I think definitions are a problem of authority, not type. The question feels important and I need you to know that it was fucking dumb and rude of you to treat it so dismissively, Lance. Nice piece, opened the discussion. It’s not clear then why you might try to subsequently shut it down?
Nothing I said was rude or dumb. The question did not make sense. I am criticizing other people for the things they say, e.g., “it’s intuitive that,” or “it seems to us that.” Nothing about my criticism requires me to specify any particular conception of what other people mean when they talk about “intuitions” or “seemings” or whatever.
I even put the term intuitive in scare quotes in the title and in the text, along with the other terms to which I am referring. This was intended to illustrate that I am referring to things other people say and I am criticizing them for their lack of clarity about their claims. How on earth does it make any sense to ask me to specify which account of “intuition” I am referring to? Nothing about any points I am making require specification about any particular conception of what an intuition is, and in most instances I am mentioning the use of the term, not using it; see e.g., the use/mention distinction:
When I do use the term, it’s to make an auxiliary point about intuitions: that they are psychological phenomena; that’s all. I need not specify what they are or defend any particular account any more than that to make any of the points I am making.
People do this extremely annoying thing where they ask for you to specify or offer a specific account of some notion or concept. This makes sense in some contexts, but this isn't one of them. Yet people make such demands reflexively and thoughtlessly, then use anything other than an immediate and clear articulation of a satisfactory response as a weapon against you, to criticize you. I have no idea what this person's intent was, but given their subsequent response, it's certainly consistent with using this sort of question as a trap.
In any case, when it comes to intuitions, I deny there even is any clear or specific account. But since I am not defending that position in this post, or even talking about it, I didn’t feel obliged to go in that direction.
It’s fine for someone to ask a bad question, like their original question. I gave a curt response, but while it might seem dismissive my intent was to convey my own attitude towards intuition talk: that it’s unclear what people are even talking about when they refer to intuitions. Maybe that was misinterpreted as being dismissive. But if you respond to that by asking a rude and obnoxious question like this:
>>You don't have a firm definition of your topic? Okay.
…then I may respond as I did. All I did was say this:
“You may want to reconsider your original question and my response before drawing that obnoxious conclusion.”
They declined, as is their right. And, as is my right, I am not interested in engaging with this person further. I have no obligation engage with people who are stubborn and rude.
Also, note, that I don't think there is a "firm definition" of intuition, but my topic isn't one that requires a firm definition of the term intuition. My topic isn't even about what intuitions are, so their response makes no sense. My topic is about patterns of things philosophers say, not about what intuitions are. So not only did their original question not make sense, but their obnoxious follow-up remark also didn't make any sense.
And now look what you’ve made me do: exactly what I did not want to do, which is to have to explain all this over the course of several paragraphs. But I did so to illustrate a point: I can explain myself, but I have very little interest in constantly doing so for every rude jerk that shows up in my comment section.
I hope that clarifies why I responded the way I did. And, with that clarification, perhaps you should now reconsider your remarks about me being “fucking dumb and rude” before you also draw an obnoxious conclusion.
The 2020 PhilPapers survey of academic philosophers and philosophy graduate students provides evidence that your assessment of contemporary American philosophy is at least partially correct. When respondents were asked whether they accepted or leaned toward empiricism or rationalism, a larger percentage chose the former. However, when asked which philosophical method is the most useful or important, of seven options offered, empirical philosophy ranked second behind conceptual analysis, intuition-based philosophy took fourth place, and experimental philosophy came in last.
The survey provides indirect evidence that intuition isn't very reliable. If it were, you'd expect a large majority of respondents would intuitively agree on a large majority of issues. But on nearly half the issues, every position was a minority position. The apparent agreement of a majority on some issues is misleading. For example, a small majority were said to accept or lean toward the correspondence theory of truth. But there are different and incompatible versions of the correspondence theory. So every specific truth theory is a minority theory.
>>The survey provides indirect evidence that intuition isn't very reliable. If it were, you'd expect a large majority of respondents would intuitively agree on a large majority of issues.
Arguably, many of these positions aren't held exclusively or primarily on intuitive grounds, so this might not be true. We have to distinguish what people believe from why they believe it, and I don't know how much of a role intuitions are supposed to be playing in these judgments.
The latter point about inconsistency within a category is a great one. There's going to be subdivisions within subdivisions, many of which are incompatible, much as finding X% of a population is "Christian" doesn't mean they all have consistent beliefs.
Thank you for your long response. Socrates influenced Plato, whom surveys have shown influenced more modern philosophers than any other philosopher except Aristotle. Socrates repeatedly questioned others about what reasons they have for positions they take. The process is like reasoning backwards from conclusions to premises in order to reveal their presuppositions and fundamental beliefs for which they can offer no further grounds. Modern philosophers often start with basic ideas and try to show what follows from them. If a foundational proposition is neither self-evident nor accepted intuitively, how would you explain it?
I don't understand the question. What is a "foundational proposition," and what is it I'm supposed to be explaining? Why it's true? Why someone believes it's true? I don't think intuitions exist and I don't grant that anything is "self-evident," but I'm not sure what it is you want me to explain.
