"Experimental Attacks on Intuitions and Answers" [pdf]
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, forthcoming
This paper poses a constructive, evenhanded challenge to experimental attacks on intuitions. I cast doubt on a key premise in such attacks, and then offer a positive argument that the empirical findings do not support any negative conclusions about intuitions. I go on to highlight practical lessons for both experimentalists and rationalists. I also outline plausible intuition-friendly explanations of the empirical data. The explanations are meant to contribute to the project of understanding the range of psychological phenomena that influence human judgment. They are also of broader epistemological and methodological interest insofar as they suggest that the empirical data may actually support rather than undermine intuitions’ epistemic status -- perhaps, however, to the detriment of the epistemic status of answers.
< back >