn't part of the experience at all.  It is a pity that Forgie again gives no explicit elucidation of this concept.  I again can only guess.  "An experience being veridical" can't be just the matter of the sensory content being caused by something external to the person because this understanding would render veridical the experiences caused solely by the evil demon.  Perhaps for Forgie, an experience is veridical if & only if the content of that experience accurately records this something.  Now the problem is: what is meant by this "accurate recording"?  This cannot be the correspondence of a proposition to a fact.   Perhaps it means that the sensory content is accurately recording the appearance of that something.  But does a thing has an appearance intrinsically?  It seems not.  The appearance of a thing depends on all sorts of things: the nature of the thing, the perceptual conditions, the sensory modality used, the perceptual equipment & so on.  "What is the appearance of a thing?" does not admit of any objective & non-relative answer.  For all we know, when I have a veridical experience, in Forgie's sense, of "it looks chairly to me", this may be of any number of things.  This concept of 'veridicality' is very puzzling & it is difficult to see how one can decide whether any experience is veridical. 
        Suppose we waive these misgivings.  Another problem is that how we actually proceed to identify the object & justify the identification.  Forgie thinks that to do this normally we need to depend on auxiliary beliefs which are true & justifying.  Now how do we identify the object of my experience "it looks chairly to me"?  From the phenomenological description, we only know that the object of experience is something which looks chairly to me.  But again this notion of "something that looks chairly to me" is again a difficult one.  If it is construed as the object which causes me to have an experience which can be described as "it looks chairly to me", then it might even be the evil demon or the evil scientist.  Perhaps Forgie's way out is to argue that the sensory content has an intrinsic structure, e.g. shape which can correspond or fail to correspond with that of the object of experience.  In this way he might try to anchor his cpt of 'veridicality'.  For example, if the sensory content consists of a round appearance & the object of experience is also round, then this exemplifies the 'accurate recording' relationship.  However it is dubious that this strategy can work.  Forgie states that the phenomenological description of a visual experience is at best "of something looks in certain ways".  Well, the crucial word "something" here is ambiguous.  It may mean some sort of physical entity but it may also mean some mental entities which do not need to be mind-independent, e.g. sense-data.  As long as there is no stipulation that this "something" has to be physical, then the traditional account of sense-data can also satisfy Forgie's requirement of a phenomenological account.  If it is the case then the identification of any physical thing depends on auxiliary beliefs & the familiar sceptical questions inevitably raise their ugly heads. 
        Consider his example: there are two identical twins, Tom Tibbetts & Tim Tibbetts.  Suppose I saw a person & think "I saw Tom Tibbetts".  According to Forgie, this judgment "is not a phenomenological account of my visual experience, but I may well have auxiliary beliefs which make it entirely plausible." (1986, p.153)  I do not dispute this distinction as such but just wonder where does this lead.  In this example, what is the phenomenological description?  Try this one: "I saw a person who looks exactly like Tom or Tim."  However did the content of the experience guarantee that the person I saw is exactly like Tom or Tim?  No.  I suppose Tom or Tim has a backside but I didn't see the backside.  So some auxiliary beliefs here.  Hang on.  Did the content of the experience guarantee I saw a person?  I suppose a person can think, feel, act, etc.  But I saw none of these!  So again auxiliary beliefs here.  One of this may be: "When I saw a humanoid, it probably was a person."  But it is not the end: did I see a body which exists independently & endures?  Not really, I only saw some color patches in a visual space.  So again some auxiliary assumptions.  But did I really see a particular color patch, i.e., did the content of the experience guarantee that I recognized correctly that particular color?  What is the end of this kind of query?  How could we justify the myriad of auxiliary beliefs mentioned above?  It is difficult to avoid in the end falling into the "sceptical bog", I think.  It does not seem to be the case only because Forgie's examples draw on a lot of auxiliary beliefs which look innocent & he doesn't pursue his own approach thoroughly enough.  However, if we really adopt his approach, then those auxiliary beliefs themselves can hardly be justified.  For example, Forgie gives these examples of auxiliary beliefs: " my reasonable belief that anyone in that yard looking (in the comparative sense) like the young man I see is very probably either Tim or Tom" & "my knowledge that Tom is currently out of town".  These we all naturally take to be non-problematic but it is not so on Forgie's account.  If in this case, identification of Tim is so complicated, how then he gains the knowledge that Tom is out of town?  This knowledge presupposes the correct identification of Tom & the town.  I would think no phenomenological description can be of such things & such identifications need to be inferred from some other auxiliary beliefs.  But presumably those beliefs would depend on other experiences & the same problem occurs once again & so on ad infinitum.  The consequence is that the most ordinary identification cannot be made at all.  This can be regarded as the reductio of his scheme. 
        Perhaps Forgie can respond to this problem by such a stipulation of the meaning of 'veridicality':
(D)       A perception-like experience E is veridical iff its phenomenological content C accurately records some physical thing which causes appropriately E.
Then in this case (A), (B) & (D) would entail
(E)       E is of something physical.
Hence (E) is a phenomenological description of E.  Now it looks that this stipulation is very artificial & ad hoc.  This definition would rule any veridical perception of non-physical thing out of court just by fiat.  Also we notice that (B) is idle here, i.e., the phenomenological content C of the experience has nothing to do with why E is of something physical.  As far as I can see, the phenomenological description should not include "an experience of something physical" since it is clearly propositional.  Hence E is phenomenologically indistinguishable from another non-veridical, according to the new stipulation, experience E' of something non-physical which have same content C.  Now Forgie's general strategy is that if two identifications of an experience cannot be arbitrated by considering the phenomenological content alone, then one or the other has to be justified by auxiliary beliefs.  Now if I think I have an veridical experience E & then I realize that E is phenomenologically indistinguishable from a corresponding non-veridical experience E', in accordance with Forgie's strategy, shouldn't I appeal to other auxiliary beliefs to justify my claim of veridicality?  Again the sceptical problem arises.  It can be noted that this demand is rejected by the Credulity Approach & hence in the end Forgie's approach is incompatible with the Credulity Approach.  Forgie raised his 'spoilers' by assuming that the PC is valid.  But then he proceeds with his own analysis of experience & epistemological principles which are not really compatible with the PC.  So his way of interpreting his objections seems  confused. 
        Now of course Forgie can press his objections by elaborating his own epistemological approach to experience & criticizing the Credulity Approach.  He has not done the latter.  As for the former, I have tried to argue above that Forgie's crucial concepts of 'veridicality' & 'phenomenological description' are very obscure & they naturally lead to awkward sceptical questions.  Without further elucidation, I doubt that his whole scheme can be put to work at all.  If this is the case, then his suggested spoilers which depend on such scheme also fail. 

