Begins by explaining then proving a generalized language dependence result similar to Goodman's "grue" problem. I then use this result to cast doubt on the existence of an objective evidential favoring relation (such as "the evidence confirms one hypothesis over another," "the evidence provides more reason to believe one hypothesis over the other," "the evidence justifies one hypothesis over the other," etc.). Once we understand what language dependence tells us about evidential favoring, our options are an implausibly strong conception of (...) the a priori, a hard externalism on which agents are unable to determine what their evidence favors, or a subjectivist view that makes evidential favoring relative to features of the agent. (shrink)

What are intuitions? According to doxastic views, they are doxastic attitudes or dispositions, such as judgments or inclinations to make judgments. According to perceptualist views, they are—like perceptual experiences—pre-doxastic experiences that—unlike perceptual experiences—represent abstract matters as being a certain way. In this paper I argue against doxasticism and in favor of perceptualism. I describe two features that militate against doxasticist views of perception itself: perception is belief-independent and perception is presentational. Then I argue that intuitions also have both features. The (...) upshot is that intuitions are importantly similar to perceptual experiences, and so should not be identified with doxastic attitudes or dispositions. I consider a popular argument from the introspective absence of sui generis intuition experiences in favor of doxasticism. I develop a conception of intuition experiences that helps to defuse this argument. (shrink)

It is natural to think that many of our beliefs are rational because they are based on seemings, or on the way things seem. This is especially clear in the case of perception. Many of our mathematical, moral, and memory beliefs also appear to be based on seemings. In each of these cases, it is natural to think that our beliefs are not only based on a seeming, but also that they are rationally based on these seemings—at least assuming there (...) is no relevant counterevidence. This piece is an introduction to a volume dedicated to the question of what the connection is between seemings and justified belief: under what conditions, if any, can a seeming justify its content? (shrink)

The chapter discusses the issue of how we may achieve knowledge of essence. It offers a critical survey of the main theories of knowledge of essence that have been proposed within contemporary debates, particularly by Lowe, Hale, Oderberg, Elder, and Kment.

In this thesis I seek to advance our understanding of what intuitions are. I argue that intuitions are experiences of a certain kind. In particular, they are experiences with representational content, and with a certain phenomenal character. -/- In Chapter 1 I identify our target and provide some important reliminaries. Intuitions are mental states, but which ones? Giving examples helps: a person has an intuition when it seems to her that torturing the innocent is wrong, or that if something is (...) red it is coloured. We can also provide an initial characterisation of the state by saying that it has representational content, often causes belief, and appears to justify belief. In addition, there is something it is like to have an intuition: intuition has a certain phenomenal character. -/- Some argue that intuition does not explain anything which cannot be explained by other mental states. One version of this view takes intuition to reduce to belief. In Chapter 2 I argue that this entails that agents are rationally criticisable in situations where we know they are not, and that such views are therefore untenable. A parallel argument shows that the corresponding approach to perception fails. This suggests a similarity in nature: both intuition and perception are experiences. -/- Others take intuition to reduce to a disposition to have a belief. In Chapter 3 I consider a line of argument against such views, find it unsuccessful, and present two new arguments. One is likely to be dialectically ineffective. The other suffers no such weakness: it shows that the proposed reduction fails. As before, the argument also applies to perception, and suggests that intuition and perception are both experiences. -/- In the remainder of the thesis I develop an account of intuition as an experience. I distinguish between content-specific and attitude-specific phenomenology, and argue that intuition lacks the former (Chapter 4), but has the latter (Chapter 5). This allows us to say what intuition is: it is is an experience with representational content and with attitude-specific phenomenology of a certain kind. -/- In Chapter 6 I put this account of intuition to use. When a person has a perceptual or intuitional experience, I argue that simply having the experience is what makes the subject justified in believing what the experience represents. Moreover, what explains that intuition and perception can justify belief in this way is precisely their phenomenal character. (shrink)

