Abstract
We argue that many intuitions do not have conscious propositional contents. In particular, many of the intuitions had in response to philosophical thought experiments, like Gettier cases, do not have such contents. They are more like hunches, urgings, murky feelings, and twinges. Our view thus goes against the received view of intuitions in philosophy, which we call Mainstream Propositionalism. Our positive view is that many thought-experimental intuitions are conscious, spontaneous, non-theoretical, non-propositional psychological states that often motivate belief revision, but they require interpretation, in light of background beliefs, before a subject can form a propositional judgment as a consequence of them. We call our view Interpretationalism. We argue (i) that Interpretationalism avoids the problems that beset Mainstream Propositionalism and (ii) that our view meshes well with contemporary cognitive science.
Authorship is divided equally.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
- 2.
We’re using “judgment” here as a catchall term for what could really be a variety of conscious cognitive attitudes, not just conscious beliefs. For example, the output of the interpretive process might be a conscious hypothesis or working assumption. Those differences won’t make a difference, however, to the main arguments of this paper.
- 3.
The view that intuitions are phenomenally conscious is defended by Pollock (1974), Plantinga (1993), Bealer (1998, 1999), Pust (2000), Huemer (2001, 2007, 2013), Koksvik (2011), Chudnoff (2011, 2013), and Bengson (2015). Goldman and Pust (1998), Goldman (2007), and Ludwig (2007) also intimate adherence to something like this claim. Even alleged deniers of intuitive phenomenology, Williamson (2007) and Sosa (2007), maintain that there is something it is like to intuit; however, they differ from many of the above authors in that they also maintain that this phenomenology is exhausted by what it’s like to be consciously inclined to accept a proposition and what it’s like to entertain a proposition, respectively.
- 4.
- 5.
It may be that they are revisable through a sort of practice, in which one attends to certain things and trains oneself in a certain way.
- 6.
Note that Bealer, Pust, and Bengson extend the claim of non-theoreticality to mathematical intuitions, about which we reserve judgment. For our purposes, it is enough that those scholars endorse the claim when it comes to thought-experimental intuitions.
- 7.
- 8.
He adds, interestingly, “or perhaps, in some cases, the tendencies that make certain beliefs attractive to us.” This latter portion could be interpreted along our lines.
- 9.
For the view that intuition is a propositional attitude, see also van Inwagen (1997), Goldman and Pust (1998), Gopnik and Schwitzgbel (1998), Bealer (1998, 1999), BonJour (1998, 2001), Sosa (1998, 2007, 2014), Pust (2000), Huemer (2001, 2007, 2013), Kornblith (2002), Ludwig (2007), Tucker (2010), Koksvik (2011), Chudnoff (2011, 2013), Cullison (2013), and Bengson (2015). For the view that intuiting involves being aware of a proposition, see Tolhurst (1998), Bealer (1998, 1999), BonJour (1998, 2001), Hales (2000), Pust (2000), Huemer (2001, 2007, 2013), Tucker (2010), Chudnoff (2011, 2013), Lycan (2013), and Bengson (2015).
- 10.
By “Gettiered agent,” we mean a character whose belief seems to count as justified and true, without seeming to count as knowledge. “Gettier cases” are situations described in vignettes, in which Gettiered agents and their beliefs are prominently featured.
- 11.
The purpose of the Knowledge 2 probe is to address the possibility that some subjects might read the Knowledge 1 probe as asking about felt knowledge from the point of view of the agent in the vignette, as opposed to asking about knowledge itself.
- 12.
When we say there are intuitions of the same type, we assume that intuitions can be classified by their etiological, phenomenological, and dispositional profiles and that to be of the same type is to belong to the same class so characterized. Obviously, we think it is a mistake to type intuitions according to their purported propositional content, as many philosophers would be inclined to do, since we don’t think intuitions have such content.
- 13.
Something like this would be the view of Goldman and Pust (1998).
- 14.
To make a similar point, it is scientifically desirable to unify theories as much as possible (Friedman 1974), so unifying thought-experimental intuitions with others—provided it seems empirically reasonable—should count in favor of any theory of intuition.
