We often claim to know about what is good or bad, right or wrong. But how do we know such things? Both historically and today, answers to this question have most commonly been rationalist or sentimentalist in nature. Rationalists and sentimentalists clash over whether intellect or affect is the foundation of our evaluative knowledge. This paper is about the form that this dispute takes among those who agree that evaluative knowledge depends on perceptual-like evaluative experiences. Rationalist proponents of perceptualism invoke (...) intellectual experiences, while sentimentalist proponents invoke affective experiences. The goal of this paper is to offer a fresh strategy for adjudicating between intellectual and sentimental perceptualism. I argue that the perceptualist’s hand will be forced either in the direction of intellectual or sentimental perceptualism once she decides between two views about the modal status of our basic evaluative knowledge. I close with an argument that the more plausible of the two options is the one which fits best with sentimental perceptualism. The argument, then, is that perceptualists ought to be sentimentalists. (shrink)

A central metaphilosophical project seeks to evaluate the reliability of the types of evidence that figure in philosophical arguments and, relatedly, the justificatory status of relying on those types of evidence. Traditionally, metaphilosophers have approached this project via an analysis of intuition. This article argues that the category picked out by “intuition” is both too broad and too heterogeneous to serve as the appropriate target for metaphilosophical inquiry. Intuition is a gerrymandered and disjunctive kind, undeserving of the widespread attention it (...) receives in the literature. Instead, metaphilosophers should examine more finely grained mental states. Three promising strategies for parsing intuitions more finely are proposed: by their causal origins, by their context of employment, and by the exoticism of their content. This more narrow focus may significantly alter the dialectic in three prominent metaphilosophical arguments: the argument from calibration, the argument from self-defeat, and the argument from intuitional sensitivity. (shrink)

One sometimes believes a proposition without grasping it. For example, a complete achromat might believe that ripe tomatoes are red without grasping this proposition. My aim in this paper is to shed light on the difference between merely believing a proposition and grasping it. I focus on two possible theories of grasping: the inferential theory, which explains grasping in terms of inferential role, and the phenomenal theory, which explains grasping in terms of phenomenal consciousness. I argue that the phenomenal theory (...) is more plausible than the inferential theory. (shrink)

By playing a crucial role in settling open issues in the philosophical debate about logical consequence, logical evidence has become the holy grail of inquirers investigating the domain of logic. However, despite its indispensable role in this endeavor, logical evidence has retained an aura of mystery. Indeed, there seems to be a great disharmony in conceiving the correct nature and scope of logical evidence among philosophers. In this paper, I examine four widespread conceptions of logical evidence to argue that all (...) should be reconsidered. First, I argue that logical apriorists are more tolerant of logical evidence than empiricists. Second, I argue that evidence for logic should not be read out of natural language. Third, I argue that if logical intuitions are to count as logical evidence, then their evidential content must not be propositional. Finally, I argue that the empiricist proposal of treating experts' judgments as evidence suffers from the same problems as the rationalist conception. (shrink)

I argue for an account of grasping, or understanding that, on which we grasp via a higher‐order mental act of Husserlian fulfillment. Fulfillment is the act of matching up the objects of our phenomenally presentational experiences with those of our phenomenally representational thought. Grasping‐by‐fulfilling is importantly different from standard epistemic aims, in part because it is phenomenal rather than inferential. (I endorse Bourget's (2017) arguments to that effect.) I show that grasping‐by‐fulfilling cannot be a species of propositional knowledge or belief, (...) and that it is not essentially connected to justification. I motivate a revisionary epistemology on which achieving propositional knowledge and coming to grasp are dual epistemic aims. My account makes sense of a common occurrence—that we are often unmoved to act on our beliefs until we come to phenomenally experience them in some way. It also explains puzzling features of human inquiry. (shrink)