This work investigates intuitions' nature, demonstrating how philosophers can best use them in epistemology. First, the author considers several paradigmatic thought experiments in epistemology that depict the appeal to intuition. He then argues that the nature of thought experiment-generated intuitions is not best explained by an a priori Platonism. Second, the book instead develops and argues for a thin conception of epistemic intuitions. The account maintains that intuition is neither a priori nor a posteriori but multi-dimensional. It is an intentional (...) but non-propositional mental state that is also non-conceptual and non-phenomenal in nature. Moreover, this state is individuated by its progenitor, namely, the relevant thought experiment. Third, the author provides an argument for the evidential status of intuitions based on the correct account of the nature of epistemic intuition. The suggestion is the fitting-ness approach: intuition alone has no epistemic status. Rather, intuition has evidentiary value as long as it fits well with other pieces into a whole, namely, the pertinent thought experiment. Finally, the book addresses the key challenges raised by supporters of anti-centrality, according to which philosophers do not regard intuition as central evidence in philosophy. To that end, the author responds to them, showing that they fail to affect the account of intuition developed in this book. This text appeals to students and researchers working in epistemology. (shrink)

I lay out the framework for my theory of sensory imagination in “Imagining as a guide to possibility.” Sensory imagining involves mental imagery , and crucially, in describing the content of imagining, I distinguish between qualitative content and assigned content. Qualitative content derives from the mental image itself; for visual imaginings, it is what is “pictured.” For example, visually imagine the Philadelphia Eagles defeating the Pittsburgh Steelers to win their first Super Bowl. You picture the greenness of the field and (...) the football’s brown oblong shape. Some of what you imagine isn’t explicitly pictured, however. That it is Sunday, that it is the Super Bowl: these facts are assigned. (shrink)

Classical acquaintance theory is any version of classical foundationalism that appeals to acquaintance in order to account for non-inferential justification. Such theories are well suited to account for a kind of infallible non-inferential justification. Why am I justified in believing that I’m in pain? An initially attractive (partial) answer is that I’m acquainted with my pain. But since I can’t be acquainted with what isn’t there, acquaintance with my pain guarantees that I’m in pain. What’s less clear is whether, given (...) classical acquaintance theory, it’s possible to have non-inferential justification to believe something false. Classical acquaintance theorists try to make room for such a possibility, but I argue that the attempts of Richard Fumerton, Ali Hasan, and Evan Fales are inadequate. I’ll focus on introspective justification, but similar issues arise for a priori justification as well. (shrink)

Advocates of the use of intuitions in philosophy argue that they are treated as evidence because they are evidential. Their opponents agree that they are treated as evidence, but argue that they should not be so used, since they are the wrong kinds of things. In contrast to both, we argue that, despite appearances, intuitions are not treated as evidence in philosophy whether or not they should be. Our positive account is that intuitions are a subclass of inclinations to believe. (...) Our thesis explains why intuitions play a role in persuasion and inquiry, without conceding that they are evidential. The account also makes predictions about the structure of intuitions that are confirmed by independent arguments. (shrink)

Intuition is sometimes derided as an abstruse or esoteric phenomenon akin to crystal-ball gazing. Such derision appears to be fuelled primarily by the suggestion, evidently endorsed by traditional rationalists such as Plato and Descartes, that intuition is a kind of direct, immediate apprehension akin to perception. This paper suggests that although the perceptual analogy has often been dismissed as encouraging a theoretically useless metaphor, a quasi-perceptualist view of intuition may enable rationalists to begin to meet the challenge of supplying a (...) theoretically satisfying treatment of their favoured epistemic source. It is argued, first, that intuitions and perceptual experiences are at a certain level of abstraction the same type of mental state, presentations, which are distinct from beliefs, hunches, inclinations, attractions, and seemings. The notion of a presentation is given a positive explication, which identifies its characteristic features, accounts for several of its substantive psychological roles, and systematically locates it in a threefold division among types of contentful states. Subsequently, it is argued that presentations, intuitive no less than sensory, are by their nature poised to play a distinctive epistemic role. Specifically, in the case of intuition, we encounter an intellectual state that is so structured as to provide justification without requiring justification in turn—something which may, thus, be thought of as ‘given’. (shrink)

