Ivana Simić   
ivanasimic@gmail.com
(865) 686-2100
330 Griffin-Floyd Hall
Department of Philosophy
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611-8545

EDUCATION

PhD in Philosophy, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida (May 2009)
Dissertation Title: Intuitive A Priori Knowledge: Reliability and Rationality
    
Abstract. I argue for the etiological conception of intellectual intuition that aims to provide an alternative to the traditional, phenomenological, conception. Unlike the phenomenological account, which is committed to treating intuitions as evidence in support of philosophical theories and is, as I argue, unable to give an account of their positive epistemic status, the etiological account is able to provide a story about why intellectual intuition has a positive epistemic status and can ground a priori knowledge.
Committee:  Kirk Ludwig (chair), John Biro (co-chair), Robert D’Amico, V. Betty Smocovitis (external member, Department of History, History of Science program, University of Florida)

MA in Philosophy, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, May 2004
Thesis: The Problem of Higher-Order Vagueness
Committee: Greg Ray (chair) Kirk Ludwig, D. Gene Witmer

BA in Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia, March 2001
Committee: Miroslava Anđelkovic (chair) Miloš Arsenijević (co-chair) Nikola Grahek

AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION Epistemology, Philosophical Methodology, Philosophy of Language

AREAS OF COMPETENCE Logic, History of Philosophy (Plato, Early Modern, Analytic), Metaphysics, Philosophy of Science, Continental, Ethics

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

“The Structure of Evidence Relation and the Evidential Theory of Intellectual Intuition”
•    Northeast Florida Student Philosophy Conference, Jacksonville, February 2009

“Fine’s Supervaluationism and the Problem of Higher-Order Vagueness”
•    Logica Seminar, Prague, Czech Republic 2006

“A Decisive Refutation of Epistemicism”, with co-author Greg Ray
•    American Philosophical Association, New York City, New York 2005
•    Society for exact philosophy, Toronto, Canada 2005
•    Florida Philosophical Association, Jacksonville, Florida 2004

“Is There A Positive Argument for Epistemicism?”
•    UF-FSU Graduate Student Philosophy Conference, Tallahassee, Florida 2002

COMMENTS

“Comments on ‘Assessing the Efficacy of the Epistemic Intuitions: Sosa’s Truth-Reliability Criterion’ by Travis Rogers of Florida State University”
•    Southeast Graduate Philosophy Conference, Gainesville, Florida 2008

“Comments on ‘Facts, Evidence, and Epistemic Justification’ by Elijah Chudnoff of Harvard University”
•    Southeast Graduate Philosophy Conference, Gainesville, Florida 2006

AWARDS

Nutter Dissertation Fellowship, Spring 2009, awarded by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Florida

University of Florida Graduate School Travel Stipend, December 2005

Philosophy Graduate Essay Competition Winner, 2003:  Awarded annually by the Department of Philosophy, University of Florida.  Title: “ The Concept of Epistemic Justification”

WORK IN PROGRESS

“The structure of a priori knowledge”
“Evidential treatment of intellectual intuition, skepticism and experimental philosophy”
“The role of the inference to the best explanation in philosophical method”
“The methodological presuppositions of Kripke’s ‘metaphysical turn’”

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Instructor: Introduction to Philosophy (taught four times), Contemporary Moral Issues (taught once)

Teaching Assistant: Philosophy of Social Science, Introduction to Philosophy, Logic

OTHER EXPERIENCE

Research Assistant, History of Science Society/Philosophy of Science Association, Gainesville, Florida Fall 2007, Spring 2008

SERVICE

Referee for Southeast Graduate Student Philosophy Conference, 2006, 2007, 2008

Vice President of the Graduate Student Philosophy Society at University of Florida, 2004

Conference Organizer: Annual UF/FSU Graduate Student Philosophy Conference; February, 2004

MEMBERSHIP IN PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES

American Philosophical Association (affiliation: Eastern Division)

GRADUATE COURSES

Proseminar (Kirk Ludwig)
Ancient Philosophy I (John Palmer)
Logic I (Greg Ray)

