33 found
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  1. The Nature of Intuitive Justification.Elijah Chudnoff - 2011 - Philosophical Studies 153 (2):313 - 333.
    In this paper I articulate and defend a view that I call phenomenal dogmatism about intuitive justification. It is dogmatic because it includes the thesis: if it intuitively seems to you that p, then you thereby have some prima facie justification for believing that p. It is phenomenalist because it includes the thesis: intuitions justify us in believing their contents in virtue of their phenomenology—and in particular their presentational phenomenology. I explore the nature of presentational phenomenology as it occurs perception, (...)
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  2. What Intuitions Are Like.Elijah Chudnoff - 2011 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 82 (3):625-654.
    What are intuitions? According to doxastic views, they are doxastic attitudes or dispositions, such as judgments or inclinations to make judgments. According to perceptualist views, they are—like perceptual experiences—pre-doxastic experiences that—unlike perceptual experiences—represent abstract matters as being a certain way. In this paper I argue against doxasticism and in favor of perceptualism. I describe two features that militate against doxasticist views of perception itself: perception is belief-independent and perception is presentational. Then I argue that intuitions also have both features. The (...)
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  3. Presentational Phenomenology.Elijah Chudnoff - 2012 - In Sofia Miguens & Gerhard Preyer (eds.), Consciousness and Subjectivity. [Place of publication not identified]: Ontos Verlag. pp. 51–72.
    A blindfolded clairvoyant walks into a room and immediately knows how it is arranged. You walk in and immediately see how it is arranged. Though both of you represent the room as being arranged in the same way, you have different experiences. Your experience doesn’t just represent that the room is arranged a certain way; it also visually presents the very items in the room that make that representation true. Call the felt aspect of your experience made salient by this (...)
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  4. Epistemic Elitism and Other Minds.Elijah Chudnoff - 2018 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (2):276-298.
    Experiences justify beliefs about our environment. Sometimes the justification is immediate: seeing a red light immediately justifies believing there is a red light. Other times the justification is mediate: seeing a red light justifies believing one should brake in a way that is mediated by background knowledge of traffic signals. How does this distinction map onto the distinction between what is and what isn't part of the content of experience? Epistemic egalitarians think that experiences immediately justify whatever is part of (...)
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  5. The epistemic significance of perceptual learning.Elijah Chudnoff - 2018 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 61 (5-6):520-542.
    First impressions suggest the following contrast between perception and memory: perception generates new beliefs and reasons, justification, or evidence for those beliefs; memory preserves old beliefs and reasons, justification, or evidence for those beliefs. In this paper, I argue that reflection on perceptual learning gives us reason to adopt an alternative picture on which perception plays both generative and preservative epistemic roles.
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  6. The Epistemic Unity of Perception.Elijah Chudnoff & David Didomenico - 2015 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 96 (4):535-549.
    Dogmatists and phenomenal conservatives think that if it perceptually seems to you that p, then you thereby have some prima facie justification for believing that p. Increasingly, writers about these views have argued that perceptual seemings are composed of two other states: a sensation followed by a seeming. In this article we critically examine this movement. First we argue that there are no compelling reasons to think of perceptual seemings as so composed. Second we argue that even if they were (...)
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  7. The Rational Roles of Intuition.Elijah Chudnoff - 2014 - In Anthony Robert Booth & Darrell P. Rowbottom (eds.), Intuitions. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press UK. pp. 9–35.
    NOTE: this is a substantial revision of a previously uploaded draft. Intuitions are often thought of as inputs to theoretical reasoning. For example, you might form a belief by taking an intuition at face value, or you might take your intuitions as starting points in the method of reflective equilibrium. The aim of this paper is to argue that in addition to these roles intuitions also play action-guiding roles. The argument proceeds by reflection on the transmission of justification through inference. (...)
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  8. Awareness of Abstract Objects.Elijah Chudnoff - 2012 - Noûs 47 (4):706-726.
    Awareness is a two-place determinable relation some determinates of which are seeing, hearing, etc. Abstract objects are items such as universals and functions, which contrast with concrete objects such as solids and liquids. It is uncontroversial that we are sometimes aware of concrete objects. In this paper I explore the more controversial topic of awareness of abstract objects. I distinguish two questions. First, the Existence Question: are there any experiences that make their subjects aware of abstract objects? Second, the Grounding (...)