CTA's Analysis of experience
        In contrast the CTA individuates an experience both by its propositional content & non-propositional content.  They can in principle be distinguishable but in our actual experiences, they are sometimes hardly separable.  In our basic experiences, the former is fused with the latter.  This means that by introspection we judge that if the propositional content were removed, then the whole phenomenology of that experience would be drastically changed.  It is a hopeless strategy to separate the two in dealing with experiences & especially their epistemic status.  Of course there is no intention to suggest that interpretive experiences never occur.  By these I mean those experiences which have some propositional content that can be removed without much effect on the phenomenology of the experience.  In this case, this propositional content can be regarded as an interpretation of the core experience.  However, it is to be noted that normally the core experience by no means contains no propositional content, just less.  This should be clear from the Tibbetts case discussed above.  Consider Forgie's less specific identification: "I see a young man with blond hair & sandals".  It is as propositional as the more specific one. 
        If this account is correct, then we can see more clearly why Forgie's objections fail.  I have argued that phenomenological content (broad sense) may include some propositional content[3].  If so then the phenomenological content of a theistic experience may include "it seems to be of God".  Then the first premise of his objection is falsified.  It is apt to quote Peter Moore here:  "Mystical experience is often treated as if it consisted of mental images which are then made the basis for unwarranted & unverifiable inferences concerning the existence of entities or realities not themselves the immediate objects of the experience.  Not only does this kind of analysis not ring true when we turn to examine the writings of the mystics themselves; in addition it invents a difficulty for mystical claims where none exists, or at least raises objections which have no more force in the context of mysticism than in non-mystical contexts.  To adduce universal problems of perception as the grounds for doubting the validity of the mystical claim in particular is a case of playing the same card twice over"(quoted by Taber, p.59, n.38) 
       
