Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T15:48:21.387Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

EVIDENCE AND INTUITION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2012

Yuri Cath
Yuri Cath*
Affiliation:
University of St Andrews
*
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Many philosophers accept a view – what I will call the intuition picture – according to which intuitions are crucial evidence in philosophy. Recently, Williamson (2004, 2007: ch. 1) has argued that such views are best abandoned because they lead to a psychologistic conception of philosophical evidence that encourages scepticism about the armchair judgements relied upon in philosophy. In this paper I respond to this criticism by showing how the intuition picture can be formulated in such a way that: (i) it is consistent with a wide range of views about not only philosophical evidence but also the nature of evidence in general, including Williamson's famous view that E = K; (ii) it can maintain the central claims about the nature and role of intuitions in philosophy made by proponents of the intuition picture; (iii) it does not collapse into Williamson's own deflationary view of the nature and role of intuitions in philosophy; and (iv) it does not lead to scepticism.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , December 2012 , pp. 311 - 328
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alexander, J., and Weinberg, J. M. 2007. ‘Analytic Epistemology and Experimental Philosophy.’ Philosophy Compass, 2(1): 58–80.Google Scholar
Bealer, G. 1998. ‘Intuition and the Autonomy of Philosophy.’ In DePaul, M. R. and Ramsey, W. (eds), Rethinking Intuition: The Psychology of Intuition and Its Role in Philosophical Inquiry, pp. 113–27. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Bealer, G.. 2000. ‘A Theory of the A Priori.’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 81: 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, J. 2011. ‘Thought Experiments, Intuitions and Philosophical Evidence.’ Dialectica, 65(4): 493–516.Google Scholar
Cassam, Q. 2007. ‘Ways of Knowing.’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 107: 339–58.Google Scholar
Cath, Y. Manuscript. ‘Debunking and Intuition.’Google Scholar
Chudnoff, E. 2010. ‘The Nature of Intuitive Justification.’ Philosophical Studies, 153: 313–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dancy, J. 2004. Ethics without Principles. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Deutsch, M. 2010. ‘Intuitions, Counter-Examples and Experimental Philosophy.’ Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 1(3): 447–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Earlenbaugh, J., and Molyneux, B. 2009. ‘Intuitions are Inclinations to Believe.’ Philosophical Studies, 145: 89–109.Google Scholar
Gettier, E. 1963. ‘Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?’ Analysis, 23: 121–3.Google Scholar
Goldman, A., 2009. ‘Williamson on Knowledge and Evidence.’ In Greenough, P. and Pritchard, D. (eds), Williamson on Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. and Pust, J. 1998. ‘Philosophical Theory and Intuitional Evidence.’ In DePaul, M. R. and Ramsey, W. (eds), Rethinking Intuition: The Psychology of Intuition and its Role in Philosophical Inquiry, pp. 179–97. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Greenough, P., and Pritchard, D. 2009. Williamson on Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Grundmann, T. 2007. ‘The Nature of Rational Intuitions and a Fresh Look at the Explanationist Objection.’ Grazer Philosophische Studien, 74(1): 69–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huemer, M. 2001. Skepticism and the Veil of Perception. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Huemer, M.. 2005. Ethical Intuitionism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Ichikawa, J. Manuscript. ‘Who Needs Intuitions?’Google Scholar
Ichikawa, J.. 2009. ‘Knowing the Intuition and Knowing the Counterfactual.’ Philosophical Studies, 145: 434–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ichikawa, J., and Jarvis, B. 2009. ‘Thought-Experiment Intuitions and Truth in Fiction.’ Philosophical Studies, 142: 221–46.Google Scholar
Ludiwg, K. 2007. ‘The Epistemology of Thought Experiments: First-Person versus Third-Person Approaches.’ Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 31: 128–59.Google Scholar
Lycan, W. 1998. ‘Moral Facts and Moral Knowledge.’ In Lycan, W. (ed.), Judgment and Justification. Cambridge: Cambirdge University Press.Google Scholar
Malmgren, A. 2011. ‘Rationalism and the Content of Intuitive Judgments.’ Mind, 120: 263–326.Google Scholar
Nimtz, C. 2009. ‘Conceptual Truth Defended.’ In Kompa, C., Nimtz, N., and Suhm, C. (eds), The A Priori and its Role in Philosophy, pp. 137–55. Paderborn: mentis.Google Scholar
Nimtz, C.. 2010. ‘Philosophical Thought Experiments as Exercises in Conceptual Analysis.’ Grazer Philosophical Studien, 81: 189–214.Google Scholar
Pust, J. 2000. Intuitions as Evidence. New York and London: Garland Publishing.Google Scholar
Schiffer, S. 2009. ‘Evidence = Knowledge: Williamson's Solution to Skepticism. In Greenough, P. and Pritchard, D. (eds), Williamson on Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sosa, E. 2007. Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, vol. 1, A Virtue Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tolhurst, W. 1998. ‘Seemings.’ American Philosophical Quarterly, 35: 293–302.Google Scholar
Williamson, T. 2000. Knowledge and its Limits. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Williamson, T.. 2004. ‘Philosophical “Intuitions” and Scepticism about Judgement.’ Dialectica, 58(1): 109–53.Google Scholar
Williamson, T..2005. ‘Armchair Philosophy, Metaphysical Modality and Counterfactual Thinking.’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 105: 1–23.Google Scholar
Williamson, T.. 2006. ‘Conceptual Truth.’ Aristotelian Society, supp. vol. 63: 203–38.Google Scholar
Williamson, T.. 2007. The Philosophy of Philosophy. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar