Cognitive Penetration: Inference or Fabrication?

Cognitive penetrability refers to the possibility that perceptual experiences are
influenced by our beliefs, expectations, emotions, or other personal-level mental
states. In this paper, I focus on the epistemological implication of cognitive
penetration, and examine how, exactly, aetiologies matter to the justificatory power
of perceptual experiences. I examine a prominent theory, according to which some
cognitively penetrated perceptual experiences are like conclusions of bad
inferences. Whereas one version of this theory is psychologically implausible, the
other version has sceptical consequences. In the second half of the paper, I suggest
an alternative theory, drawing on recent empirical research on imagining-perception
interaction and the epistemology of imagining.