I. Interpretation of Kim Kihyeon
Kim Kihyeon views the debate between Foundationalists and Coherentists as Theory-dependence of the content of experience in his book 『The Contemporary Epistemology』.
Because this debate touches the core of Moderated Foundationalism, which means viewpoint that perceived belief about outside truth is justified by the content of experience, he is of importance to this debate.
Then what is the difference between Foundationalism and Coherentism? If the content of experience is theory-dependence, we accepted Coherentism which focuses on inserting the content of experience. Whereas if the content of experience is theory-independence, we accepted the Foundationalism which has a perceived belief as fundamental.
Here he would like to expand the theory-dependence of the content of experience to more a fundamental field of Epistemology. Therefore he exemplifies Müller-Lyer Illusion in relevant to experience science and theory-dependence of the content of experience.
He argues that Müller-Lyer Illusion reveals our content of experience is influenced by our background knowledge and it is an example of theory-dependence of the content of experience. Because our recognition system considered (a) as concave and (b) as convex, we judged (a) as longer than (b), which has a direct effect on our actual observation.
Ultimately, He criticized Foundationalists on Coherentists’ view, revealing the theory-dependence of the content of experience through Müller-Lyer Illusion.
II. Contradiction
However, although we have experience checking the same size of a line, we still view (a) longer than (b). This means the content of experience is independent of our background knowledge. Namely, although we know the same size of a line, it looks different.
At this time, we meet a problem that which one is faster case seemed different looking three-dimensionally or case of checking same sizes. An answer to this problem is founded by Molyneux’s Problem and Müller-Layer Illusion which a born-blind person undergoes.
Molyneux’s Problem shows born-blind children who opened their eyes can’t recognize three-dimensional shapes. Whereas they experience Müller-Lyer Illusion.
These experiments contradict his interpretation that there is a difference between the two-lines owing to our three-dimensional perception. And it also shows our content of experience is independent of our background knowledge because Müller-Layer Illusion could be going through void of sight experience.
Lastly, Fodor suggests the Modularity Thesis, which means that belief mechanism and content mechanism are evolved partly in need. So the former doesn’t affect the latter.
Reference
Kim Kihyeon (1998), The Contemporary Epistemology, Minumsa
Yoon Bosuk (2014), Modularity and Epistemology, Journal of The Society of philosophical studies 104
Fodor (1983), The Modularity of Mind, The MIT Press
Eric Dietrich & Chris Fields (2012), The role of the frame problem in Fodor’s modularity thesis: a case study of rationalist cognitive science, Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence
Fiona Macpherson & Clare Batty (2016), Redefining Illusion and Hallucination in Light of New Cases, Knowledge, and Mind
Han Woojin (2017), Molyneux’s Problem and the Müller-Layer Illusion, Philosophy of Science