A foundational proposition is a basic belief or statement that depends on no other belief or statement and serves as the ultimate ground for some argument. For example, in Chapter 5 of John Locke's Second Treatise of Government, Locke begins with the principle of self-ownership from which he derives certain rights, including the right to property His influence can be seen in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, which states that all men are endowed with certain unalienable rights and the Constitution's 5th Amendment that states no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property (Locke's three main natural rights) without due process of law. I realize you don't believe in intuitions or self-evident propositions, although I don't understand why you don't or what evidence would persuade you to change your mind. What I was hoping you would explain are the answers to several questions I asked in my comment. Your position isn't clear to me, and I'm trying to understand it.
Okay, thanks. What is it you want me to explain? Some people declare this or that thing a "foundational proposition" for whatever reasons they may have. I suppose I could conduct psychological research on why any particular person did so, but for people who are dead (e.g., Locke) I'd mostly just be speculating.
>>I realize you don't believe in intuitions or self-evident propositions, although I don't understand why you don't or what evidence would persuade you to change your mind.
Well, let's start with this: why should I? I am entirely fine with supposing that, as a matter of psychological fact, people believe things are true for which they have no evidence and can articulate no reason. That tells me something about those people's psychology. What it does not tell me is whether what they believe is true or not, and whether there is any connection between whatever causal processes led them to form the belief and its truth, in the way there are connections between our reports about what we see and what we can corroborate is real by other means.
Regarding intuitions: I think the notion of an "intuition" is typically underdefined. There's no consensus on what they are or how they work, and philosophers seem to use them in a variety of ways, some of which are inconsistent with others. So before I can even say that I think intuitions don't exist, we'd first have to get clear on what we're even talking about. Some notions of an intuition exist: when "intuition" refers to beliefs or dispositions to believe, that's fine. Those exist. But when they refer to sui generis states, well, where's the evidence there are such states? As far as I know, there isn't any good evidence. I don't feel obliged to grant the existence of whatever psychological phenomena philosophers claim is real if they can't provide any good evidence that it is real.
>>What I was hoping you would explain are the answers to several questions I asked in my comment. Your position isn't clear to me, and I'm trying to understand it.
Are you referring to your other comments? This current comment from me is only directed at the remarks in the above comment from you, where I can only see one question: "If a foundational proposition is neither self-evident nor accepted intuitively, how would you explain it?"
It's still not clear to me what I'm supposed to explain. Which foundational propositions? Why would I need to explain them? I am not understanding what you're asking me to do.
I misunderstood your question. I see now that you were referring to the short passage in the first thread. I regarded what I wrote as continuous, but it won't all fit within a single thread. I try to be clear and precise, but now I see I failed to do so. I wasn't asking specifically about Locke's “foundational proposition” or whatever you want to call it. I just gave that as an example of the basic idea underlying (or first premise of) a complex argument, i.e., the argument's starting point. I wanted to know what you'd call that type of basic idea if not an intuition or a self-evident proposition. How do you think such an idea occurs?
It may be that most allegedly self-evident claims fit Ambrose Bierce's definition of “self-evident” as “evident to one's self and to nobody else.” However, some propositions are self-evident in a different sense. For example, the law of identity, usually formulated symbolically as “A is A, “ is an analytic proposition whose truth is guaranteed by the fact that its denial, “A is not A,” is a necessarily false self-contradiction. Besides, it's self-guaranteeing in the sense that it must be presupposed in the attempt to deny it. If I were to deny the law of identity, you could ask me whether my denial is, indeed, a denial. I'd have to affirm the law of identity in at least that case.
I understand intuition to be the alleged acquisition of knowledge without conscious reasoning. To the extent it's reliable, I'd guess it's the result of unconscious reasoning. Perhaps a proposition seems intuitively correct because it appears to be consistent with our background beliefs. As a psychologist, I expect you have a better understanding of the nature of intuition than we readers do. How would you define/explain intuition?
I don't think anything is self-evident, including the law of identity. Any claim that denying it is somehow self-negating is only true relative to a framework in which this is the case, and I take these frameworks to be constructions every bit as much as the rules of monopoly or chess. I don't think our thoughts or actions are somehow subordinated to the laws of logic. So I simply deny that anything is "self-guaranteeing" in some undeniable sense. Behold: I deny it! So it can be denied.
I also don't grant that anything must be presupposed. I take whether something is "presupposed" to be a psychological fact (and if one doesn't, then I disagree with them about the nature of presupposition, which I'd also maintain I'm not obligated to agree with them about). And it may simply be that a person doesn't presuppose (as a matter of psychological fact) the notion in question. I reject, outright, any approach to philosophy that bestows musts and must nots on the way people speak or think as though we are bound by the diktat of a council of logicians.
>>How would you define/explain intuition?
I'd have a lot more to say than this but I think the notion of an "intuition" is a pseudopsychological invention of philosophers. To it put it simply: I don't think intuitions are real for much the same reason I don't think people can see auras.
