Psychology and the Use of Intuitions in Philosophy

Talbot, Brian

doi:10.12697/spe.2009.2.2.09

Cited by 4 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…One possible strategy for addressing this issue and solving the calibration problem has been proposed by Talbot (2009) and is at least suggested by De Cruz (2015). 7 The proposal is that we can learn about the reliability of processes generating intuitions on mundane matters for which we actually do have independent access to the truth.…”

Section: The Secondary Calibration Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…How should the etiology of intuitions be investigated? While some have suggested that intuitions can be adequately investigated using introspection or some sort of a priori reasoning, there is a growing consensus that the production of philosophical intuitions is an empirical matter and should be investigated by the relevant areas of cognitive science (Talbot, 2009). Like any other sort of cognitive state, philosophical intuitive judgments are first and foremost types of psychological phenomena that should be treated as such.…”

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confidence: 99%

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The cognitive source of philosophical intuitions: Troubles for the etiological project

Ramsey¹

2018

Belgrade Philosop Ann

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The advent of experimental philosophy has generated a renewed interest in the nature of philosophical intuitions. This has led many to assume that understanding the psychological processes that generate philosophical intuitions will provide a much needed source of answers for various questions about their nature. It is widely assumed that if we are to gain a good sense of the reliability of philosophical intuitions (and the degree to which experimental philosophy challenges their role in philosophy) it is critical to learn more about the sort of cognitive faculties and processes that produce them. However, here, I'm going to present a more pessimistic outlook about what we should expect from such a project in the case of philosophical intuitions. More specifically, I'll suggest that there are two central problems that prevent a deeper understanding of the cognitive source of intuitions from doing much of what we would like it to do. The first problem is that for an important range of philosophical intuitions, it is doubtful that there is a stable set of cognitive processes and mechanisms generating them that is sufficiently universal to allow for the sort of generalizations we would like. Philosophical intuitions are likely created by an assortment of varying psychological operations, and that learning about how a particular intuition is created is unlikely to tell us much about how other intuitions are formed. In short, there is no faculty of intuition in any meaningful sense. I call this the "Etiological-Diversity Problem". The second problem stems from the fact that one of the primary things we want knowledge of the intuition-producing cognitive machinery to tell us about is the reliability of the intuitions they produce. However, this expectation gets the normal order backwards. The evaluation of cognitive processes or mechanisms typically requires a prior evaluation of the normative status of the states it produces in different contexts, distinguishing proper functioning and competence from improper functioning and performance errors by virtue of the quality of the mechanism's output. It is far less clear how this order can be reversed. Consequently, it is hard to see how an understanding of intuition-producing mechanisms will allow us to evaluate the epistemic status of philosophical intuitions without already having such an evaluation in hand. I call this the "The Secondary Calibration Problem". The upshot is that even though I believe there is much to learn about the etiology of intuitions that will be useful, these problems severely hamper our ability to answer many of the central questions we have about the nature and trustworthiness of philosophical intuitions.

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Section: The Secondary Calibration Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

The cognitive source of philosophical intuitions: Troubles for the etiological project

Ramsey¹

2018

Belgrade Philosop Ann

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“…Perhaps this is why philosophers will argue, explicitly or implicitly, that premises can be considered true or false in virtue of their intuitive appeal-viz., the premise just seems to be true or false (Audi 2004, Bealer 1998, Huemer 2005, Nagel 2007. There is little question that philosophers make these kinds of appeals (Audi 2004, Kornblith 1998, Talbot 2009, Chalmers 2013; for an opposing view, see Cappelen 2012). So, it seems that in addition to logical competence, analytic philosophers must also demonstrate some kind of competence in exercising intuitionincluding, perhaps, the intuition of their interlocutors.…”

Section: Philosophical Reasoningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intuitive and Reflective Responses in Philosophy

Byrd¹

2014

SSRN Journal

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“…Let “traditionalism” be the view that the role of intuitions in philosophical inquiry is evidential. Bealer (, , ), Bengson (forthcoming), Brown (), Chudnoff (), Fedyk (), Goldman (, Goldman and Pust ), Grundmann (), Hales (), Malmgren (), Pust (, ), Sosa (e.g., , ), Talbot (), and Weatherson () are just some of those who have recently defended versions of traditionalism. Break traditionalism into two components: Call the claim that intuitions are evidence of their contents, whether or not they are treated as such, “normative evidentialism.” Call the view that they are standardly treated as evidence of their contents, whether or not it is right to do so, “descriptive evidentialism.”…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But this agreement is not based upon any strong and widely accepted argument. Rather, descriptive evidentialism is usually tacitly assumed, or asserted without argument while setting the scene (e.g., both Fedyk [] and, arguably, Talbot [], within the same volume, assume descriptive evidentialism in the opening lines of their papers). Occasionally an author will offer a list of cases that demonstrates pretty conclusively that intuitions are widely used in philosophy but not (despite the author's intention) that they are used as evidence (see, e.g., Bealer , 30; Pust , 227).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New Arguments that Philosophers don't Treat Intuitions as Evidence

Molyneux

2014

Metaphilosophy

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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.

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Psychology and the Use of Intuitions in Philosophy

Cited by 4 publications

References 22 publications

The cognitive source of philosophical intuitions: Troubles for the etiological project

The cognitive source of philosophical intuitions: Troubles for the etiological project

Intuitive and Reflective Responses in Philosophy

New Arguments that Philosophers don't Treat Intuitions as Evidence

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