MONOTHEISM AND RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 219not have the proper phenomenological features to be direct evidence for at
least seeming to see a tiger. In sum: an experience is evidence that there is an
experience independently existing X only if having the experience is a matter
of at least seeming to be aware of an X.
Question 4: can’t such experiences go wrong in various ways?
Yes. If Mary is drinking a special Tiger Tea that always produces tiger-in-the-
garden hallucinations, it will appear to her that there is a tiger in her garden
whether there is one or not. This circumstance, let us say, will cancel the
evidential force of the experience relative to there being a tiger in the garden.
So we need to revise (P) via:
(P1) 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, then S’s having E gives S evidence that X exists.
If Mary knows that the tea she has been drinking has this feature, she is justified
in taking her evidence to have been cancelled.
Suppose that Mary has imbibed not the Tiger Tea that produces as-if-a-tiger-
in-the-garden perceptions, but Sometime Tiger Tea that produces such
perceptions on a more complex schedule. It never works if there is a tiger in the
garden. But if there is no tiger in the garden then it causes as-if-tiger-in-the-
garden perceptions a little more than half of the time. Once in a while, let us
assume, there is a tiger in a garden. Sometime Tiger Tea produces tiger
hallucinations exactly enough more than half so that the net result is that, taking
into account genuine perceptions, half of the time if one drinks Sometime Tiger
Tea one has an as-if-tiger-in-the-garden perception which corresponds to no
tiger. Then the situation is that Mary, in having her as-if-tiger-in-the-garden
experience, is exactly as likely as not to be seeing a real tiger, i.e., exactly as likely
as not not to be seeing a real tiger. Then she has no more experiential evidence in
favor of There is a tiger in the garden than there is against it. If she knows that
her tea has this effect, she is justified in drawing no inference from her at least
seeming to see a tiger to there being a tiger in the garden. Let us say that being
in these circumstances has the effect of counterbalancing the evidential force of
Mary’s experience, and revise (P1) accordingly:
(P2) 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, then S’s having E gives S
evidence that X exists.