The laws of thought—those of identity, of contradiction (aka, non-contradiction, and of excluded middle—have been called the fundamental principles of proof, without which no proof would be possible. They're interderivable; one can start with any of those laws and, using standard rules of inference, derive the other two laws from it. Denying any one entails denying all three. I didn't claim that you can't deny the law of identity. To the contrary, I gave an example of explicitly denying it and showed that entails implicitly affirming it. Do you maintain that your denial of the law of identity is a denial of the law of identity rather than, say, an affirmation of it? If so, you implicitly accept it. The laws of logic are not like physical laws that, presumably, can't be violated. They're similar to principles of mathematics. Indeed, symbolic logic is often called modern mathematical logic because logic and mathematics contain some of the same principles. People frequently violate the principles of logic and mathematics, but they err in doing so. For example, you can fail to correctly add a column of figures, but you won't get the correct sum. Both logic and mathematics require consistency, i.e., the absence of contradiction. You understand that the denial of the law of identity is a self-contradiction don't you? If so, then apparently you deny the law of contradiction, reject mathematics, and accept such a contradiction as this: Any given proposition can be both true and not true at the same time and in the same sense of “true.” Understand that would apply to your own propositions. Do you claim that everything you say is both true and not true? Or do you limit the contradictions you'll tolerate, as by accepting dialetheism, the view that some propositions are only true, others are only false, and still others are both true and false?
I need to clarify something before I respond to this at any greater length: are you a pragmatist and do you have a pragmatic conception of logic and truth that is operative in your comments?
I'm not a pragmatist in the style of C. S. Pierce, William James, or John Dewey. I'm unaware of any special pragmatic conception of logic, but I'm familiar with the pragmatic theory of truth. I seem to have a pragmatic trait, because, although I find theoretical knowledge more interesting than practical knowledge, other factors equal, I prefer theories that have practical applications to those that don't. Also, I've spent more time studying logic than any other branch of philosophy, because I consider it the most useful branch. Although I took symbolic logic and Buddhist logic, I use only inductive logic, categorical syllogisms, and propositional logic.
Thanks. That's helpful. I'm a pragmatist, and so I endorse a pragmatic conception of truth. The sense in which I endorse the truth of logical systems is in a pragmatic sense. I have no problem with the law of identity or any other laws of logic, but I see them as useful tools.
As a matter of psychological fact, I abide by the law of identity, and logic more generally, but there may be special cases where I don't. I do not think human psychology is literally, as a matter of descriptive fact, dictated by the laws of logic. So, for instance, a person could believe A = B and B = C, but not believe that A = C. I would deny they are "implicitly committed" to A = C. A person's commitments are, I believe, psychological facts about those people, and their psychology is not dictated by logic. A person could, for instance, accept all of the premises of a valid argument, but reject the conclusion. People can simply not be logical.
Currently, I probably hold some mutually inconsistent beliefs. This is probably true of other people, too. Were it not, we'd never need to move towards reflective equilibrium. Humans are odd creatures that store information and beliefs in odd ways; the result is that we need not hold a perfectly coherent set of beliefs.
So when you say stuff like this:
>> To the contrary, I gave an example of explicitly denying it and showed that entails implicitly affirming it
I disagree. I do not think any statement denying it involves implicitly affirming it, because I don't think that's how human psychology works.
>>Do you maintain that your denial of the law of identity is a denial of the law of identity rather than, say, an affirmation of it?
In denying the law of identity, I am denying that it is true in any non-pragmatic sense. I am not claiming I don't think it's pragmatically true or don't as a matter of practice abide by it. I am denying what I am supposing are metaphysical or conceptual presuppositions on your part about what the nature of the law is and what it would mean for it to be true. We have a metalogical dispute here: I disagree with you about the nature of logic itself. I am fine with speaking about and employing logic within a pragmatic framework, but I am not obligated, in this discussion or any other, to grant non-pragmatic conceptions of logic are true. I am no more obligated to accept this than you are to accept an exclusively pragmatic view of logic or truth. And I think as a matter of course a person could have a worldview that involves a rejection of non-engagement with laws of logic, and I don't think those people are "implicitly committed" to anything, unless you mean something very specific by that that I might agree is true, but only in a trivial sense, e.g., that conditional on some external account of linguistic outputs that adhere to a certain set of rules including those of classical logic, such-and-such is the case. That might be true, but I don't think that has any interesting implications.
That being said, regarding the claim that I implicitly accept it: I deny this, too. I deny that anyone ever implicitly accepts something in virtue of it being logically entailed that they do. Whether someone accepts or rejects something is always and exclusively a matter of their psychology.
>>Both logic and mathematics require consistency, i.e., the absence of contradiction
I don't think that they do. Consistent ones require consistency. But someone could in principle create inconsistent systems of logic or math. They probably wouldn't be so useful. But I view systems of logic and math the way one would view the rules of games. They can be whatever we want them to be and you could create a game with inconsistent rules if you wanted. It'd just be pretty hard to play.
>>People frequently violate the principles of logic and mathematics, but they err in doing so.
I'm a global normative antirealist, so if they are acting in accord with their goals I wouldn't agree with this, either. I don't think there are any stance-independent facts about what constitutes erring.
>>You understand that the denial of the law of identity is a self-contradiction don't you?
I don’t like the phrasing of the question. In any case I think people can only contradict themselves relative to some set of rules. They don’t have to accept those rules and they could employ some other set of rules.
>>Do you claim that everything you say is both true and not true?
No.
>>Or do you limit the contradictions you'll tolerate, as by accepting dialetheism, the view that some propositions are only true, others are only false, and still others are both true and false?
Nah, it’s not that, either. It’s that I use logic in specific contexts and may or may not abide by it outside of them. Logic is a tool for use. It isn’t some force that dictates cognitive processes. So there may be extralogical features of my cognition and of other people’s. I’m not endorsing that; I’m just saying that may be the case as a matter of descriptive fact.