- 15.
We grant, of course, the question is empirical, but find it highly plausible that the data would work out as we suggest.
- 16.
Taylor focuses on cases that mix fictional names with claims about reality, such as “Santa Claus does not exist” or “Santa Claus isn’t coming tonight.” But much of what he says about such mixed sentences can carry over to purely fictional sentences as well.
- 17.
This, by the way, is why the Ichikawa and Jarvis (2009) theory comes out as complicated as it does.
- 18.
At the risk of belaboring the point, we can put this response into the form of a dilemma. Any proposition complex enough to be identified with truth conditions for a fictional sentence would be too complex to be borne in mind spontaneously and consciously (just look at Lewis’ final analysis!). So either you accord the intuitions in question genuine propositional content or you don’t. If you do, that content is too complex to be conscious. If you don’t, you don’t. Either way, Mainstream Propositionalism loses. As it happens, Ichikawa and Jarvis (2009: fn. 14) express some reservations as to whether the thought-experimental processes they discuss are all conscious, so it seems they might go with the first horn of the dilemma.
- 19.
[References.] Folk biology: Medin and Atran (1999). Folk physics: McCloskey (1983); Baillargeon (2002); Proffitt and Kaiser (2006). Contagion system: Rozin et al. (1986); Springer and Belk (1994). Fear and threats: LeDoux (1996). Mindreading / folk psychology: Baron-Cohen (1995); Flavell (1999); Nichols and Stich (2003); Goldman (2006). Language: Chomsky (1965, 1986, 1995); Pinker (1994). Core folk epistemology: Machery et al. (2015).
- 20.
This is a cross-culturally shared “axiom” of folk biology (Atran et al. 1997). We put “know” here in scare quotes to refer to implicit awareness of information that helps guide behavior, even if that awareness doesn’t rise to the level of knowledge in a strict sense.
- 21.
We focus here mainly on error signals mostly for reasons of space and because those seem to include the intuitions prompted by Gettier cases, which are our running examples. We think, however, that the broad structure of our account could apply to many “positive” intuitions as well.
- 22.
This process may of course be iterative, with repeated cycles of slightly varied examples being sent down to the sub-doxastic systems. Dennett (2013) calls this “turning the knobs.”
- 23.
Here the spectre of the Quine-Duhem problem hovers over the interpretation of thought-experimental intuitions.
- 24.
Points 4. and 5. here correspond to the two “stages” of intuition and judgment mentioned in the introduction.
- 25.
One more point on terminology: even if Mainstream Propositionalists wanted to stipulate that they use the word “intuition” to refer to judgments, they would still need a word for the things we call intuition, which are non-propositional and no doubt exist; also, they would have to give up the non-theoreticality of intuition, which is supposed to be its chief epistemic virtue, since the judgments that issue from thought experiments are theoretically loaded.
References
Atran, S., P. Estin, J. Coley, and D. Medin. 1997. Generic species and basic levels: Essence and appearance in folk biology. Journal of Ethnobiology 17 (1): 17–43.
Baillargeon, R. 2002. The acquisition of physical knowledge in infancy: A summary in eight lessons. In Blackwell handbook of childhood cognitive development, ed. U. Goswami, 47–83.
Baron-Cohen, S. 1995. Mindblindness: An essay on autism and theory of mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bealer, G. 1998. Intuition and the autonomy of philosophy. In Rethinking intuitions: The psychology of intuition and its role in philosophical inquiry, ed. M. DePaul and W. Ramsey, 201–239. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.
———. 1999. A theory of the a priori. In Philosophical perspectives, vol. 13, 29–55.
Bengson, J. 2015. The intellectual given. Mind 124 (495): 707–760.
Block, N. 1978. Troubles with functionalism. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 9: 261–325.
BonJour, L. 1998. Defense of pure reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2001. Precis to in defense of pure reason. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63 (3): 625–631.
Chomsky, N. 1957. Syntactic structures. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
———. 1965. Aspects of a theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
———. 1986. Knowledge of language. Westport: Praeger Publishers.
