MONOTHEISM AND RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 223It might be that while it was not logically impossible that sensory
experience that provided evidence against (T) occur, certain features in
our world might serve always to prevent the occurrence of experiential
evidence against (T) – experiential evidence against (T) might be
empirically impossible. Then, if (K1) is true, Mary could in fact have no
sensory experience that provided evidence against (T) There is a tiger in
the garden and then her as-if-a-tiger-is-in-the-garden experience would
not provide evidence for that claim. Under that condition, let us say that
her apparent experiential evidence was empirically consumed. (Here, as
opposed to the discussion that led to (P3), everyone is in the state that
we assumed there that only Mary was in.) Of course (P5) is now to be
replaced by:
(P*) If a person S has an experience E which, if reliable, is a matter of
being aware of an experience-independently existing item X,
and E is not canceled or counterbalanced or compromised or
contradicted or confuted or logically consumed or empirically
consumed, then S’s having E is evidence that X exists.
There is something further to be noted about our application of (P)
here. Our interest is in experiential evidence regarding the existence of
things other than ourselves and our states. So our application of (P)
will be to experiences that, if reliable, are experiences of things other
than ourselves and our states – not because of any inherent limits in
(P*) but because it is experiences that at least seem to be of things other
than ourselves and our states that interest us here. Experiences that at
least seem to be of ourselves and our states will come up in the next
chapter.
Question 5: are all of these qualifications to (P)
necessary?
Perhaps so, perhaps not; exactly what is appropriate to add to something
like (P) is controversial. Some philosophers who have discussed a
principle very similar to (P) have thought it too strong. If it is, that is no
problem for our argument. Suppose religious experience is evidence if it
passes the test of applying (P) to it. Suppose also what is true is not
(P) but rather (P)-minus-X, where X is what makes (P) stronger than
it should be. Any experience that passes the test of having (P) applied
to it and still being evidence will also pass the test of having (P)-
minus-X applied to it and still being evidence.^4 It should be clear that