I formerly accepted a monist version of the correspondence theory of truth. Now I accept a version of truth pluralism that is incomplete and, apparently, unique. Unfortunately, that theory requires a long explanation. Truth theories can be divided into (1) substantive (inflationist) and deflationist theories, and (2) monist and pluralist theories. According to substantive theories, the word “true” has a definite meaning, whereas in deflationist theories, “true” has little or no meaning. According to monist theories, there is only one way for a proposition to be true, whereas in pluralist theories, there is more than one way to be true. The 2020 PhilPapers survey indicates that more than half of all philosophers accept some version of monist correspondence theory, according to which “true” means “in correspondence with reality” or some similar phrase. The redundancy theory is an example of a deflationary theory. Consider the following biconditional proposition: “Snow is white” is true if and only if snow is white. The two statements on each side of “if and only if” are equivalent, which implies that they have the same truth value and may also have the same meaning. On the redundancy theory, they have the same meaning, which implies that “is true” in the first statement is redundant. So “is true” adds nothing to the meaning of the statement and is effectively meaningless.
The principle of explosion in standard logic can be used to prove that any given proposition, including its negation, follows from a contradiction. You can avoid that consequence by accepting paraconsistent logic, a weakened form of logic specifically designed to avoid explosion or by rejecting logic altogether. From what you say, I suspect you'd do the latter. I can't help but get the impression you're rejecting something you don't adequately understand. But if you do understand, you seem to have abandoned rationality. Are you a proponent of irrationalism, the belief system that rejects reason in favor of something else such as instinct, feeling, or faith? I don't mean to be insulting, but I don't know how to make sense out of what you say. I've been following you with interest, but almost every time I think I understand you, I learn that I'm mistaken. I can't reasonably either agree or disagree with a position I don't understand.
I don't claim that anything must be presupposed, only that, as a matter of fact, many things are presupposed, i.e., accepted as true without having been proved. I doubt that intuitions are an invention of philosophers. Most people seem to be largely ignorant of philosophy and get their ideas from non-philosophers. “Intuition” has a dictionary definition, which indicates it's in common usage. You say you don't believe intuition is real. I understand “real” to refer to whatever is mind-independent, but I think you mean intuition is not a mental phenomenon. I hate to disagree with a psychologist about this matter, but if I take a position on this issue, I must either disagree with you or with many other psychologists who claim to have studied the phenomena. I've had what I called intuitions myself, and I find it hard to deny my own experience. I vividly recall two instances. One was a feeling that I quickly dismissed as having no basis in fact. I'm glad I rejected it, because if I had acted on it, it would have cost me a lot of money. The other I couldn't help but believe was correct, although I couldn't prove it at the time. Later, I was able to prove it mathematically, and I made money by acting on it. Those experiences gave me the impression that there are at least two very different phenomena that are both called intuition. What I've read about psychological studies of intuition suggests that is the case.
>>I don't claim that anything must be presupposed, only that, as a matter of fact, many things are presupposed, i.e., accepted as true without having been proved.
I find this equally if not more objectionable. I have a strict rule of not engaging with people who tell me what I think or what I am committed to. I understand that someone's philosophical commitments may entail that they think they can tell me what I presuppose. I do not care. I simply have no interest in talking with anyone who tells me what I think or presuppose or what I am committed to. I am the only authority on the matter and this isn't negotiable.
>>“Intuition” has a dictionary definition, which indicates it's in common usage.
Of course the term is used in ordinary language. That has nothing to do with what I am talking about, though.
>>You say you don't believe intuition is real. I understand “real” to refer to whatever is mind-independent, but I think you mean intuition is not a mental phenomenon.
Yes, I'm denying that "intuitions" are a distinct kind of psychological phenomenon. While I appreciate your self-reports as a useful piece of data, I do not consider one person's personal anecdotes sufficient to establish the reality of a phenomenon.
Say we accept something being intuitive is stance-dependent. (Which you're correct it clearly is.) Why is it anymore wrong to use unqualified intuition talk than it is for anti-realists to use unqualified moral talk?
Antirealism is a position according to which there are no stance-independent moral facts. If by "unqualified moral talk" you mean something like first-order moral claims, then we can draw a distinction between making first-order moral claims in a philosophical context vs. an ordinary context.
Antirealists typically hold some view about the meaning of ordinary moral terms. In these cases, it would make little sense to criticize the antirealist for speaking in a way consistent with (what they take to be) ordinary usage in an ordinary context. In a philosophical context, the antirealist will typically specify their stance on first-order moral claims, so they'd be being explicit. So in neither context can I see much sense in criticizing them for using "unqualified moral claims."
The same isn't true of people saying this or that thing "is intuitive." They're not making ordinary claims; they're making philosophical claims in a philosophical context, where the position isn't one about the nature of ordinary first-order claims. As such, I don't think the comparison is an appropriate one.
I was gonna do a Bayesian analysis to demonstrate why you're correct based on my reasonable priors, but then I realized that this was just commonsense. No need to argue any further.
This is why experimental philosophy is such an important development: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_philosophy
Yep! I am an experimental philosopher!
You’d think that most philosophers would know not to just base their reasons off what boils down to some sort of subjective “hunch” in their heads.
Many take arriving at conclusions on the basis of intuitions to be one of their primary methodological tools.
