The Myth of the Intuitive: Experimental Philosophy and Philosophical Method

This engaging and accessible book offers a spirited defense of armchair philosophy, against a perceived threat from experimental philosophy. About twenty years ago, methodological rationalists (like George Bealer and Ernest Sosa) developed a picture of philosophical work that lets us understand how philosophical questions can be addressed from the armchair: Philosophers consider descriptions of possible cases in thought experiments that engage their conceptual competencies and elicit intuitions about the cases considered. Such intuitions provide evidence for or against many philosophical claims, for example, about the concepts, nature, or essence of things like moral permissibility or knowledge. Philosophical theorizing then proceeds by working back and forth between intuitions about specific cases and background beliefs and general principles, until a reflective equilibrium and a coherent set of beliefs have been achieved. This still popular picture provides philosophy with a distinctive methodology that can be applied from the proverbial armchair but goes beyond...