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  9. Intuitive knowledge.Elijah Chudnoff - 2011 - Philosophical Studies 162 (2):359-378.
    In this paper I assume that we have some intuitive knowledge—i.e. beliefs that amount to knowledge because they are based on intuitions. The question I take up is this: given that some intuition makes a belief based on it amount to knowledge, in virtue of what does it do so? We can ask a similar question about perception. That is: given that some perception makes a belief based on it amount to knowledge, in virtue of what does it do so? (...)
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  10. Consciousness and Knowledge.Berit Brogaard & Elijah Chudnoff - 2020 - In Uriah Kriegel (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    This chapter focuses on the relationship between consciousness and knowledge, and in particular on the role perceptual consciousness might play in justifying beliefs about the external world. We outline a version of phenomenal dogmatism according to which perceptual experiences immediately, prima facie justify certain select parts of their content, and do so in virtue of their having a distinctive phenomenology with respect to those contents. Along the way we take up various issues in connection with this core theme, including the (...)
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  11. Moral Perception: High-Level Perception or Low-Level Intuition?Elijah Chudnoff - 2015 - In Thiemo Breyer & Christopher Gutland (eds.), Phenomenology of Thinking: Philosophical Investigations Into the Character of Cognitive Experiences. New York: Routledge.
    Here are four examples of “seeing.” You see that something green is wriggling. You see that an iguana is in distress. You see that someone is wrongfully harming an iguana. You see that torturing animals is wrong. The first is an example of low-level perception. You visually represent color and motion. The second is an example of high-level perception. You visually represent kind properties and mental properties. The third is an example of moral perception. You have an impression of moral (...)
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  12. What Should a Theory of Knowledge Do?Elijah Chudnoff - 2011 - Dialectica 65 (4):561-579.
    The Gettier Problem is the problem of revising the view that knowledge is justified true belief in a way that is immune to Gettier counter-examples. The “Gettier Problem problem”, according to Lycan, is the problem of saying what is misguided about trying to solve the Gettier Problem. In this paper I take up the Gettier Problem problem. I distinguish giving conditions that are necessary and sufficient for knowledge from giving conditions that explain why one knows when one does know. I (...)
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  13. Skepticism Is Wrong for General Reasons.Elijah Chudnoff - 2023 - International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 13 (2):95-104.
    According to Michael Bergmann’s “intuitionist particularism,” our position with respect to skeptical arguments is much the same as it was with respect to Zeno’s paradoxes of motion prior to our developing sophisticated theories of the continuum. We observed ourselves move, and that closed the case in favor of the ability to move, even if we had no general theory about that ability. We observe ourselves form justified beliefs, and that closes the case in favor of the ability to form justified (...)
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  14. Gurwitsch’s Phenomenal Holism.Elijah Chudnoff - 2013 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 12 (3):559-578.
    Aron Gurwitsch made two main contributions to phenomenology. He showed how to import Gestalt theoretical ideas into Husserl’s framework of constitutive phenomenology. And he explored the light this move sheds on both the overall structure of experience and on particular kinds of experience, especially perceptual experiences and conscious shifts in attention. The primary focus of this paper is the overall structure of experience. I show how Gurwitsch’s Gestalt theoretically informed phenomenological investigations provide a basis for defending what I will call (...)
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  15. Intellectual Gestalts.Elijah Chudnoff - 2013 - In Uriah Kriegel (ed.), Phenomenal Intentionality. , US: Oxford University Press. pp. 174.
    Phenomenal holism is the thesis that some phenomenal characters can only be instantiated by experiences that are parts of certain wholes. The first aim of this paper is to defend phenomenal holism. I argue, moreover, that there are complex intellectual experiences (intellectual gestalts)—such as experiences of grasping a proof—whose parts instantiate holistic phenomenal characters. Proponents of cognitive phenomenology believe that some phenomenal characters can only be instantiated by experiences that are not purely sensory. The second aim of this paper is (...)
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  16. Is Intuition Based On Understanding?[I thank Jo].Elijah Chudnoff - 2013 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 86 (1):42-67.
    According to the most popular non-skeptical views about intuition, intuitions justify beliefs because they are based on understanding. More precisely: if intuiting that p justifies you in believing that p it does so because your intuition is based on your understanding of the proposition that p. The aim of this paper is to raise some challenges for accounts of intuitive justification along these lines. I pursue this project from a non-skeptical perspective. I argue that there are cases in which intuiting (...)