My purpose in this paper is to examine the role of intuition in conceptual analysis and to assess whether that role can be parlayed into a plausible defense of a priori knowledge. The focus of my investigation is George Bealer’s attempt to provide such a defense. I argue that Bealer’s account of intuition and its evidential status faces three problems. I go on to examine the two primary arguments that Bealer offers against empiricism: the Starting Points Argument and the Argument (...) from Epistemic Norms. I argue that the Starting Points Argument fails because Bealer fails to show that intuitions are a priori evidence and that the Argument from Epistemic Norms fails because it is open to the Stalemate Problem. I conclude by offering an alternative approach to defending the a priori status of intuitions that avoids the Stalemate Problem. The alternative approach highlights the role of empirical investigation in defending the a priori. (shrink)

A selective annotated bibliography of recent literature on a priori knowledge.

This chapter assumes that intuitions must play a central role in explaining a priori justification and looks at the conditions under which they would be able to do so. It argues that if an appeal to intuitions is to help, they must provide epistemological resources that go beyond those provided by explanations in terms of epistemological analyticity (appeals to conceptual understanding). Accounts, like Ernest Sosa’s, which reduce intuitions to attractions to assent, and which give the understanding an indispensable role in (...) explaining the justificatory powers of such attractions, are unable to provide such a resource. As a result, such accounts must be rejected. Towards the end of the chapter, an alternative account of these issues is briefly presented, one that seems to the author to hold greater promise. (shrink)

Approaching Infinity addresses seventeen paradoxes of the infinite, most of which have no generally accepted solutions. The book addresses these paradoxes using a new theory of infinity, which entails that an infinite series is uncompletable when it requires something to possess an infinite intensive magnitude. Along the way, the author addresses the nature of numbers, sets, geometric points, and related matters. The book addresses the need for a theory of infinity, and reviews both old and new theories of infinity. It (...) discussing the purposes of studying infinity and the troubles with traditional approaches to the problem, and concludes by offering a solution to some existing paradoxes. (shrink)

Skepticism about the epistemic value of intuition in theoretical and philosophical inquiry has recently been bolstered by empirical research suggesting that people’s concrete-case intuitions are vulnerable to irrational biases (e.g., the order effect). What is more, skeptics argue that we have no way to ‘‘calibrate” our intuitions against these biases and no way of anticipating intuitional instability. This paper challenges the skeptical position, introducing data from two studies that suggest not only that people’s concrete-case intuitions are often stable, but also (...) that people have introspective awareness of this stability, providing a promising means by which to assess the epistemic value of our intuitions. (shrink)

In his Experiments in Ethics, Appiah focuses mostly on the dimension of naturalism as a naturalism of deprivation - naturalism’s apparent robbing us of aspects of the world that we had held dear. The aim of this paper is to remind him of that naturalism has a dimension of plenitude as well - its capacity to enrich our conception of the world as well. With regard to character, we argue that scientific psychology can help provide a conception of character as (...) dynamic, in a way that may preserve many key aspects of eudaimonistic ethics from the situationists’ challenge. With regard to intuition, we address Appiah’s worry that naturalistic explanations of the sources of our intuitions may leave us feeling that those intuitions have been thereby debunked. We suggest that it may be that feeling of debunking that should itself be debunked. (shrink)