Logic II  (Greg Ray)
Consciousness (Gene Witmer & Murat Aydede)
Foundations of Analytic Philosophy (Kirk Ludwig)

Modern I (Dan Kaufman)
Modern II (Dan Kaufman)
Epistemology (Gene Witmer)

Truth Seminar (Greg Ray)
A Priori Knowledge (Gene Witmer)
Continental Philosophy (Robert D’Amico)

Metaphysics (Michael Jubien)
Content Externalism (Greg Ray)
Philosophy of Language (Kirk Ludwig)

Ethical Theory I (Jon Tresan)
Philosophy of Language (Propositions and Necessity) (Kirk Ludwig)
Mind and World (Kirk Ludwig)
Supervised Teaching (Robert D’Amico)

REFEREES

 
Kirk Ludwig, University of Florida, ludwig@phil.ufl.edu
330Griffin-Floyd Hall
Department of Philosophy
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611-8545
Voice: (352) 273-1812
Fax: (352) 392-5577

John Biro, University of Florida, jbiro@phil.ufl.edu
330Griffin-Floyd Hall
Department of Philosophy
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611-8545
Voice: (352) 392-2084
Fax: (352) 392-5577
 

 
Robert D’Amico, University of Florida
rdamico@phil.ufl.edu
330Griffin-Floyd Hall
Department of Philosophy
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611-8545
Voice: (352) 392-2084
Fax: (352) 392-5577

Chuang Liu, University of Florida
cliu@phil.ufl.edu
330Griffin-Floyd Hall
Department of Philosophy
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611-8545
Voice: (352) 392-2084
Fax: (352) 392-557
 
 
DISSERTATION DESCRIPTION

    My dissertation focuses on a current debate in modal epistemology that concerns the nature of intellectual (a priori) intuitions and their relations to a priori knowledge. The importance on getting clear on the nature and the role of intuition in a priori inquiry lies in that intuitions are widely used in establishing philosophical claims, and we need to be able to articulate why is it that they have epistemic authority concerning such claims.
    Philosophical tradition as well as the contemporary debate takes intuition's epistemic work to consist in being evidence for a priori knowledge of philosophical claims. The disagreement is only about whether intellectual intuitions are good or bad evidence for such claims.  The evidential view of intuitions is entailed by the acceptance of the phenomenological conception of intuition, according to which the nature and epistemic role intellectual intuition is analogous to the nature and epistemic role of empirical intuitions (most notably perceptual, or introspective seemings).
I have two goals in my dissertation. First, I reject this widely accepted view that intuitions are evidence for a priori knowledge of philosophical claims. I argue for an alternative view; namely, that, at best, intuitions are evidence of having such knowledge. The first view treats intuitions as providing justification or grounding for a priori knowledge of philosophical claims, the second as expressing or manifesting it.
    The argument that intuitions cannot be evidence or grounds for a priori knowledge draws on the structures of the evidence-for and justification-for relations and the claim intuitions and what they are about cannot be the relata of such relations. Worse, the view that intuitions are evidence (justification) for a priori knowledge of philosophical claims, I argue, invites skepticism about a priori knowledge. Since the claim that intuitions are evidence is entailed by the phenomenological conception of intellectual intuition, I argue we should reject such conception.
    This leads me to my second goal in the dissertation, which is to offer what I think is a better way of characterizing the nature and epistemic role of intellectual intuition, one that guarantees the epistemic authority of intuition with respect to both reliability and rationality. According to my account (which is in a broad Platonic tradition, based as it is on an analogy with non-empirical memory), the correct view about the nature of intuition is dispositional, rather than phenomenological. A mental state is an intuition just in case it is a manifestation of antecedent knowledge of concepts (specifically, knowledge how to apply them), which, if expressed, manifests knowledge of analytic truths in Kant’s sense. On my account, since intuitions manifest knowledge, they have a very high degree of reliability, namely, they are infallible.  As for their rationality, it is obviously rational to rely on something one knows.