        Similarly the use of PC does not presuppose that any auxiliary beliefs are used to identify the object.  Furthermore it just applies to the actual epistemic seemings embedded in the experiences.  It does not apply to all merely possible epistemic seemings.  Even if we concede Forgie's scheme, there is still no reason why the PC has to apply to every possible auxiliary belief.  Forgie's second criticism effectively charges that the PC would lead to negative coherentism.  In earlier chapter I have resisted this move.  The auxiliary beliefs which are involved in experiences do indeed have an important difference from those which are not: they are covered by the PC in so far as they are embedded in our actual experiences.  There is no reason to think that the PC should cover any belief of any person.  The belief of Scholem that J is false is obviously an inferential judgment.  So the PC does not cover this & the alleged stalemate is non-existent.  So Forgie's second criticism again fails. 
        However despite Forgie's confusions, his discussions do raise some important problems.  At least we may still feel that without further support my identification of the person on the other side of the fence as Tom rather than Tim is unjustified.  This intuition needs to be accounted for in the framework of the PC. 
        Taking Forgie's example.  If I say to you I saw Tom, you can ask me how I can be sure it is not Tim.  I may on reflection discover that I really couldn't distinguish Tom or Tim & the identification is extrinsic to the experience.  Then I can retract my original interpretation & retreat to a less committed one.  I guess most of us would do that.  This retraction would suffice as a defeater of the original experience & this in no way contradicts the PC.  This is based on the subject's reflection on his own experience & discovery that his identification is entirely based on his perception of the physical appearance.  Furthermore, he recognizes that an undermining defeater is available in this case.  Hence the retraction.  Now it is very important to point out that the ground for retraction is not a sheer possibility of a defeater but the actual availability of the defeater: we do not just hypothesize about a twin of Tom but we know that Tom has a twin.  It would be very different from the following case: now suppose you came to know John  & then saw 'John' the next day.  Then suddenly you 'realized' that it is possible that John has an identical twin Jones & you cannot actually distinguish ./. John & Jones.  So you retract your identification.  Now some philosophers indeed would recommend such a procedure.  They & Forgie seem to operate with such a principle:
Whenever an experience can be decomposed into a core experience & a upper layer of interpretation, then a possible alternative interpretation of the core experience is a defeater of the original interpretation.
Now this principle, I submit, would only lead us to the sceptical bog.  If so, to defeat scepticism, we need another principle:
A spontaneous interpretation embedded in an experience is not defeated by the mere possibility of an alternative interpretation.
If this principle is a sounder one, then Forgie's counterexample fails.

        However it might also be the case that I am convinced that I really saw Tom & I thought I can distinguish them though I can't say how, i.e. I have a basic or direct awareness of Tom rather than an inferential judgment that Tom is there.  It is possibly justified because if I know them well, I might be able to distinguish them by their subtle behaviour patterns & the like.  However the way Forgie sets up his example tends to make it look unlikely.  Perhaps it could also be claimed that it is a direct intuition into their personal identity, say, by telepathy.  Such a claim is not impossible.  We can't prove in every case of recognition that we have the capacity to recognize that kind of thing, e.g. a face, a color, a necessary truth, a memory as a record of past.  However, if the above example is interpreted in this way, Forgie has chosen a capacity which from our past experiences we know to be dubious & uncommon.  The reason for you to challenge my description is then not that it is not phenomenological but that if my claim is correct, it would imply that I have a certain ability which you have reasons to think dubious.  So on both this interpretation & the earlier one, the example does not demonstrate that my claim deserves no initial credulity: the claim is not justified because the initial credulity is defeated & this is consistent with the PC. 
        So although Forgie's distinction between the phenomenological description & the auxiliary beliefs is rejected, the CTA still allows the distinction between a less ramified description of an experience & a more ramified description.  It is only made when defeaters are available.  Then re-interpretation is needed & a less ramified description of the content of the experience is used instead.   This possibility allows us to deal with the unjustified over-interpretive experiences.  By assuming the PC, we have rough knowledge of our world & this can serve as a check on the reliability of our experiences.  Then it might be discovered that a certain type of interpretations, even if they are spontaneous, are typically unreliable.  In this way we decide which sorts of interpretive experiences are unjustified over-interpretations & which aren't.  For example, though our experience are never phenomenologically (in Forgie's sense) of individuals, in our actual lives we frequently make identification of individuals by a single experience.  This is not found to be reliable & we continue to rely on such identifications.  However, some of us find out that if we rely on our visual experience alone, our identification of twins could well be mistaken.  By such inductive evidence we conclude that the above sort of identification is unreliable & hence any token of that sort is thrown into doubt automatically.  This is taken into granted by us when we come to Forgie's examples & this is what renders his analysis plausible.  His error is to generalize his analysis.  My contention is that the PC is the more fundamental principle but then the first order application of the PC may produce a second order critical principle in certain cases, e.g. in over-interpretive experiences. 

