Associative Inferential Transitions, or One Problem with Siegel’s Response Hypothesis

Abstract What is inference? This paper discusses a recent account that aims to answer this question—Susanna Siegel’s Response Hypothesis. The hallmark of inference, on Siegel’s account, is the epistemic dependence of a mental transition’s output state(s) on its input state(s). In this paper, I argue that some alleged non-inferential transitions exhibit the kind of epistemic dependence that Siegel’s account takes to be characteristic of inference. More precisely, I argue that some associative transitions exhibit this kind of epistemic dependence—a problematic conclusion, since Siegel takes inference and association to be mutually exclusive kinds of mental transitions. I then suggest a way out of this problem: to reject the assumption that association and inference are mutually exclusive. This may be considered a bold move, for associative transitions are often considered a paradigm example of non-inferential transitions. So, I end up discussing the motivation behind the move and arguing that it opens up an attractive niche for the development of some philosophical projects.