I’d like to get some feedback on an argument. It will go something like this.
- Our intuitions and our ability (or inability) to imagine are contingent upon cognitive capacities.
- Our cognitive capacities are contingent upon our material composition.
- Our intuitions and ability (or inability) to imagine is contingent upon our material composition (1,2 HS).
- The content and strength of many non-contingent-truth-seeking philosophical arguments are contingent on philosophers’ intuitions or ability (or inability) to imagine.
- The content and strength of many non-contingent-truth-seeking philosophical arguments are contingent upon the material composition of philosophers (3, 4 HS).
- The content of a non-contingent truth is not contingent upon anything—e.g.the material composition of the philosophers who seek it (Assumption).
- Arguments that are contingent upon a truth-seeker’s material composition will be successful off the truth-seeker’s composition happens to be such that their intuitions and ability (or inability) to imagine can lead them towards non-contengent truths.
- A truth-seeker’s composition will be such that their intuitions and ability (or inability) to imagine can lead them towards non-contengent truths as a matter of (evolutionary) chance.
- If there exist non-contingent truths, then arguments that appeal to philosophers’ intuition and their ability (or inability) to imagine will lead towards non-contingent truths only as a matter of (evolutionary) chance (7, 8 HS).
Before I dive into a full-blown paper about this, I would be interested for people to try to poke holes in this argument. I plan on read George Bealer’s and Michael Huemer’s defenses of intuition. I also plan to read about Plantinga Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (since it might rely on similar premises). But I am very open to your suggestions on what else to read (especially if you think that this argument has already been made).
Thanks in advance!
Nick
If you get a chance, you should check out Herman Cappelen’s book Philosophy without Intuitions. It’s a relatively short monograph, that has a bit too many bullet points for my liking, but it does make some interesting points about the role that intuitions actually play in philosophy.
If you want the gist of his argument (from page 1 of the book) here it is:
“it is not true that philosophers rely extensively (or even a little bit) on intuitions as evidence. At worst, analytic philosophers are guilty of engaging in somewhat irresponsible use of “intuition”-vocabulary. While this irresponsibility has had little effect on first-order philosophy, it has fundamentally misled metaphilosophers. It has encouraged metaphilosophical pseudo-problems and misleading pictures of what philosophy is and how it is done.”
Thanks John! I will definitely check out this argument as it might pose a serious problem to the thrust of the argument. And I appreciate you taking a minute to summarize the argument for me! As usual, you are a gentleman and a scholar!