The Experience Not Well Lost

According to Rorty, we can avoid the typical problems of traditional epistemology if we do not posit epistemological intermediaries between mind and world in order to explain empirical knowledge. In particular, one can do that if one considers perceptual experiences, not as mental states with representational content, but as causes of empirical beliefs. Accordingly, Rorty rejects any justificatory relation between experience and belief. Only beliefs can justify other beliefs. Experience has only a causal role in the acquisition of an empirical belief. In this article, I show how Rorty's resistance to attributing representational content to perceptual experience conspires against his attempt to overcome Cartesian epistemology.