scholarly journals “FILLING IN”, THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS AND INTUITIONS

Episteme ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-262
Author(s):  
Michael J. Shaffer

AbstractRecently Timothy Williamson has argued that characterizations of the standard (i.e. intuition-based) philosophical practice of philosophical analysis are misguided because of the erroneous manner in which this practice has been understood. In doing so he implies that experimental critiques of the reliability of intuition are based on this misunderstanding of philosophical methodology and so have little or no bearing on actual philosophical practice or results. His main point is that the orthodox understanding of philosophical methodology is incorrect in that it treats philosophical thought experiments in such a way that they can be “filled in” in various ways that undermines their use as counter-examples and that intuition plays no substantial role in philosophical practice when we properly understand that methodology as a result of the possibility of such filling in. In this paper Williamson's claim that philosophical thought experiments cases can be legitimately filled in this way will be challenged and it will be shown that the experimental critique of the intuition-based methods involved a serious issue.

Author(s):  
Jonathan M. Weinberg

This article examines the philosophical methodology of intuitions beginning with an argument developed by Max Deutsch and Herman Cappelen over the descriptive adequacy of what Cappelen calls “methodological rationalism”, and their own preferred view, “intuition nihilism”. Based on inadequacies in both accounts, it offers a descriptive take on intuition-deploying philosophical practice today via what it calls “Protean Crypto-Rationalism”. It then describes the epistemic profile of the appeal to intuition, listing four key aspects of the basic shape of intuition-deploying philosophical practice: primacy of cases, flexibility of report format, freedom of stipulation, and interpretation-hungry. It also considers several sources of error for intuitions featured in at least the informal methodological lore of philosophy, namely: misconstruals, modal confusions, pragmatics/semantics confusion, and “tin ear”. Finally, it explores the problem of methodological ignorance and inferential demand, particularly the typical practices of philosophical inference that operate on the premises delivered by appeal to intuitions.


Dialogue ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 443-464
Author(s):  
EYJA M. BRYNJARSDÓTTIR

This paper argues that philosophical practice in the Western world, in particular analytic philosophy, suffers from problems that contribute to its lack of diversity in two senses: the exclusion of women and minorities, and a narrow choice of subjects and methods. This is not fruitful for philosophical exchange and the flourishing of philosophical thought. Three contributing factors are covered: a flawed execution when instilling intellectual humility; the gaslighting of women in philosophy; and an overemphasis on a narrow conception of intelligence. The conclusion calls for a more humane and socially aware practice of philosophy.


Author(s):  
Ruth Garrett Millikan

Replacing empirical concepts with unicepts has implications both for philosophical methodology and for some central matters in philosophy of science, plilosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. This chapter gives illustrations that concern the fixing of referents of naming words in a public language, the method of philosophical analysis, referential constancy of names for theoretical objects over theory change, the distinction between so-called “observational concepts” and “theoretical concepts,” and last, so-called “theory of mind.” This is a somewhat arbitrary collection of apparent implications of embracing unicepts, but the discussions of the “observation-theory” distinction and of “theory of mind” will be needed when discussing both perception and the semantics-pragmatics distinction.


Synthese ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 192 (9) ◽  
pp. 2827-2842 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Kier Praëm ◽  
Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 5-9
Author(s):  
Marina V. Volferts

The article deals with the studies devoted to the analysis of communication between a doctor and a patient in various fields of sociohumanitarian knowledge (bioethics, psychology, sociology of medicine). The author believe that these approaches are organizing the communication based on the utilitarian ideas excluding it from ontological problematics. The author proposes to turn to existentially oriented philosophical thought to find the most effective communication tools between a doctor and a patient. In particular, the concept of existential communication of K. Jaspers can be such an instrument, revealing this process as a dialogue of existence with existence and pointing to the ontological basis of communication between the doctor and the patient. Thus, the article presents an attempt to justify the feasibility of a philosophical analysis of the relationship between the doctor and the patient.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
I. A. Petukhov

Introduction. In this article issues, are considered, that are connected with the change of smenovekhovtsy in scientific and political publications of Russian authors in the historical retrospective. The article snows that the initial assessments were greatly defendant on the political environment at the beginning of the XX century when of the articles criticism the entire intellectual class but this tendency gradually evolved in to a more detailed and conscious analysis of the smenovekhovtsy ideas through the lens of the Russian post-revolutionary thought.Materials and Methods. The material of the research is the publications of various authors devoted to the problems of changeover as a philosophical and political trend. To solve the set tasks, the methods of philosophical analysis, interpretation, comparison, generalization are used.Results. The result of the conducted research is the systematization of the history of consideration of the phenomenon of changeover from political criticism to understanding the originality of the originality of the thought of the creators of this movement, including the personality characteristics of N.V. Ustryalov, a description and assessment of his political, scientific, managerial and other activities directly related to the process of the origin and development of the project of change. In general, it can be stated that the philosophical studies of the works and biography of N.V. Ustryalova are devoted to a limited range of topics: an assessment of his activities as a political figure of the white movement, an analysis of his ties with the Bolsheviks, a study of the reasons that served as the basis for the formation of the idea of national bolshevism and a conceptual comparison of this trend with Smenovekhovtsy. Currently, this thematic circle has expanded due to the study of the philosophical and political views of N.V. Ustryalov from the point of view of the influence of Smenovekhovtsy on other trends of Russian social thought in emigration, the originality and patriotism of his works.Discussion and Conclusion. Within the framework of this article, a scientific discussion of well-known experts on the history of changeover is presented and makes it possible to characterize the main ideas of the representatives of this trend. One of the most important issues discussed in the works devoted to the changeover and directly by N.V. Ustryalov, is the question of the originality of smenovekhovtsy as a political and philosophical direction of Russian thought. An important role in the study of N.V. Ustryalov plays the fact of the influence of his ideas on other currents of emigration, Soviet and philosophical thought, understanding of the origins and foundations that served to create smenovekhovtsy and National Bolshevism. Therefore, it can be argued that a deep meaningful analysis of domestic ideas is needed, a study of the history of interpenetration and the influence of the teachings of the smenovekhovtsy on post-revolutionary socio-political and philosophical thought, both inRussia and abroad.Thus, the author was able to form a full-fledged political and philosophical analysis of journalism devoted to the changeover and demonstrate the importance of the ideas of its creators in the history of Russian philosophy.


Author(s):  
Brian Ball

Timothy Williamson is a British analytic philosopher, who has made major contributions in philosophical logic, epistemology, metaphysics, the philosophy of language and philosophical methodology. Williamson has defended classical logic in connection with the sorites (or heap) paradox, by appeal to epistemicism, the view that vagueness is ignorance. His knowledge first approach has reversed the traditional order of explanation in epistemology. In metaphysics, he has argued in favour of necessitism – the view that what there is (ontology) is metaphysically necessary, not contingent. In the philosophy of language, he has argued that one must (in a certain privileged sense, constitutive of assertion) assert only what one knows; and he has defended a principle of charity according to which the best interpretations of a language maximize the attribution of knowledge (rather than true belief) to its speakers. Methodologically, Williamson opposes naturalism and defends instead the use of ‘armchair’ methods to answer substantive questions; in practice, his work is often characterized by the application of formal techniques, both logical and mathematical, to traditional philosophical problems.


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