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  17. The reality of the intuitive.Elijah Chudnoff - 2017 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 60 (4):371-385.
    According to current methodological orthodoxy philosophers rely on intuitions about thought experiments to refute general claims about the nature of knowledge, freedom, thought, reference, justice, beauty, etc. Philosophers working under the banner of ‘negative experimental philosophy’ have criticized more traditional philosophers for relying on this method. They argue that intuitions about thought experiments are influenced by factors that are irrelevant to the truth of their contents. Cappelen and Deutsch defend traditional philosophy against this critique by rejecting the picture of philosophical (...)
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  18. In Search of Intuition.Elijah Chudnoff - 2019 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 98 (3):465-480.
    What are intuitions? Stereotypical examples may suggest that they are the results of common intellectual reflexes. But some intuitions defy the stereotype: there are hard-won intuitions that take d...
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  19.  79
    (1 other version)Phenomenal Contrast Arguments for Cognitive Phenomenology.Elijah Chudnoff - 2015 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 91 (1):82-104.
    According to proponents of irreducible cognitive phenomenology some cognitive states put one in phenomenal states for which no wholly sensory states suffice. One of the main approaches to defending the view that there is irreducible cognitive phenomenology is to give a phenomenal contrast argument. In this paper I distinguish three kinds of phenomenal contrast argument: what I call pure—represented by Strawson's Jack/Jacques argument—hypothetical—represented by Kriegel's Zoe argument—and glossed—first developed here. I argue that pure and hypothetical phenomenal contrast arguments face significant (...)
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  20. The Nature and Value of Firsthand Insight.Elijah Chudnoff - forthcoming - Philosophical Studies:1-15.
    You can be convinced that something is true but still desire to see it for yourself. A trusted critic makes some observations about a movie, now you want to watch it with them in mind. A proof demonstrates the validity of a formula, but you are not satisfied until you see how the formula works. In these cases, we place special value on knowing by what Sosa (2021) calls “firsthand insight” a truth that we might already know in some other (...)
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  21.  98
    Grounding and Entailment.Elijah Chudnoff - manuscript
    I argue that complete metaphysical grounds need not amount to metaphysically sufficient conditions for what they ground. I presented this at the Pacific APA in 2011. A version was R&Red somewhere but I never got around to Ring it, so it remains unpublished. It is cited every once in a while, so I'm uploading it here.
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  22. Experience and Epistemic Structure: Can Cognitive Penetration Result in Epistemic Downgrade?Elijah Chudnoff - 2019 - In Anders Nes & Timothy Hoo Wai Chan (eds.), Inference and Consciousness. London: Routledge.
    Reflection on the possibility of cases in which experience is cognitively penetrated has suggested to many that an experience's etiology can reduce its capacity to provide prima facie justification for believing its content below a baseline. This is epistemic downgrade due to etiology, and its possibility is incompatible with phenomenal conservatism. I develop a view that explains the epistemic deficiency in certain possible cases of cognitive penetration but on which there is no epistemic downgrading below a baseline and on which (...)
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  23. Two Kinds of Cognitive Expertise.Elijah Chudnoff - 2019 - Noûs 55 (2):270-292.
    Expertise is traditionally classified into perceptual, cognitive, and motor forms. I argue that the empirical research literature on expertise gives us compelling reasons to reject this traditional classification and accept an alternative. According to the alternative I support there is expertise in forming impressions, which further divides into expertise in forming sensory and intellectual impressions, and there is expertise in performing actions, which further divides into expertise in performing mental and bodily actions. The traditional category of cognitive expertise splits into (...)
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  24. Inferential Seemings.Elijah Chudnoff - forthcoming - Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Mind.
    There is a felt difference between following an argument to its conclusion and keeping up with an argument in your judgments while failing to see how its conclusion follows from its premises. In the first case there’s what I’m calling an inferential seeming, in the second case there isn’t. Inferential seemings exhibit a cluster of functional and normative characteristics whose integration in one mental state is puzzling. Several recent accounts of inferring suggest inferential seemings play a significant role in the (...)
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  25. Reasoned Change in Logic.Elijah Chudnoff - forthcoming - In Scott Stapleford, Kevin McCain & Matthias Steup (eds.), Evidentialism at 40: New Arguments, New Angles. Routledge.
