M.R. DePaul and W. Ramsey (eds.), Rethinking Intuition (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998).
Abstract
This chapter examines several ways in which philosophical attention
to intuition can contribute to empirical scientific psychology. The authors
then discuss one prevalent misuse of intuition. An unspoken assumption
of much argumentation in the philosophy of mind has been that to articulate
our folk psychological intuitions, our ordinary concepts of belief, truth,
meaning, and so forth, is itself sufficient to give a theoretical account
of what belief, truth, meaning, and so forth, actually are. It is believed
that this assumption rests on an inadequate understanding of the nature
of intuition and its appropriate applications, and that it results in errors.
Three notable examples of this sort of misuse of intuition in philosophy
are briefly discussed. Finally, the authors provide developmental evidence
for the mutability and fallibility of everyday intuitions about the mind,
evidence that undermines arguments, that depend on taking such intuitions
as a final authority for substantive claims about what the mind is like.
Click below to view this document as a PDF file if you are viewing it in accord with "fair use" laws.
Whose Concepts Are They, Anyway? The Role of Philosophical Intuition in Empirical Psychology
Can't view the document because you don't have Adobe Acrobat Reader? Download it here for free.
Or email me (eschwitz at domain- ucr.edu) for a copy of this paper.
Return to Eric Schwitzgebel's homepage.