Philosophical 'intuitions' and scepticism about judgement
Dialectica, vol. 58, no. 1, 2004, pp. 109–153
Abstract
What are called ‘intuitions’ in philosophy are just applications of our ordinary capacities for judgment. We think of them as intuitions when a special kind of scepticism about those capacities is salient. Like scepticism about perception, scepticism about judgment pressures us into conceiving our evidence as facts about our internal psychological states: here, facts about our conscious inclinations to make judgments about some topic rather than facts about the topic itself. But the pressure should be resisted, for it rests on bad epistemology: specifically, on an impossible ideal of unproblematically identifiable evidence. An alternative principle is defended on which the nature of reference is to maximize knowledge rather than truth. It is related to an externalist conception of mind on which knowing is the central mental state. The knowledge-maximizing principle of charity explains why scenarios for scepticism about judgment do not warrant such scepticism, although it does not explain how we know in any particular case. We should face the fact that evidence is always liable to be contested in philosophy, and stop using talk of intuition to disguise this unpleasant truth from ourselves.
Quotes from this work
[P]hilosophers defending a given position against opponents have a powerful vested interest in persuading themselves that the intuitions that directly or indirectly favour it are stronger than they actually are. The stronger those intuitions, the more those who appeal to them gain, both psychologically and professionally. Given what is known of human psychology, it would be astonishing if such vested interests did not manifest themselves in at least some degree of wishful thinking, some tendency to overestimate the strength of intuitions that help one’s cause and underestimate the strength of those that hinder it.