    By a reasoned change in logic I mean a change in the logic with which you make inferences that is based on your evidence. An argument sourced in recently published material Kripke lectured on in the 1970s, and dubbed the Adoption Problem by Birman (then Padró) in her 2015 dissertation, challenges the possibility of reasoned changes in logic. I explain why evidentialists should be alarmed by this challenge, and then I go on to dispel it. The Adoption Problem rests on (...)
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  26. Intuition in Mathematics.Elijah Chudnoff - 2014 - In Linda Osbeck & Barbara Held (eds.), Rational Intuition. Cambridge University Press.
    The literature on mathematics suggests that intuition plays a role in it as a ground of belief. This article explores the nature of intuition as it occurs in mathematical thinking. Section 1 suggests that intuitions should be understood by analogy with perceptions. Section 2 explains what fleshing out such an analogy requires. Section 3 discusses Kantian ways of fleshing it out. Section 4 discusses Platonist ways of fleshing it out. Section 5 sketches a proposal for resolving the main problem facing (...)
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  27. Veridical Perceptual Seemings.Elijah Chudnoff - 2023 - In Kevin McCain, Scott Stapleford & Matthias Steup (eds.), Seemings: New Arguments, New Angles. New York, NY: Routledge.
    What is the epistemic significance of taking a veridical perceptual experience at face value? To first approximations, the Minimal View says that it is true belief, and the Maximal View says that it is knowledge. I sympathetically explore the prospects of the Maximal View.
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  28. Perceptually Secured Knowledge.Elijah Chudnoff - forthcoming - In Ori Beck & Farid Masrour (eds.), The Relational View of Perception: New Essays. Routledge.
    Perceptually secured knowledge consists of beliefs that amount to knowledge just because they are based on suitable perceptual states. Relationism about the ground of perceptually secured knowledge is the view that if a perceptual state can make a belief based on it amount to knowledge, then it can do that because it constitutes an appropriate kind of relational state, e.g., a state of perceptual acquaintance. I explore the prospects of both maintaining that some beliefs amount to perceptually secured knowledge and (...)
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  29. Multisensory Consciousness and Synesthesia.Berit Brogaard & Elijah Chudnoff - 2020 - In Berit Brogaard & Elijah Chudnoff (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Consciousness. Routledge. pp. 322-336.
    This chapter distinguishes between two kinds of ordinary multisensory experience that go beyond mere co-consciousness of features (e.g., the experience that results from concurrently hearing a sound in the hallway and seeing the cup on the table). In one case, a sensory experience in one modality creates a perceptual demonstrative to whose referent qualities are attributed in another sensory modality. For example, when you hear someone speak, auditory experience attributes audible qualities to a seen event, a person’s speaking motions. The (...)
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  30. How to Use Thought Experiments.Elijah Chudnoff - 2024 - In Blake Roeber, Ernest Sosa, Matthias Steup & John Turri (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, 3rd edition. Wiley-Blackwell.
    Thought experiments figure prominently in contemporary epistemology. Beyond that humdrum observation, controversy abounds. The aim of this paper is to make progress on two fronts. On the descriptive front, the aim is to illuminate what the practice of using thought experiments involves. On the normative front, the aim is to illuminate what the practice of using thought experiments should involve. Thought experiments result in judgments that are passed on to further philosophical reasoning. What are these judgments? What is the point (...)
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  31. Intuition in Gettier.Elijah Chudnoff - forthcoming - In Hetherington Stephen (ed.), Classic Philosophical Arguments: The Gettier Problem. Cambridge University Presss.
    Gettier’s paper, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?,” is widely taken to be a paradigm example of the sort of philosophical methodology that has been so hotly debated in the recent literature. Reflection on it motivates the following four theses about that methodology: (A) Intuitive judgments form an epistemically distinctive kind. (B) Intuitive judgments play an epistemically privileged role in philosophical methodology. (C) If intuitive judgments play an epistemically privileged role in philosophical methodology, then their role is to be taken as (...)
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  32. Review of Philosophical Methodology: From Data to Theory. [REVIEW]Elijah Chudnoff - forthcoming - Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
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  33. On Reflection, by Hilary Kornblith. [REVIEW]Elijah Chudnoff - 2015 - Mind 124 (496):1319-1322.
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