———. 1995. Language and nature. Mind 104 (413): 1–61.
Chudnoff, E. 2011. What intuitions are like. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 82 (3): 625–654.
———. 2013. Intuitions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cullen, S. 2010. Survey-driven romanticism. Review of Philosophy and Psychology 1 (2): 275–296.
Cullison, A. 2013. Seemings and semantics. In Seemings and justification: New essays on dogmatism and phenomenal conservatism, ed. C. Tucker, 33–51. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dennett, D.C. 1987. The intentional stance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
———. 2013. Intuition pumps and other tools for thinking. W. W. Norton.
Flavell, J.H. 1999. Cognitive development: Children’s knowledge about the mind. Annual Review of Psychology 50: 21–45.
Friedman, M. 1974. Explanation and scientific understanding. Journal of Philosophy 71 (1): 5–19.
Gendler, T. 1998. Galileo and the indispensability of scientific thought experiment. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 49 (3): 397–424.
Gettier, E. 1963. Is justified true belief knowledge? Analysis 23: 121–123.
Goldman, A. 2006. Simulating minds: The philosophy. In Psychology, and neuroscience of mindreading. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2007. Philosophical intuitions: Their target, their source, and their epistemic status. Grazer Philosophische Studien 74 (1): 1–26.
Goldman, A., and J. Pust. 1998. Philosophical theory and intuitional evidence. In Rethinking intuitions: The psychology of intuition and its role in philosophical inquiry, ed. M. DePaul and W. Ramsey, 179–198. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Gopnik, A., and E. Schwitzgebel. 1998. Whose concepts are they, anyway? The role of philosophical intuition in empirical psychology. In Rethinking intuitions: The psychology of intuition and its role in philosophical inquiry, ed. M. DePaul and W. Ramsey, 76–91. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Hales, S. 2000. The problem of intuition. American Philosophical Quarterly 37: 125–147.
Huemer, M. 2001. Skepticism and the Veil of perception. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
———. 2007. Compassionate phenomenal conservatism. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 74 (1): 30–55.
———. 2013. Phenomenal conservatism Uber Alles. In Seemings and justification: New essays on dogmatism and phenomenal conservatism, ed. C. Tucker, 328–350. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ichikawa, J., and B. Jarvis. 2009. Thought-experiment intuitions and truth in fiction. Philosophical Studies 142: 221–246.
Koksvik, O. 2011. Intuition, Diss. Australian National University.
Kornblith, H. 2002. Knowledge and its place in nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
LeDoux, J.E. 1996. The emotional brain: The mysterious underpinnings of emotional life. New York: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster.
Lewis, D.K. 1978. Truth in fiction. American Philosophical Quarterly 15 (1): 37–46.
———. 1983. Philosophical papers: Volume I. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ludwig, K. 2007. The epistemology of thought experiments: First person versus third person approaches. In Midwest studies in philosophy, vol. 31, 128–159.
Lycan, W. 1988. Judgment and justification. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2013. Phenomenal conservatism and the principle of credulity. In Seemings and justification: New essays on dogmatism and phenomenal conservatism, ed. C. Tucker, 293–305. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mach, E. 1883/1960. On thought experiments, In Knowledge and error, 6 edn, Trans. T. McCormack and P. Foulkes, Dortrecht: Reidel, pp. 134–147.
Machery, E., S. Stich, D. Rose, A. Chatterjee, K. Karasawa, N. Struchiner, S. Sirker, N. Usui, and T. Hashimoto. 2015. Gettier across cultures. Nous (online). https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.12110.
Malmgren, A. 2011. Rationalism and the content of intuitive judgments. Mind 120 (478): 263–327.
McCauley, R.N. 2011. Why religion is natural and science is not. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McCloskey, M. 1983. Intuitive physics. Scientific American 248 (4): 122–130.
Medin, D.L., and S. Atran. 1999. Folkbiology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Nado, J. 2014. Why intuition? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 86 (1): 15–41.