I give a brief overview of Albert Casullo’s Essays on A Priori Knowledge and Justification (2012), followed by a summary of his diagnostic framework for evaluating accounts of a priori knowledge and a priori justification. I then discuss Casullo’s strategy for countering deficiency arguments against empiricism. A deficiency argument against empiricism can be countered by mounting a parallel argument against moderate rationalism that shows moderate rationalism to be defective in a similar way. I argue that a particular deficiency argument put (...) forth by George Bealer in “The Incoherence of Empiricism” (1992) can withstand a parallel challenge mounted by Casullo (2012, Ch.6). -/- I then consider Casullo’s preferred analysis of the concept of a priori justification, which identifies a belief’s being justified by some nonexperiential source as the feature by virtue of which it is justified a priori. On the analysis, an apriori-justfied belief that is justified to a degree that is sufficient for knowledge is not taken to be empirically indefeasible. I argue that Casullo could avail himself of an empirical indefeasibility requirement that is consistent with his minimal and fallibilist conception of a priori knowledge. Doing so would capture a feature of the concept of a priori knowledge that is of particular interest and significance. (shrink)

I give a brief overview of Albert Casullo’s Essays on A Priori Knowledge and Justification, followed by a summary of his diagnostic framework for evaluating accounts of a priori knowledge and a priori justification. I then discuss Casullo’s strategy for countering deficiency arguments against empiricism. A deficiency argument against empiricism can be countered by mounting a parallel argument against moderate rationalism that shows moderate rationalism to be defective in a similar way. I argue that a particular deficiency argument put forth (...) by George Bealer in “The Incoherence of Empiricism” can withstand a parallel challenge mounted by Casullo.I then consider Casullo’s preferred analysis of the concept of a priori justification, which identifies a belief’s being justified by some nonexperiential source as the feature by virtue of which it is justified a priori. On the analysis, an apriori-justfied belief that is justified to a degree that is sufficient for knowledge is not taken to be empirically indefeasible. I argue that Casullo could avail himself of an empirical indefeasibility requirement that is consistent with his minimal and fallibilist conception of a priori knowledge. Doing so would capture a feature of the concept of a priori knowledge that is of particular interest and significance. (shrink)

Some experimental philosophers have criticized the standard intuition-based methodology in philosophy. One worry about this criticism is that it is just another version of the general skepticism toward the evidential efficacy of intuition, and is thereby subject to the same difficulties. In response, Weinberg provides a more nuanced version of the criticism by targeting merely the philosophical use of intuition. I contend that, though Weinberg’s approach differs from general skepticism about intuition, its focus on philosophical practices gives rise to a (...) new difficulty. Most extant experimental surveys investigate intuitions about particular cases through vignettes giving little contextual information. However, philosophical practices crucially depend on intuitions about general claims and typically provide more contextual background. I argue that, due to these two differences between surveys’ and philosophers’ appeals to intuition, Weinberg’s critique lacks enough support from current experimental data. I conclude that experimental philosophers who engage in the negative program should pay more attention on testing philosophers’ use of general intuitions and context-rich intuitions. (shrink)

In the Meno, Phaedo, and Phaedrus, Plato outlines the controversial thesis of a priori knowledge that all learning is a form of recollection—anamnesis. He uses this as an argument for the immortality of the soul via reincarnation. Because of this latter claim, the thesis is widely mocked by contemporary evolutionarily-informed materialists. But we can safely reject the metaphysical claim without abandoning the insight of the epistemological one. And indeed, modern evolutionary theory can explain how learning—at least of the sort that (...) depends on certain a priori concepts—can be a kind of recollection. Through this metaphor, natural selection is a process by which information about the world is transmitted across time. When we learn by reasoning about a priori knowledge, then, we in an important sense rely on information in our genomes—if not our souls—information acquired by the process of natural selection—if not conscious acquisition. Thinking of a priori knowledge with the metaphor of anamnesis elucidates two essential features of the relationship between epistemology and ontology. First, it emphasizes that there is necessarily a time-delay between our a priori knowledge and the universe to which it bears a relationship, if any. Second, it clarifies that a priori knowledge is knowledge that enhances reproductive fitness—which could well be because it reflects ontology faithfully, but could as easily be a kind of innate nominalism. (shrink)

