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Single Idea 20181

[filed under theme 12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 2. Intuition ]

Full Idea

'Intuition' plays a major role in contemporary analytic philosophy's self-understanding. ...When contemporary analytic philosophers run out of arguments, they appeal to intuitions. ...Thus intuitions are presented as our evidence in philosophy.

Gist of Idea

When analytic philosophers run out of arguments, they present intuitions as their evidence

Source

Timothy Williamson (The Philosophy of Philosophy [2007], p.214-5), quoted by Herman Cappelen - Philosophy without Intuitions 01.1

Book Ref

Cappelen,Herman: 'Philosophy Without Intuitions' [OUP 2012], p.3


A Reaction

Williamson says we must investigate this 'scandal', but Cappelen's book says analytic philosophy does not rely on intuition.


The 13 ideas from 'The Philosophy of Philosophy'

Williamson can't base metaphysical necessity on the psychology of causal counterfactuals [Lowe on Williamson]
Intuition is neither powerful nor vacuous, but reveals linguistic or conceptual competence [Williamson]
Progress in philosophy is incremental, not an immature seeking after drama [Williamson]
Correspondence to the facts is a bad account of analytic truth [Williamson]
You might know that the word 'gob' meant 'mouth', but not be competent to use it [Williamson]
We scorn imagination as a test of possibility, forgetting its role in counterfactuals [Williamson]
There are 'armchair' truths which are not a priori, because experience was involved [Williamson]
Modal thinking isn't a special intuition; it is part of ordinary counterfactual thinking [Williamson]
There cannot be vague objects, so there may be no such thing as a mountain [Williamson]
If languages are intertranslatable, and cognition is innate, then cultures are all similar [Williamson]
Common sense and classical logic are often simultaneously abandoned in debates on vagueness [Williamson]
The realist/anti-realist debate is notoriously obscure and fruitless [Williamson]
When analytic philosophers run out of arguments, they present intuitions as their evidence [Williamson]