The Standard Picture

2020 ◽  
pp. 159-183
Author(s):  
Elijah Chudnoff
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Timothy Williamson ◽  
Standard Picture ◽  
Intuitive Judgments

The Standard Picture of philosophical methodology includes the following claims: (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 given inputs into generally accepted forms of reasoning; (D) Philosophical methodology is reasonable. Work in negative experimental philosophy has motivated some to question the descriptive accuracy of the Standard Picture. Some philosophers such as Timothy Williamson challenge (A) on the grounds that philosophy cannot be distinguished by its reliance on a distinctive epistemic source. Other philosophers such as Herman Cappelen and Max Deutsch challenge (B) on the grounds that philosophers do not treat intuitions as evidence. This chapter defends (A) and (B) in the Standard Picture against these challenges.

The Place of Expert Intuition in Philosophy

2020 ◽  
pp. 184-207
Author(s):  
Elijah Chudnoff
Keyword(s):  
Current Practice ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Traditional Philosophy ◽  
Standard Picture ◽  
Intuitive Judgments ◽  
Historical Antecedents ◽  
Expertise Defense

The Standard Picture of philosophical methodology includes the following claims: (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 given inputs into generally accepted forms of reasoning; (D) Philosophical methodology is reasonable. Negative experimental philosophers accept claims (A), (B), and (C), but challenge (D). This chapter develops a variant on the expertise defense of traditional philosophy. The defense hinges on denying (C) in the Standard Picture: philosophers do not treat their intuitions as data; they treat their intuitions as observations that can be improved through reasoning. The chapter explores both historical antecedents in the rationalist tradition, and descriptive accuracy with respect to current practice.

Philosophy’s Future as a Problem-Solving Discipline

2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 292-312
Author(s):  
Richard Kamber ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
Michael Dummett ◽  
Timothy Williamson ◽  
Philosophical Methods

Scientists often reach provisional agreement solutions to problems central to their disciplines, whereas philosophers do not. Although philosophy has been practiced by outstanding intellects for over two thousand years, philosophers have not reached agreement, provisional or otherwise, on the solution or dissolution of any central philosophical problem by philosophical methods. What about philosophy’s future? Until about 1970, philosophers were generally optimistic. Some pinned their hopes on revolution in methodology, others on reform of practice. The case for gradual reform still finds articulate advocates in philosophers like Michael Dummett and Timothy Williamson, but many philosophers today suspect that perennial disagreement may be inescapable. I consider three explanations for the inescapability of perennial disagreement—Richard Rorty’s relativism, Colin McGinn’s skepticism, and Nicholas Rescher’s pluralism—and find each wanting. I argue that a better explanation is the resistance of philosophers to commit, as scientists do, to formulating testable theories and collecting data to help decide between competing theories. I close by proposing that experimental philosophy, a movement still in its infancy, holds the promise of reuniting philosophy with science and moving philosophers closer to agreement on the solution of its central problems.

Williamson, Timothy (1955–)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Ball
Keyword(s):  
Classical Logic ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Philosophical Logic ◽  
Timothy Williamson ◽  
Principle Of Charity ◽  
Analytic Philosopher ◽  
Formal Techniques

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.

scholarly journals Analiza empirycznych argumentów na rzecz tezy o zróżnicowaniu kulturowym intuicji epistemicznych

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-102
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Sękowski
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Cross Cultural Differences ◽  
Folk Epistemology

An analysis of empirical arguments for the thesis on cultural diversity of epistemic intuitionsThe founding text for the new current in modern philosophy—experimental philosophy—can be seen in Jonathan Weinberg, Shaun Nichols and Stephen Stich’s “Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions” 2001. The authors describe in this article a study to prove cross-cultural differences in epistemic intuitions. On the basis of their results, they argue that since epistemic intuitions seem to serve a crucial role in the use of thought experiments, contemporary philosophical methodology is highly unjustified.That study has brought about at least three replication attempts Seyedsayamdost 2015; Kim, Yuan 2015; Nagel, San Juan, Mar 2013. None of them confirmed the original results.The aim of this article is to critically analyze in detail Weinberg, Nichols and Stich’s methodology and the three replications mentioned. Regarding the results of my analysis, I will try to examine what conclusions can be drawn with regard to the outcomes of analized studies. In particular I will refer to far-reaching conclusions about the universality of epistemic intuitions or universality of folk epistemology, which are sometimes—hastily, as I will argue—extrapolated from the results of such kind of studies e.g., Kim, Yuan 2015; Kim Yuan 2016.

