ABSTRACT
Epistemological disjunctivism is a view about the normative significance of our perceptual experiences. Although itself neutral on the nature of these experiences, it is commonly thought to smooth the way for metaphysical disjunctivism, the view that veridical and apparent perceptions are of radically different ontological kinds. John McDowell, for instance, is often taken to have argued from the former to the latter. The main aim of this chapter is to show that it isn’t a good idea to hold both forms of disjunctivism together, and a fortiori to move from the one to the other. The cornerstone of the argument is the claim that the conjunction of epistemological and metaphysical disjunctivism entails an implausible disjunctivism about motivating reasons for belief. The upshot is that friends of both forms of disjunctivism face a dilemma: if they think of the two views as logically independent, they shouldn’t hold both together; if they think of them as dependent, they shouldn’t hold either
