Intuitions and Philosophical Methodology

Intuitions and Philosophical Methodology will study and evaluate the methods contemporary philosophers as a matter fact employ. It is a project about how philosophy is and should be done. Our primary focus is on the ways in which philosophers appeal to 'intuitions' and use thought-experiments. A standard procedure in philosophy is the following: Some philosophical concept, C, is under discussion. We are presented with a thought experiment in which a scenario, S, is imagined, and we are asked to have intuitions about whether C is instantiated in S. This kind of procedure is at the centre of the some of the most important arguments in philosophy of language, mind, logic, metaphysics, and ethics. For example, in Gettier's famous argument against the so-called 'justified true belief theory of knowledge' we are asked us to imagine someone who has justified true belief that p, but, intuitively, doesn't know that p. That we have this intuition is taken to be very strong evidence that the justified-true-belief theory is false. Any systematic investigation of the methodological issues raised by such examples must give centre stage to two basic questions:
1. What is a philosophical intuition?
2. What role(s) do and should intuition play in philosophical methodology?
Satisfactory answers to these questions are crucial to our understanding of what philosophy is, should be, and can be. It is not unthinkable that a rejection of this methodology might even jeopardise the entire enterprise of analytic philosophy as currently practiced.
The project is organized into four phases. In Phase One we examine in depth a range of central examples of the method from a variety of areas of philosophy, including epistemology, philosophy of language and mind, logic, and metaphysics. In Phase Two we develop and evaluate models of intuition that systematise the details reviewed in Phase One. Phase Three is concerned with three sceptical challenges to the use of intuitions in philosophy. We ask, first, why philosophers think that a mere intuition that p provides any kind of reliable indication of the truth of p? Second, given that so much philosophical argument results in an intractable conflict of intuitions, how can philosophical intuition be any kind of source of philosophical knowledge? Finally, given that intuitions seem particularly prone to be influenced by contingent cultural and historical factors, why take intuitions to be more than a reflection of our historically local prejudices?
The final phase of the project turns to a detailed case study. We apply lessons learned and frameworks developed in earlier phases to study a major issue at the intersection of philosophy of language and epistemology. Many epistemologist are proposing to adopt what has been called the 'New Linguistic Turn' (NLT) according to which the semantics for epistemically central concepts like 'knowledge', 'justification' and 'rationality' are based on appeals to intuitions about what speakers would say in various epistemic settings. Our goal will be to evaluate this proposal in the light of what has been learned about philosophical methodology in the first three phases.