Segundo um influente argumento contra a existência de conhecimento a priori, não há conhecimento a priori porque (i) nenhuma crença é imune à revisão, e (ii) se houvesse conhecimento a priori, algumas crenças seriam irrevisíveis. Uma versão deste argumento foi celebremente defendida por W. V. Quine e ainda é popular entre filósofos naturalistas. O objectivo deste artigo é examinar e rejeitar este argumento contra o a priori. O artigo começa por discutir a tese (i) e o seu papel no modelo (...) da Teia de Crenças de Quine. Defende-se que (i) enfrenta importantes desafios que colocam em risco o seu uso no argumento supra. A premissa (ii) do argumento é então discutida. Philip Kitcher é conhecido pela sua defesa de uma versão da premissa (ii). Os seus argumentos são analisados e rejeitados. A conclusão é que não temos uma boa razão para aceitar (ii), e consequentemente este argumento contra o a priori. O artigo termina com a proposta de uma caracterização do a priori perfeitamente compatível com (i). (shrink)

Some versions of empiricism have been accused of being neither empirically confirmable nor analytically true and therefore meaningless or unknowable by their own lights. Carnap, and more recently van Fraassen, have responded to this objection by construing empiricism as a stance containing non-cognitive attitudes. The resulting stance empiricism is not subject to the norms of knowledge, and so does not self-defeat as per the objection. In response to this proposal, several philosophers have argued that if empiricism is a stance, then (...) there can be no distinctively epistemic reasons in favor of adopting it, but only prudential or moral reasons. I defend stance empiricism against this objection by showing that stance empiricism furthers many plausibly epistemic goals, such as false belief avoidance, wisdom, and justification. I respond to three objections to my argument: that I assume a conception of epistemic reason that leads to problematic tradeoffs, that to have epistemic reason is just to be epistemically justified, and that my premise that experience is the only source of information has no empirical content. (shrink)

An argument is epistemically self-defeating when either the truth of an argument’s conclusion or belief in an argument’s conclusion defeats one’s justification to believe at least one of that argument’s premises. Some extant defenses of the evidentiary value of intuition have invoked considerations of epistemic self-defeat in their defense. I argue that there is one kind of argument against intuition, an unreliability argument, which, even if epistemically self-defeating, can still imply that we are not justified in thinking intuition has evidentiary (...) value. (shrink)

In a series of influential articles, George Bealer argues for the autonomy of philosophical knowledge on the basis that philosophically known truths must be necessary truths. The main point of his argument is that the truths investigated by the sciences are contingent truths to be discovered a posteriori by observation, while the truths of philosophy are necessary truths to be discovered a priori by intuition. The project of assimilating philosophy to the sciences is supposed to be rendered illegitimate by the (...) more or less sharp distinction in these characteristic methods and its modal basis. In this article Bealer's particular way of drawing the distinction between philosophy and science is challenged in a novel manner, and thereby philosophical naturalism is further defended. (shrink)

Brentano clearly asserts, in his Vienna lectures of 1887–1888, that his descriptive psychology is an a priori or “exact” science. Since he rejects Kant's idea of a synthetic a priori, this means that the descriptive psychologist's laws are analytic. My aim in this paper is to clarify and discuss this view. I examine Brentano's epistemology in the Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint and then its later developments. I conclude with a difficulty inherent in Brentano's psychological approach to a priori knowledge.

A central metaphilosophical project seeks to evaluate the reliability of the types of evidence that figure in philosophical arguments and, relatedly, the justificatory status of relying on those types of evidence. Traditionally, metaphilosophers have approached this project via an analysis of intuition. This article argues that the category picked out by “intuition” is both too broad and too heterogeneous to serve as the appropriate target for metaphilosophical inquiry. Intuition is a gerrymandered and disjunctive kind, undeserving of the widespread attention it (...) receives in the literature. Instead, metaphilosophers should examine more finely grained mental states. Three promising strategies for parsing intuitions more finely are proposed: by their causal origins, by their context of employment, and by the exoticism of their content. This more narrow focus may significantly alter the dialectic in three prominent metaphilosophical arguments: the argument from calibration, the argument from self-defeat, and the argument from intuitional sensitivity. (shrink)

