Philosophical Naturalism and Intuitional Methodology*

Abstract

1. Intuitions in Philosophy: What's the Controversy? A debate is raging over philosophical methodology. It is a debate between philosophical traditionalists and science-oriented philosophical naturalists concerning the legitimacy of the widespread use of in philosophy. Not everyone finds the term intuition the best label for what philosophers rely upon in the relevant sector of their practice. Instead of intuitions some prefer to talk of intuitive judgments, thought experiments, or what have you. Nonetheless, intuition is the most commonly used term in the territory, so I shall not abandon it, though other terms will be used as well. Described fairly neutrally, the philosophical activity in question consists of specifying a hypothetical scenario and rendering an intuitive judgment about the correctness or incorrectness of classifying it under a stipulated heading. Does a given predicate 'F' apply to an event, an individual, a pair of objects, etc. in the scenario? Putting the question less linguistically, is a certain property or relation exemplified in the scenario? The central question in the debate is whether, when or intuitive judgments are formed about such cases, they provide good evidence for some type of philosophical conclusion. For instance, are they good evidence for a conclusion of the form Case C is/is not an instance of F? Philosophers' ultimate interest is not in cases per se. Cases are examined as a means to determining the content or composition of the referent of T' (where the referent may be a property, a kind, a meaning, or a concept). But this further determination is not in the foreground?though it definitely cannot be ignored. That case sometimes have a powerful impact on philosophical thinking is evident from historically salient cases. Gettier's famous paper of 1963 is a prime example. It was concurring intuitive judgments about his counterexamples to the justified true belief analysis of knowledge that propelled major changes in our theory of knowledge, or the analysis of knowledge. Today the JTB analysis is a dead letter. So the impact of intuitive judgments in philosophy cannot be underestimated.