What does a philosopher mean when he appeals to the "intuitive" nature of a premise? Does "X is intuitive" just means "X seems plausible and the non-X views I have considered seem implausible"?
Four authors, led by James Ladyman, a few years back (2007) wrote a book called EVERYTHING MUST GO: METAPHYSICS NATURALIZED. They complained that most metaphysics of late, especially within the analytic philosophical tradition, has been worthless.
I recently read a review of this book in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, posted there in 2010. It paraphrased the key sentiments of the authors in this passage.
Look at any well-written paper in analytic philosophy and you will see arguments aplenty; if the author has not done your work for you by making a list of numbered premises, he or she has probably done enough that you could make such a list without having to exercise too much creativity. The arguments may very well be valid: you will be convinced that the conclusions are true if the premises are. So far, so good, you think. Now, what about the premises -- the claims that are not the conclusions of any argument? Where did they come from? (The premise factory?) You will look again to see what your author has to say in favour of them. Sometimes you will find an appeal to some expert authority. But pretty often -- perhaps especially often in metaphysics -- you will find your author saying something to the effect that the premise is intuitive, or "supported by intuition", or that its negation is "counterintuitive". After considering an assortment of examples of analytic metaphysicians saying this sort of thing, the authors conclude that something has gone dreadfully wrong with the whole discipline: 'the criteria of adequacy for metaphysical systems have clearly come apart from anything to do with the truth' (13). As they repeatedly emphasize, the questions of metaphysics are not psychological or sociological questions; they are about the world. And what reason is there to think that our intuitions about these questions tend to be correct, given that 'proficiency in inferring the large-scale and small-scale structure of our immediate environment, or any features of parts of the universe distant from our ancestral stomping grounds, was of no relevance to our ancestors' reproductive fitness' (2)?
Here is a link. https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/every-thing-must-go-metaphysics-naturalized/ Out of laziness, I will say no more.
Except that the lecturer in the photo above is James Ladyman.
I don't understand how the reviewer can believe that "proficiency in inferring the large-scale and small-scale structure of our immediate environment ... was of no relevance to our ancestors' reproductive fitness." Isn't it intuitively obvious that it was of relevance? Seriously, although I am not sure what the "large-scale and small-scale structure of our immediate environment" means, let's suppose it means that, if one knows that, for example, people have drowned in large bodies of water, then, when one encounters a previously unknown large body of water, one infers that one might drown in it if one fails to take appropriate precautions.
ReplyDeleteIn my example, the person who appreciates the need to take appropriate precautions does so on the basis of inductive reasoning, not on the basis of intuition. Perhaps I should have offered an example of inferring knowledge of the world intuitively. But the reviewer states that proficiency in inferring is flat-out of no relevance. He does not distinguish proficiency based on intuition from proficiency based on reasoning.
Hi, Henry, I believe the reviewer meant by "small-scale" the microscopic and by large-scale the astronomical. It isn't clear that our paleolithic ancestors wouldn't have gained much by understanding that their genetic code is ended in a tiny thing with the shape of a double helix. Nor would a grasp of Copernican astronomy have helped them avoid cliffs or sabre-toothed tigers or have fruitful sex with each other.
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ReplyDelete"would've gained much ... genetic code is incorporated"
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