Though most of analytic philosophy is based upon intuitions, some philosophers are beginning to question whether intuitions are an appropriate basis for philosophical theory. This paper responds to the arguments of some contemporary philosophers who hold that intuitions should not be treated as evidence for anything other than our contingent psychological constitution. It begins with a demonstration that skeptical arguments by Gilbert Harman and Alvin Goldman are variations on an argument with the potential to undermine the use of intuitions in (...) much philosophical inquiry. After a demonstration that Nicholas Sturgeon’s response to Harman’s argument is inadequate, it argues that all of the instances of the skeptical argument are unsuccessful because they are epistemically self-defeating. (shrink)

‘Conciliationism’ is the view that disagreement with qualified disputants gives us a powerful reason for doubting our disputed views, a reason that will often be sufficient to defeat what would otherwise be strong evidential justification for our position. Conciliationism is disputed by many qualified philosophers, a fact that has led many to conclude that conciliationism is self-defeating. After examining one prominent response to this challenge and finding it wanting, I develop a fresh approach to the problem. I identify two levels (...) at which one may show epistemic deference—the level of one's credences and the level of one's reasoning—and show that in disagreements over conciliationism, deference at one level results in non-deference at the other. A commitment to epistemic deference therefore does not provide a rational reason to reduce confidence when conciliationism itself is disputed. After presenting the case for ‘resolute conciliationism’, I address two objections. (shrink)

This article lays the groundwork for a defense of rational intuitions by first arguing against a prevalent view according to which intuition is a distinctive psychological state, an “intellectual seeming” that p, that then constitutes evidence that p. An alternative account is then offered, according to which an intuition that p constitutes non-inferential a priori knowledge that p in virtue of the concepts exercised in judging that p. This account of rational intuition as the exercise of conceptual capacities in a (...) priori judgment is then distinguished from the dogmatic, entitlement and reliabilist accounts of intuition’s justificatory force. The article concludes by considering three implications of the proposed view for the Experimental Philosophy movement. (shrink)

PATRICE PHILIE | : Cet article a pour objectif d’examiner le rôle des intuitions dans le cadre du problème de la justification des lois logiques de base. Une revue des différentes conceptions de l’intuition permet de mettre les choses en place et d’identifier la conception qui convient le mieux au problème — c’est une conception modale qui sera retenue. Je soumettrai ensuite cette conception à un examen critique, lequel se fera en deux temps. D’une part, il s’agira de montrer la (...) difficulté d’en arriver à une formulation plausible de la conception modale. Je soulèverai d’autre part certains problèmes qui surgissent, même si l’on fait le pari que la question de la formulation peut être résolue. En définitive, je soutiens que, lorsqu’il s’agit d’utiliser les intuitions comme fondement de la connaissance des lois logiques de base, nous devons adopter une conception modale, laquelle n’est pas en mesure de remplir son rôle. Le recours aux intuitions est donc voué à l’échec en épistémologie de la logique. | : This article examines the role of intuitions as they pertain to the problem of the justification of basic logical laws. To begin with, a review of the various conceptions of the nature of intuitions is made in order to set things up and to identify the conception that is most appropriate to the problem at hand — it will be shown that a modal conception is required. I will then examine this conception and submit it to a two-pronged criticism. Firstly, I will raise important difficulties when it comes to formulate a plausible account of the modal conception. Secondly, I will attempt to establish that even if the formulation problem were to be overcome, there is still a whole battery of difficulties facing the modal conception. In sum, I hold that when it comes to using intuitions as the foundation of our knowledge of basic logical laws, we have no choice but to embrace a modal conception — and the latter is unable to deliver its promises. Hence, the appeal to intuitions is bound to fail in the epistemology of logic. (shrink)