This work investigates intuitions' nature, demonstrating how philosophers can best use them in epistemology. First, the author considers several paradigmatic thought experiments in epistemology that depict the appeal to intuition. He then argues that the nature of thought experiment-generated intuitions is not best explained by an a priori Platonism. Second, the book instead develops and argues for a thin conception of epistemic intuitions. The account maintains that intuition is neither a priori nor a posteriori but multi-dimensional. It is an intentional (...) but non-propositional mental state that is also non-conceptual and non-phenomenal in nature. Moreover, this state is individuated by its progenitor, namely, the relevant thought experiment. Third, the author provides an argument for the evidential status of intuitions based on the correct account of the nature of epistemic intuition. The suggestion is the fitting-ness approach: intuition alone has no epistemic status. Rather, intuition has evidentiary value as long as it fits well with other pieces into a whole, namely, the pertinent thought experiment. Finally, the book addresses the key challenges raised by supporters of anti-centrality, according to which philosophers do not regard intuition as central evidence in philosophy. To that end, the author responds to them, showing that they fail to affect the account of intuition developed in this book. This text appeals to students and researchers working in epistemology. (shrink)

Intuition is frequently used in medicine. Along with the use of existing medical rules, there is a separate channel that physicians rely on when making decisions: their intuition. To cope with the epistemic problem of using intuition, I use some clues from Wittgenstein's philosophy to illuminate the decision-making process in medicine. First, I point to a connection between intuition as functioning in medicine and Wittgenstein's notions of "seeing as" or noticing "aspects". Secondly, I use Wittgenstein notion of empirical regularities hardened (...) into rules to suggest that there are two stages that should be addressed in the analysis of medical practice: the first concerns the accumulation of cases and the second pertains to the setting a rule based on these cases. I argue further that the medical context is exceptional in that the two stages are intertwined and, and explain the consequences of this fact for the physician's work. Finally, inspired by Wittgenstein's rule-following conundrum, I argue that medicine is particularly prone to difficulties in applying a general rule to a specific case represented by an individual patient. Recourse to intuition is reflects the physicians' efforts to bridge this gap. (shrink)

Sharon Street defines her constructivism about practical reasons as the view that whether something is a reason to do a certain thing for a given agent depends on that agent’s normative point of view. However, Street has also maintained that there is a judgment about practical reasons which is true relative to every possible normative point of view, namely constructivism itself. I show that the latter thesis is inconsistent with Street’s own constructivism about epistemic reasons and discuss some consequences of (...) this incompatibility. (shrink)

In what sense, if any, are philosophers experts in their domain of research and what could philosophical expertise be? The above questions are particularly pressing given recent methodological disputes in philosophy. The so-called expertise defense recently proposed as a reply to experimental philosophers postulates that philosophers are experts qua having improved intuitions. However, this model of philosophical expertise has been challenged by studies suggesting that philosophers’ intuitions are no less prone to biases and distortions than intuitions of non-philosophers. Should we (...) then give up on the idea that philosophers possess some sort of expertise? In this paper, I argue that instead of focusing on intuitions, we may understand the relevant results of philosophical practice more broadly and investigate the other kind of expertise they would require. My proposal is inspired by a prominent approach to investigating expert performance from psychology and suggests where and how to look for expertise in the results characteristic of philosophical practice. In developing this model, I discuss the following three candidates for such results: arguments, theories, and distinctions. Whether philosophers could be shown to be expert intuiters or not, there are interesting domains where we could look for philosophical expertise, beyond intuitions. (shrink)

Machery et al. claim that analytic philosophers of language are committed to a method of cases according to which theories of reference are assessed by consulting semantic intuitions about actual and possible cases. Since empirical evidence suggests that such intuitions vary both within and across cultures, these experimental semanticists conclude that the traditional attempt at pursuing such theories is misguided. Against the backdrop of Kripke’s anti-descriptivist arguments, this paper offers a novel response to the challenge posed by Machery et al., (...) arguing that they either misplace or exaggerate the role played by. The lesson is that while semantic intuitions carry evidential weight in evaluating certain subjunctive conditionals reflecting counterfactual possibilities, they neither play an epistemic role in determining the actual reference of proper names, nor in evaluating certain indicative conditionals reflecting so-called counteractual possibilities. Moreover, once an asymmetry is acknowledged in Machery et al’s vignette between the narrator and the subject’s suppositions about the actual world, a corresponding ambiguity can account for the alleged culturally determined variation in semantic intuitions. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWe consider whether and under what conditions it is morally illicit to profit from poverty. We argue that when profit counterfactually depends on poverty, the agent making the profit is morally obliged to relinquish it. Finally, we argue that the people to whom the profit should be redirected are those on whom it counterfactually depends.