KNOWING OUR OWN CONCEPTS: THE ROLE OF INTUITIUONS IN PHILOSOPHY

• Authors: Péter Hartl
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Empirical examinations about cross-cultural variability of intuitions, the well-known publication of Stich and his colleagues criticizing thought-experiments and intuitions in philosophical debates, is still a challenge that faces analytical philosophers, as any systematic investigation of the methodology of philosophy must give answers to these basic questions: What is an intuition? What role should intuitions play in philosophy? The author presents and examines the sceptical argument of experimental philosophers, and claims that experimental philosophers misunderstand the role of evidence in philosophy. His argument will utilize Goldman’s view, according to which intuitions give reliable (though not infallible) evidence about a person’s Concepts, and this knowledge is valuable for further philosophical research as well. The author will argue that the sceptical conclusions of experimental philosophers are harmless against this conception of philosophy, because even from a naturalist perspective certain kind of intuitive judgments about our concepts can be warranted, and this grants the specific epistemic status of intuitions. Of course, the reliability of introspection can be challenged. However, denying self-knowledge about his internal mental states is disputable – as he will show – both from a philosophical and a scientific point of view.

Keywords

EN

CONCEPTS; EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY; INTUITION; METHODOLOGY OF PHILOSOPHY; RELIABILISM; SCEPTICISM

• Publisher: Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and Institute of Philosophy of Academy of Sciences of Czech Republic
• Journal: Organon F. medzinárodný časopis pre analytickú filozofiu
• Year: 2011
• Volume: 18
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 488 – 498

Contributors

author

Péter Hartl

• Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Department of Philosophy and History of Science, Egry Jozsef 1, H-1111 Budapest, Hungary