Similarly, it is by the first order employment of the PC that we can decide what conditions are conducive to hallucinations or illusions & then formulate the corresponding critical principles, e.g. "any unusual perceptual claim of a heavily drunk person has to be treated with initial scepticism."  (The above principle is useless if we can't rely on our SEs to find out who is heavily drunk.)  The PC is compatible with such second order critical principles which typically have limited scope.  Any generalization of these would be disastrous.


Conclusion
Forgie’s criticisms of Swinburne are not successful.

Reference
Corcoran, Kevin. 1998.  "Is Theistic Experience Phenomenologically Possible?"  Religious Studies 32:449-61.
Forgie, William. 1984.  "Theistic Experience & the Doctrine of Unanimity."  International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 15:13-30.
Forgie, William. 1988. "The Principle of Credulity and the Evidential Value of Religious Experience." International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 19:145-159.
Forgie, William. 1994.  "Pike's Mystic Union & the Possibility of Theistic Experience."  Religious Studies 30:231-42.
Forgie, William. 1998.  "The Possibility of Theistic Experience."  Religious Studies 34:317-23.
Pike, Nelson. 1992.  Mystic Union- An Essay in the Phenomenology of Mysticism.  Ithaca: Cornell University Press.




NOTES
"my view t/ for an expp to be phenomenologically of N (or an X) it would have to, if eridical, constitute a perception  of N (or an X) instead of something else that could appear just the same.  If an expp could constitute a veridical of something other than N then it is not phenomenologically of N" (Forgie 1998, p.322)

This is "best understood as stating a criterion which attempts to capture what is meant when someone says that an expp is phenomenologically of this or that.  More specifically, it attempts to cpature what philosophers like W. T. Stace & Ninian Smart have in mind when they maintain, in opposition, e.g. to R. C. Zaehner, that claims by mystics t/ this or t/ expp is an expp of God are never warranted merely by the phenomenological content of the expp in question (i.e. are not phenomenologically of God), but instead 'interpretations' which reflect the reliance on extra-experiential  background beliefs.  There is no doubt that someone could offer another account of what is emant by the claim t/ an expp is phenomenologically of such & such.  There is also no doubt that on some such alternative account, expps could be phenomenologically of inividuals (or kinds of things), & in particular phenomenologically of God.... need to show that that account better captures the notion t/ is at the centre of the disputes ./. Smart & Stace on the one side & Zaehner & other on the other" (Forgie 1998, p.323).



[1] Note here Forgie's use of the words "accurate perception" is idiosyncratic: when I thought I was seeing Tom & it was actually a dummy, the experience is still an 'accurate perception'.  I'll explore later what it means.
[2] My use of this word "given" should be dissociated from the use by the classical foundationalists.  It has no implications of incorrigibility or infallibility or the like.
[3] If someone is unhappy with my use of the words 'phenomenological content', then he can read me as saying that the intrinsic content of an experience includes both phenomenological content & propositional content.  It doesn't affect my argument.