This paper explicates Descartes’ theory of intuition (intuitus). Departing from certain commentators, I argue that intuition, for Descartes, is a form of clear and distinct intellectual perception. Because it is clear and distinct, it is indubitable, infallible, and provides a grade of certain knowledge he calls ‘cognitio’. I pay special attention to why he treats intuition as a form of perception, and what he means when he says it is ‘clear and distinct’. Finally, I situate his view in relation to (...) those of his Scholastic predecessors on one hand and current theories on the other. His view anticipates the contemporary ‘perceptual model of intuition’, though it is much bolder with its promise of certainty. (shrink)

This paper explicates Descartes’ theory of intuition (intuitus). Departing from certain commentators, I argue that intuition, for Descartes, is a form of clear and distinct intellectual perception. Because it is clear and distinct, it is indubitable, infallible, and provides a grade of certain knowledge he calls ‘cognitio’. I pay special attention to why he treats intuition as a form of perception, and what he means when he says it is ‘clear and distinct’. Finally, I situate his view in relation to (...) those of his Scholastic predecessors on one hand and current theories on the other. His view anticipates the contemporary ‘perceptual model of intuition’, though it is much bolder with its promise of certainty. (shrink)

A lot of good philosophy is done in the armchair, but is nevertheless a posteriori. This paper clarifies and then defends that claim. Among the a posteriori activities done in the armchair are assembling and evaluating commonplaces; formulating theoretical alternatives; and integrating well-known past a posteriori discoveries. The activity that receives the most discussion, however, is the application of theoretical virtues to choose philosophical theories: the paper argues that much of this is properly seen as a posteriori.

Many philosophers and psychologists hold that intuitions are, or reduce to, beliefs. The argument from intuition without beliefs threatens to undercut any such doxastic account: since there are clear cases of intuition without belief, intuitions cannot be beliefs. Advocates of the intellectual seeming account conclude that intuitions belong to the basic mental kind of intellectual seeming. I argue that rightly understood, apparent cases of intuition without belief are cases of someone having the inclination to believe that p whilst believing that (...) not-p. These can be accommodated by a disjunctive doxastic account holding that to have an intuition is to either have a belief, or to have an inclination to believe. I conclude that intuitions reduce to beliefs, and that there is no need to acknowledge intellectual seemings as basic states in our mental taxonomy. (shrink)

In this paper I will argue that this entire dialectic is somewhat misguided. The mental states which are generally assumed to fall under the category of ‘intuition’ likely comprise a highly heterogeneous group; from the point of view of psychology or of neuroscience, in fact, ‘intuitions’ appear to be generated by several fundamentally different sorts of mental processes. If this is correct, then the term ‘intuition’ may simply carve things too broadly. I will argue that it is a mistake to (...) focus on the ‘reliability of intuition’; empirical evidence suggests that the reliability of one type of intuition may tell us next to nothing about the reliability of other types. Rather than debating the evidential status of intuition as a whole, philosophers interested in methodology would do well to focus their investigations much more narrowly. (shrink)

Discussions of the role of intuition in philosophical methodology typically proceed within the knowledge-centred framework of mainstream analytic epistemology. Either implicitly or explicitly, the primary questions in metaphilosophy frequently seem to revolve around whether or not intuition is a source of justification, evidence, or knowledge. I argue that this Standard Framework is inappropriate for methodological purposes: the epistemic standards that govern inquiry in philosophy are more stringent than the standards that govern everyday cognition. The experimentalist should instead view her criticisms (...) as analogous to calls for the use of double-blinding in science. (shrink)

Experimental philosophy, at least in its ‘negative’ variety, has standardly been portrayed as presenting a dramatic challenge to traditional philosophical methodology. As such, it has prompted a large variety of counter-arguments and defenses of intuition. In this paper, I argue that many of these objections to experimental philosophy rest on various oversimplifications that both experimental philosophers and their opponents have made regarding intuitions and philosophical methodology. Once these oversimplifications are abandoned, I argue that the experimentalist critique of current philosophical methods (...) becomes somewhat less dramatic, but also much less open to objection. (shrink)