Which of the myriad definitions of “intuitive? “
I think definitions are a problem of authority, not type. The question feels important and I need you to know that it was fucking dumb and rude of you to treat it so dismissively, Lance. Nice piece, opened the discussion. It’s not clear then why you might try to subsequently shut it down?
Nothing I said was rude or dumb. The question did not make sense. I am criticizing other people for the things they say, e.g., “it’s intuitive that,” or “it seems to us that.” Nothing about my criticism requires me to specify any particular conception of what other people mean when they talk about “intuitions” or “seemings” or whatever.
I even put the term intuitive in scare quotes in the title and in the text, along with the other terms to which I am referring. This was intended to illustrate that I am referring to things other people say and I am criticizing them for their lack of clarity about their claims. How on earth does it make any sense to ask me to specify which account of “intuition” I am referring to? Nothing about any points I am making require specification about any particular conception of what an intuition is, and in most instances I am mentioning the use of the term, not using it; see e.g., the use/mention distinction:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%E2%80%93mention_distinction
When I do use the term, it’s to make an auxiliary point about intuitions: that they are psychological phenomena; that’s all. I need not specify what they are or defend any particular account any more than that to make any of the points I am making.
People do this extremely annoying thing where they ask for you to specify or offer a specific account of some notion or concept. This makes sense in some contexts, but this isn't one of them. Yet people make such demands reflexively and thoughtlessly, then use anything other than an immediate and clear articulation of a satisfactory response as a weapon against you, to criticize you. I have no idea what this person's intent was, but given their subsequent response, it's certainly consistent with using this sort of question as a trap.
In any case, when it comes to intuitions, I deny there even is any clear or specific account. But since I am not defending that position in this post, or even talking about it, I didn’t feel obliged to go in that direction.
It’s fine for someone to ask a bad question, like their original question. I gave a curt response, but while it might seem dismissive my intent was to convey my own attitude towards intuition talk: that it’s unclear what people are even talking about when they refer to intuitions. Maybe that was misinterpreted as being dismissive. But if you respond to that by asking a rude and obnoxious question like this:
>>You don't have a firm definition of your topic? Okay.
…then I may respond as I did. All I did was say this:
“You may want to reconsider your original question and my response before drawing that obnoxious conclusion.”
They declined, as is their right. And, as is my right, I am not interested in engaging with this person further. I have no obligation engage with people who are stubborn and rude.
Also, note, that I don't think there is a "firm definition" of intuition, but my topic isn't one that requires a firm definition of the term intuition. My topic isn't even about what intuitions are, so their response makes no sense. My topic is about patterns of things philosophers say, not about what intuitions are. So not only did their original question not make sense, but their obnoxious follow-up remark also didn't make any sense.
And now look what you’ve made me do: exactly what I did not want to do, which is to have to explain all this over the course of several paragraphs. But I did so to illustrate a point: I can explain myself, but I have very little interest in constantly doing so for every rude jerk that shows up in my comment section.
I hope that clarifies why I responded the way I did. And, with that clarification, perhaps you should now reconsider your remarks about me being “fucking dumb and rude” before you also draw an obnoxious conclusion.
Who knows.
You don't have a firm definition of your topic? Okay.
You may want to reconsider your original question and my response before drawing that obnoxious conclusion.
I appreciate the invitation, but I stand by my response because you are standing by yours.
Definitions matter.
Good day.
What would be a definition of ‘intuitive’ that proves a point in philosophy?
Sign me up.
The 2020 PhilPapers survey of academic philosophers and philosophy graduate students provides evidence that your assessment of contemporary American philosophy is at least partially correct. When respondents were asked whether they accepted or leaned toward empiricism or rationalism, a larger percentage chose the former. However, when asked which philosophical method is the most useful or important, of seven options offered, empirical philosophy ranked second behind conceptual analysis, intuition-based philosophy took fourth place, and experimental philosophy came in last.
The survey provides indirect evidence that intuition isn't very reliable. If it were, you'd expect a large majority of respondents would intuitively agree on a large majority of issues. But on nearly half the issues, every position was a minority position. The apparent agreement of a majority on some issues is misleading. For example, a small majority were said to accept or lean toward the correspondence theory of truth. But there are different and incompatible versions of the correspondence theory. So every specific truth theory is a minority theory.
>>The survey provides indirect evidence that intuition isn't very reliable. If it were, you'd expect a large majority of respondents would intuitively agree on a large majority of issues.
Arguably, many of these positions aren't held exclusively or primarily on intuitive grounds, so this might not be true. We have to distinguish what people believe from why they believe it, and I don't know how much of a role intuitions are supposed to be playing in these judgments.
The latter point about inconsistency within a category is a great one. There's going to be subdivisions within subdivisions, many of which are incompatible, much as finding X% of a population is "Christian" doesn't mean they all have consistent beliefs.
Thank you for your long response. Socrates influenced Plato, whom surveys have shown influenced more modern philosophers than any other philosopher except Aristotle. Socrates repeatedly questioned others about what reasons they have for positions they take. The process is like reasoning backwards from conclusions to premises in order to reveal their presuppositions and fundamental beliefs for which they can offer no further grounds. Modern philosophers often start with basic ideas and try to show what follows from them. If a foundational proposition is neither self-evident nor accepted intuitively, how would you explain it?
I don't understand the question. What is a "foundational proposition," and what is it I'm supposed to be explaining? Why it's true? Why someone believes it's true? I don't think intuitions exist and I don't grant that anything is "self-evident," but I'm not sure what it is you want me to explain.