Nagel, J., V. San Juan, and R. Mar. 2013a. Lay denial of knowledge for justified true beliefs. Cognition 129 (3): 652–661.
Nagel, J., R. Mar, and V. San Juan. 2013b. Authentic Gettier cases: A reply to Starmans and Friedman. Cognition 129 (3): 666–669.
Nichols, S., and S. Stich. 2003. Mindreading. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nichols, S., S. Stich, and W. Weinberg. 2003. Metaskepticism: Meditations in ethno-epistemology. In The Skeptics, ed. S. Luper, 227–247. Burlington: Ashgate.
Parfit, D. 1984. Reasons and persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pinker, S. 1994. The language instinct: How the mind creates language. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics.
Plantinga, A. 1993. Warrant and proper function. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pollock, J. 1974. Knowledge and justification. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Povinelli, D.J. 2000. Folk physics for Apes: The Chimpanzee’s theory of how the world works. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Proffitt, D. R. and Kaiser, M. K. 2006. Intuitive physics, Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science.
Pust, J. 2000. Intuitions as evidence. Routledge.
Rozin, P., L. Hammer, H. Oster, T. Horowitz, and V. Marmora. 1986. The child’s conception of food: Differentiation of categories of rejected substances in the 16 months to 5 year age ranges. Appetite 7 (2): 141–151.
Searle, J.R. 1980. Minds, brains, and programs. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3 (3): 417–457.
Sosa, E. 1998. Minimal intuition. In Rethinking intuitions: The psychology of intuition and its role in philosophical inquiry, ed. M. DePaul and W. Ramsey, 257–269. Rowman & Littlefield.
———. 2007. Intuitions: Their nature and epistemic efficacy. Grazer Philosophische Studien 74 (1): 51–67.
———. 2014. Intuitions: Their nature and probative value. In Intuitions, ed. A. Booth and D. Rowbottom, 36–49. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Springer, K., and A. Belk. 1994. The role of physical contact in early contamination sensitivity. Developmental Psychology 30 (6): 864–868.
Starmans, C., and O. Friedman. 2012. The folk conception of knowledge. Cognition 124 (3): 272–283.
———. 2013. Taking ‘know’ for an answer: A reply to Nagel, San Juan, and Mar. Cognition 129 (3): 662–665.
Taylor, K. 2000. Emptiness without compromise: A referentialist semantics for empty names. In Empty names, fiction, and the puzzles of non-existence, ed. A. Everett and T. Hofweber, 17–36. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Taylor, S.A. 2015. What seemings seem to be. Episteme 12 (3): 363–384.
Tolhurst, W.E. 1998. Seemings. American Philosophical Quarterly 35 (3): 293–302.
Tucker, C. 2010. Why open-minded people should endorse dogmatism. Philosophical Perspectives 24 (1): 529–545.
van Inwagen, P. 1997. Materialism and the psychological continuity account of personal identity. In Philosophical Perspectives, vol. 11, 305–319.
Walton, K. 1990. Mimesis as make-believe: On the foundations of the representational arts. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Weinberg, J.M., S. Nichols, and S. Stich. 2001. Normativity and epistemic intuitions. Philosophical Topics 29 (1–2): 429–460.
Williamson, T. 2005. Armchair philosophy, metaphysical modality and counterfacteual thinking. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 105: 1–23.
———. 2007. The philosophy of philosophy. Malden: Blackwell.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the audience at the Belief and Intuition workshop held at the University of Antwerp in May 2016, at which Neil Van Leeuwen presented this joint work. We would also like to thank, in particular, James Andow, John Bengson, and Stephen Stich (who was entirely unconvinced by our view) for stimulating exchanges. This work was supported in part by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship that Neil Van Leeuwen received from the European Commission [call identifier: H2020-MSCA-IF-2014; contract number: 659912].
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
McGahhey, M., Van Leeuwen, N. (2018). Interpreting Intuitions. In: Pedrini, P., Kirsch, J. (eds) Third-Person Self-Knowledge, Self-Interpretation, and Narrative. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 96. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98646-3_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98646-3_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-98644-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-98646-3
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)