I recommend three revisions to experimental philosophy's ‘self-image’ which I suggest will enable experimentalist critics of intuition to evade several important objections to the 'negative' strand of the experimental philosophy research project. First, experimentalists should avoid broad criticisms of ‘intuition’ as a whole, instead drawing a variety of conclusions about a variety of much narrower categories of mental state. Second, experimentalists should state said conclusions in terms of epistemic norms particular to philosophical inquiry, rather than attempting to, for example, deny (...) that intuitions produce justified belief. Third, experimentalists should acknowledge the limitations of the ‘method of cases’ model of philosophical inquiry, and expand their experimental work accordingly. (shrink)

Every area of knowledge is based on a variety of products of conceptual engineering. This article is programmatic in essence: it aims at introducing a model of how conceptual engineering works and, particularly, how conceptual innovation is achieved in the context of theoretical inquiry. First, it describes the context in which the explicit study of the relevance, scope, mechanisms, and aims of conceptual engineering was born. Secondly, it introduces a distinction between evaluative and instrumental conceptual engineering based on the difference (...) between committed and instrumental conceptual use. According to this, it argues that both evaluative and instrumental conceptual engineering might be formally seen as the result of one function, which, provided a conceptual problem, maps to possible conceptual solutions generating success or failure values. Lastly, it introduces a third kind of conceptual engineering, namely, constructive conceptual engineering. Its core is a function that maps solutions to a representational space of non-considered alternatives, thus generating new conceptual content. In general, the proposed model offers a productive and novel field of inquiry on the conditions and factors that grounds theoretical innovation through conceptual engineering. (shrink)

Evidential holism begins with something like the claim that “it is only jointly as a theory that scientific statements imply their observable consequences.” This is the holistic claim that Elliott Sober tells us is an “unexceptional observation”. But variations on this “unexceptional” claim feature as a premise in a series of controversial arguments for radical conclusions, such as that there is no analytic or synthetic distinction that the meaning of a sentence cannot be understood without understanding the whole language of (...) which it is a part and that all knowledge is empirical knowledge. This paper is a survey of what evidential holism is, how plausible it is, and what consequences it has. Section 1 will distinguish a range of different holistic claims, Sections 2 and 3 explore how well motivated they are and how they relate to one another, and Section 4 returns to the arguments listed above and uses the distinctions from the previous sections to identify holism's role in each case. (shrink)

According to orthodox views of philosophical methodology, when philosophers appeal to intuitions, they treat them as evidence for their contents. Call this “descriptive evidentialism.” Descriptive evidentialism is assumed both by those who defend the epistemic status of intuitions and by those, including many experimental philosophers, who criticize it. This article shows, however, that the idea that philosophers treat intuitions as evidence struggles to account for the way philosophers treat intuitions in a variety of philosophical contexts. In particular, it cannot account (...) for philosophers' treatment of a priori intuitions, for nonpropositional uses of intuition, and for philosophers' failure to use intuition to exclude the counterintuitive. The article concludes that alternatives to descriptive evidentialism (some of which are sketched) must be developed, and that much of the recent debate between traditionalists and skeptics from, for example, experimental philosophy is probably based on a false presupposition. (shrink)

A popular line in philosophy championed by Jackson and his followers analyses concepts as networks of propositions. It takes even network-propositions characterizing ordinary empirically applicable concepts to be a priori, in contrast to statements of empirical science. This is meant to guarantee both the autonomy of conceptual analysis, and its substantial and informative character. It is argued here, to the contrary, that empirically applicable and entrenched concepts owe the acceptability of their own network precisely to its empirical pedigree. Promoting an (...) empirical proposition into a network proposition does not make it ultimately a priori: no matter how entrenched the network is, it owes its ultimate justification to its empirical pedigree. Autonomy from experience and informativeness clash with each other: the stipulative "knowledge" is a priori in a weak sense, but not informative and substantial, the factual knowledge is substantial but not a priori. (shrink)