A foundational proposition is a basic belief or statement that depends on no other belief or statement and serves as the ultimate ground for some argument. For example, in Chapter 5 of John Locke's Second Treatise of Government, Locke begins with the principle of self-ownership from which he derives certain rights, including the right to property His influence can be seen in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, which states that all men are endowed with certain unalienable rights and the Constitution's 5th Amendment that states no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property (Locke's three main natural rights) without due process of law. I realize you don't believe in intuitions or self-evident propositions, although I don't understand why you don't or what evidence would persuade you to change your mind. What I was hoping you would explain are the answers to several questions I asked in my comment. Your position isn't clear to me, and I'm trying to understand it.
Okay, thanks. What is it you want me to explain? Some people declare this or that thing a "foundational proposition" for whatever reasons they may have. I suppose I could conduct psychological research on why any particular person did so, but for people who are dead (e.g., Locke) I'd mostly just be speculating.
>>I realize you don't believe in intuitions or self-evident propositions, although I don't understand why you don't or what evidence would persuade you to change your mind.
Well, let's start with this: why should I? I am entirely fine with supposing that, as a matter of psychological fact, people believe things are true for which they have no evidence and can articulate no reason. That tells me something about those people's psychology. What it does not tell me is whether what they believe is true or not, and whether there is any connection between whatever causal processes led them to form the belief and its truth, in the way there are connections between our reports about what we see and what we can corroborate is real by other means.
Regarding intuitions: I think the notion of an "intuition" is typically underdefined. There's no consensus on what they are or how they work, and philosophers seem to use them in a variety of ways, some of which are inconsistent with others. So before I can even say that I think intuitions don't exist, we'd first have to get clear on what we're even talking about. Some notions of an intuition exist: when "intuition" refers to beliefs or dispositions to believe, that's fine. Those exist. But when they refer to sui generis states, well, where's the evidence there are such states? As far as I know, there isn't any good evidence. I don't feel obliged to grant the existence of whatever psychological phenomena philosophers claim is real if they can't provide any good evidence that it is real.
>>What I was hoping you would explain are the answers to several questions I asked in my comment. Your position isn't clear to me, and I'm trying to understand it.
Are you referring to your other comments? This current comment from me is only directed at the remarks in the above comment from you, where I can only see one question: "If a foundational proposition is neither self-evident nor accepted intuitively, how would you explain it?"
It's still not clear to me what I'm supposed to explain. Which foundational propositions? Why would I need to explain them? I am not understanding what you're asking me to do.
I misunderstood your question. I see now that you were referring to the short passage in the first thread. I regarded what I wrote as continuous, but it won't all fit within a single thread. I try to be clear and precise, but now I see I failed to do so. I wasn't asking specifically about Locke's “foundational proposition” or whatever you want to call it. I just gave that as an example of the basic idea underlying (or first premise of) a complex argument, i.e., the argument's starting point. I wanted to know what you'd call that type of basic idea if not an intuition or a self-evident proposition. How do you think such an idea occurs?
It may be that most allegedly self-evident claims fit Ambrose Bierce's definition of “self-evident” as “evident to one's self and to nobody else.” However, some propositions are self-evident in a different sense. For example, the law of identity, usually formulated symbolically as “A is A, “ is an analytic proposition whose truth is guaranteed by the fact that its denial, “A is not A,” is a necessarily false self-contradiction. Besides, it's self-guaranteeing in the sense that it must be presupposed in the attempt to deny it. If I were to deny the law of identity, you could ask me whether my denial is, indeed, a denial. I'd have to affirm the law of identity in at least that case.
I understand intuition to be the alleged acquisition of knowledge without conscious reasoning. To the extent it's reliable, I'd guess it's the result of unconscious reasoning. Perhaps a proposition seems intuitively correct because it appears to be consistent with our background beliefs. As a psychologist, I expect you have a better understanding of the nature of intuition than we readers do. How would you define/explain intuition?
I don't think anything is self-evident, including the law of identity. Any claim that denying it is somehow self-negating is only true relative to a framework in which this is the case, and I take these frameworks to be constructions every bit as much as the rules of monopoly or chess. I don't think our thoughts or actions are somehow subordinated to the laws of logic. So I simply deny that anything is "self-guaranteeing" in some undeniable sense. Behold: I deny it! So it can be denied.
I also don't grant that anything must be presupposed. I take whether something is "presupposed" to be a psychological fact (and if one doesn't, then I disagree with them about the nature of presupposition, which I'd also maintain I'm not obligated to agree with them about). And it may simply be that a person doesn't presuppose (as a matter of psychological fact) the notion in question. I reject, outright, any approach to philosophy that bestows musts and must nots on the way people speak or think as though we are bound by the diktat of a council of logicians.
>>How would you define/explain intuition?
I'd have a lot more to say than this but I think the notion of an "intuition" is a pseudopsychological invention of philosophers. To it put it simply: I don't think intuitions are real for much the same reason I don't think people can see auras.