Philosophical Naturalism

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hilary Kornblith
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Philosophical Naturalism ◽  
Philosophical Questions

This article focuses on naturalistic approaches to philosophical methodology. It begins with an overview of naturalism, its relationship with views about the a priori, and the implications of a philosopher’s commitment to naturalism for proper method in philosophy. It then considers the disagreement among naturalists about the tenability of the a priori/a posteriori distinction with respect to naturalism, before turning to a discussion of the use of science to address philosophical questions. It also looks at work in epistemology which draws on results in the cognitive sciences as a way of understanding the nature of knowledge, with particular emphasis on the role of Alvin Goldman in getting epistemologists to pay attention to the import of empirical work for understanding epistemological issues. Finally, it explores experimental philosophy as a methodological approach to philosophical questions and comments on the debate over the legitimacy of armchair methods in philosophy.

scholarly journals ON NORMATIVITY AND EPISTEMIC INTUITIONS: FAILURE OF REPLICATION

Episteme ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamid Seyedsayamdost
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Important Implication ◽  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Socioeconomic Groups ◽  
On Line ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Different Sources ◽  
Larger Sample

AbstractThe field of experimental philosophy has received considerable attention, essentially for producing results that seem highly counter-intuitive and at the same time question some of the fundamental methods used in philosophy. One of the earlier influential papers that gave rise to the experimental philosophy movement titled ‘Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions’ by Jonathan M. Weinberg, Shaun Nichols and Stephen Stich (2001), reported that respondents displayed different epistemic intuitions depending on their ethnic background as well as socioeconomic status. These findings, if robust, would have important implications for philosophical methodology in general and epistemology in particular. Because of the important implication of its findings, Weinberg et al. (2001) has been very influential – currently with more than four hundred citations – and the subject of extensive debate. Despite the paper's significance and despite all the debates this paper has generated, there has not been a replication attempt of its experiments. We collected data from four different sources (two on-line and two in-person) to replicate the experiments. Despite several different data sets and in various cases larger sample sizes, we failed to detect significant differences between the above-mentioned groups. Our results suggest that epistemic intuitions are more uniform across ethnic and socioeconomic groups than Weinberg et al. (2001) indicates. Given our data, we believe that the notion of differences in epistemic intuitions among different ethnic and socioeconomic groups advanced by Weinberg et al. (2001) and accepted by many researchers needs to be corrected.

scholarly journals “FILLING IN”, THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS AND INTUITIONS

Episteme ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-262
Author(s):  
Michael J. Shaffer
Keyword(s):  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Philosophical Analysis ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Philosophical Practice ◽  
Philosophical Thought ◽  
Substantial Role ◽  
Timothy Williamson

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.

Aboutness

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Yablo
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Library Science ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Major Advance ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Ways Of Being ◽  
Made In

Aboutness has been studied from any number of angles. Brentano made it the defining feature of the mental. Phenomenologists try to pin down the aboutness features of particular mental states. Materialists sometimes claim to have grounded aboutness in natural regularities. Attempts have even been made, in library science and information theory, to operationalize the notion. However, it has played no real role in philosophical semantics, which is surprising. This is the first book to examine through a philosophical lens the role of subject matter in meaning. A long-standing tradition sees meaning as truth conditions, to be specified by listing the scenarios in which a sentence is true. Nothing is said about the principle of selection—about what in a scenario gets it onto the list. Subject matter is the missing link here. A sentence is true because of how matters stand where its subject matter is concerned. This book maintains that this is not just a feature of subject matter, but its essence. One indicates what a sentence is about by mapping out logical space according to its changing ways of being true or false. The notion of content that results—directed content—is brought to bear on a range of philosophical topics, including ontology, verisimilitude, knowledge, loose talk, assertive content, and philosophical methodology. The book represents a major advance in semantics and the philosophy of language.

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