The laws of thought—those of identity, of contradiction (aka, non-contradiction, and of excluded middle—have been called the fundamental principles of proof, without which no proof would be possible. They're interderivable; one can start with any of those laws and, using standard rules of inference, derive the other two laws from it. Denying any one entails denying all three. I didn't claim that you can't deny the law of identity. To the contrary, I gave an example of explicitly denying it and showed that entails implicitly affirming it. Do you maintain that your denial of the law of identity is a denial of the law of identity rather than, say, an affirmation of it? If so, you implicitly accept it. The laws of logic are not like physical laws that, presumably, can't be violated. They're similar to principles of mathematics. Indeed, symbolic logic is often called modern mathematical logic because logic and mathematics contain some of the same principles. People frequently violate the principles of logic and mathematics, but they err in doing so. For example, you can fail to correctly add a column of figures, but you won't get the correct sum. Both logic and mathematics require consistency, i.e., the absence of contradiction. You understand that the denial of the law of identity is a self-contradiction don't you? If so, then apparently you deny the law of contradiction, reject mathematics, and accept such a contradiction as this: Any given proposition can be both true and not true at the same time and in the same sense of “true.” Understand that would apply to your own propositions. Do you claim that everything you say is both true and not true? Or do you limit the contradictions you'll tolerate, as by accepting dialetheism, the view that some propositions are only true, others are only false, and still others are both true and false?
I need to clarify something before I respond to this at any greater length: are you a pragmatist and do you have a pragmatic conception of logic and truth that is operative in your comments?
I'm not a pragmatist in the style of C. S. Pierce, William James, or John Dewey. I'm unaware of any special pragmatic conception of logic, but I'm familiar with the pragmatic theory of truth. I seem to have a pragmatic trait, because, although I find theoretical knowledge more interesting than practical knowledge, other factors equal, I prefer theories that have practical applications to those that don't. Also, I've spent more time studying logic than any other branch of philosophy, because I consider it the most useful branch. Although I took symbolic logic and Buddhist logic, I use only inductive logic, categorical syllogisms, and propositional logic.
Thanks. That's helpful. I'm a pragmatist, and so I endorse a pragmatic conception of truth. The sense in which I endorse the truth of logical systems is in a pragmatic sense. I have no problem with the law of identity or any other laws of logic, but I see them as useful tools.
As a matter of psychological fact, I abide by the law of identity, and logic more generally, but there may be special cases where I don't. I do not think human psychology is literally, as a matter of descriptive fact, dictated by the laws of logic. So, for instance, a person could believe A = B and B = C, but not believe that A = C. I would deny they are "implicitly committed" to A = C. A person's commitments are, I believe, psychological facts about those people, and their psychology is not dictated by logic. A person could, for instance, accept all of the premises of a valid argument, but reject the conclusion. People can simply not be logical.
Currently, I probably hold some mutually inconsistent beliefs. This is probably true of other people, too. Were it not, we'd never need to move towards reflective equilibrium. Humans are odd creatures that store information and beliefs in odd ways; the result is that we need not hold a perfectly coherent set of beliefs.
So when you say stuff like this:
>> To the contrary, I gave an example of explicitly denying it and showed that entails implicitly affirming it
I disagree. I do not think any statement denying it involves implicitly affirming it, because I don't think that's how human psychology works.
>>Do you maintain that your denial of the law of identity is a denial of the law of identity rather than, say, an affirmation of it?
In denying the law of identity, I am denying that it is true in any non-pragmatic sense. I am not claiming I don't think it's pragmatically true or don't as a matter of practice abide by it. I am denying what I am supposing are metaphysical or conceptual presuppositions on your part about what the nature of the law is and what it would mean for it to be true. We have a metalogical dispute here: I disagree with you about the nature of logic itself. I am fine with speaking about and employing logic within a pragmatic framework, but I am not obligated, in this discussion or any other, to grant non-pragmatic conceptions of logic are true. I am no more obligated to accept this than you are to accept an exclusively pragmatic view of logic or truth. And I think as a matter of course a person could have a worldview that involves a rejection of non-engagement with laws of logic, and I don't think those people are "implicitly committed" to anything, unless you mean something very specific by that that I might agree is true, but only in a trivial sense, e.g., that conditional on some external account of linguistic outputs that adhere to a certain set of rules including those of classical logic, such-and-such is the case. That might be true, but I don't think that has any interesting implications.
That being said, regarding the claim that I implicitly accept it: I deny this, too. I deny that anyone ever implicitly accepts something in virtue of it being logically entailed that they do. Whether someone accepts or rejects something is always and exclusively a matter of their psychology.
>>Both logic and mathematics require consistency, i.e., the absence of contradiction
I don't think that they do. Consistent ones require consistency. But someone could in principle create inconsistent systems of logic or math. They probably wouldn't be so useful. But I view systems of logic and math the way one would view the rules of games. They can be whatever we want them to be and you could create a game with inconsistent rules if you wanted. It'd just be pretty hard to play.
>>People frequently violate the principles of logic and mathematics, but they err in doing so.
I'm a global normative antirealist, so if they are acting in accord with their goals I wouldn't agree with this, either. I don't think there are any stance-independent facts about what constitutes erring.
>>You understand that the denial of the law of identity is a self-contradiction don't you?
I don’t like the phrasing of the question. In any case I think people can only contradict themselves relative to some set of rules. They don’t have to accept those rules and they could employ some other set of rules.
>>Do you claim that everything you say is both true and not true?
No.
>>Or do you limit the contradictions you'll tolerate, as by accepting dialetheism, the view that some propositions are only true, others are only false, and still others are both true and false?
Nah, it’s not that, either. It’s that I use logic in specific contexts and may or may not abide by it outside of them. Logic is a tool for use. It isn’t some force that dictates cognitive processes. So there may be extralogical features of my cognition and of other people’s. I’m not endorsing that; I’m just saying that may be the case as a matter of descriptive fact.
I formerly accepted a monist version of the correspondence theory of truth. Now I accept a version of truth pluralism that is incomplete and, apparently, unique. Unfortunately, that theory requires a long explanation. Truth theories can be divided into (1) substantive (inflationist) and deflationist theories, and (2) monist and pluralist theories. According to substantive theories, the word “true” has a definite meaning, whereas in deflationist theories, “true” has little or no meaning. According to monist theories, there is only one way for a proposition to be true, whereas in pluralist theories, there is more than one way to be true. The 2020 PhilPapers survey indicates that more than half of all philosophers accept some version of monist correspondence theory, according to which “true” means “in correspondence with reality” or some similar phrase. The redundancy theory is an example of a deflationary theory. Consider the following biconditional proposition: “Snow is white” is true if and only if snow is white. The two statements on each side of “if and only if” are equivalent, which implies that they have the same truth value and may also have the same meaning. On the redundancy theory, they have the same meaning, which implies that “is true” in the first statement is redundant. So “is true” adds nothing to the meaning of the statement and is effectively meaningless.
The principle of explosion in standard logic can be used to prove that any given proposition, including its negation, follows from a contradiction. You can avoid that consequence by accepting paraconsistent logic, a weakened form of logic specifically designed to avoid explosion or by rejecting logic altogether. From what you say, I suspect you'd do the latter. I can't help but get the impression you're rejecting something you don't adequately understand. But if you do understand, you seem to have abandoned rationality. Are you a proponent of irrationalism, the belief system that rejects reason in favor of something else such as instinct, feeling, or faith? I don't mean to be insulting, but I don't know how to make sense out of what you say. I've been following you with interest, but almost every time I think I understand you, I learn that I'm mistaken. I can't reasonably either agree or disagree with a position I don't understand.
I don't claim that anything must be presupposed, only that, as a matter of fact, many things are presupposed, i.e., accepted as true without having been proved. I doubt that intuitions are an invention of philosophers. Most people seem to be largely ignorant of philosophy and get their ideas from non-philosophers. “Intuition” has a dictionary definition, which indicates it's in common usage. You say you don't believe intuition is real. I understand “real” to refer to whatever is mind-independent, but I think you mean intuition is not a mental phenomenon. I hate to disagree with a psychologist about this matter, but if I take a position on this issue, I must either disagree with you or with many other psychologists who claim to have studied the phenomena. I've had what I called intuitions myself, and I find it hard to deny my own experience. I vividly recall two instances. One was a feeling that I quickly dismissed as having no basis in fact. I'm glad I rejected it, because if I had acted on it, it would have cost me a lot of money. The other I couldn't help but believe was correct, although I couldn't prove it at the time. Later, I was able to prove it mathematically, and I made money by acting on it. Those experiences gave me the impression that there are at least two very different phenomena that are both called intuition. What I've read about psychological studies of intuition suggests that is the case.
>>I don't claim that anything must be presupposed, only that, as a matter of fact, many things are presupposed, i.e., accepted as true without having been proved.
I find this equally if not more objectionable. I have a strict rule of not engaging with people who tell me what I think or what I am committed to. I understand that someone's philosophical commitments may entail that they think they can tell me what I presuppose. I do not care. I simply have no interest in talking with anyone who tells me what I think or presuppose or what I am committed to. I am the only authority on the matter and this isn't negotiable.
>>“Intuition” has a dictionary definition, which indicates it's in common usage.
Of course the term is used in ordinary language. That has nothing to do with what I am talking about, though.
>>You say you don't believe intuition is real. I understand “real” to refer to whatever is mind-independent, but I think you mean intuition is not a mental phenomenon.
Yes, I'm denying that "intuitions" are a distinct kind of psychological phenomenon. While I appreciate your self-reports as a useful piece of data, I do not consider one person's personal anecdotes sufficient to establish the reality of a phenomenon.
Say we accept something being intuitive is stance-dependent. (Which you're correct it clearly is.) Why is it anymore wrong to use unqualified intuition talk than it is for anti-realists to use unqualified moral talk?
Antirealism is a position according to which there are no stance-independent moral facts. If by "unqualified moral talk" you mean something like first-order moral claims, then we can draw a distinction between making first-order moral claims in a philosophical context vs. an ordinary context.
Antirealists typically hold some view about the meaning of ordinary moral terms. In these cases, it would make little sense to criticize the antirealist for speaking in a way consistent with (what they take to be) ordinary usage in an ordinary context. In a philosophical context, the antirealist will typically specify their stance on first-order moral claims, so they'd be being explicit. So in neither context can I see much sense in criticizing them for using "unqualified moral claims."
The same isn't true of people saying this or that thing "is intuitive." They're not making ordinary claims; they're making philosophical claims in a philosophical context, where the position isn't one about the nature of ordinary first-order claims. As such, I don't think the comparison is an appropriate one.
I was gonna do a Bayesian analysis to demonstrate why you're correct based on my reasonable priors, but then I realized that this was just commonsense. No need to argue any further.
Sounds like Dennett! "[Philosophers] mistake a failure of imagination for an insight into necessity"