Manhal Hamdo

Dieses Werk untersucht die Natur von unserer Intuition und zeigt auf, wie Philosoph: innen sie in der Erkenntnistheorie am besten nutzen können. Zunächst betrachtet der Autor mehrere paradigmatische Gedankenexperimente in der Erkenntnistheorie, die den Rückgriff auf Intuition veranschaulichen. Anschließend argumentiert er, dass die Natur von durch Gedankenexperimente erzeugten Intuitionen eher nicht so treffend durch einen apriorischen Platonismus erklärt wird. Stattdessen entwickelt und verteidigt das Buch eine reduzierte Konzeption epistemischer Intuitionen. Diese Auffassung geht davon aus, dass Intuition weder apriorisch noch aposteriorisch ist, sondern multidimensional. Sie stellt einen intentionalen, aber nicht-propositionalen mentalen Zustand dar, der zudem nicht-begrifflich und nicht-phänomenal ist. Darüber hinaus wird dieser Zustand durch seinen Ursprung individualisiert - nämlich durch das jeweilige Gedankenexperiment. Daraufhin liefert der Autor ein Argument für den erkenntnistheoretischen Status von Intuitionen, basierend auf einer korrekten Darstellung ihrer Natur. Der vorgeschlagene Ansatz ist der der "Passung" Intuition besitzt für sich genommen keinen epistemischen Status. Sie erhält jedoch evidenziellen Wert, sofern sie sich gut in ein Ganzes - das relevante Gedankenexperiment - einfügt. Abschließend geht das Buch auf zentrale Herausforderungen von der Vertreter: innen der von Anti-Zentralität ein. Diese behaupten, dass Intuition in der Philosophie keine zentrale Beweisquelle darstellt. Der Autor zeigt, dass diese Einwände die im Buch entwickelte Konzeption von Intuition nicht erschüttern. Der Text richtet sich an Studierende und Forschende im Bereich der Erkenntnistheorie. Die Übersetzung wurde mit Hilfe von künstlicher Intelligenz durchgeführt. Eine anschließende menschliche Überarbeitung erfolgte vor allem in Bezug auf den Inhalt. This book is a translation of an original German edition. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation.

In this paper, I challenge the prevailing view—in both medieval Arabic philosophy and contemporary analytic philosophy—that treats intuition as a propositional attitude. Instead, I advocate for a conception of atomic intuition—a non-propositional, object-directed cognitive state characterized by immediacy and explanatory power. Unlike propositional intuition, which serves as evidence for justifying beliefs, atomic intuition emerges instantaneously as a fundamental epistemic mechanism that provides access to essential insights. Its role in epistemic thought experiments is not to justify propositions (justification-that) but rather to illuminate why certain conclusions naturally follow in specific epistemic contexts (justification-why).

Imagination plays various epistemic roles but can it help us address dream skepticism? This paper explores different conceptions of imagination – propositional, processual, and imagistic – and examines their relevance to the Cartesian dream argument. I distinguish between the phenomenology of dreaming and its epistemological threat, arguing that dream skepticism arises not from the content of dreams, but from the immersive, belief-like quality of dream experience. While some models treat dreaming as propositional or inferential, I argue that these fail to capture the distinctive imagistic nature of dream experience. This kind of imagination, vivid and involuntary, simulates the phenomenology of belief without involving actual belief formation. By interpreting dream skepticism through the lens of imagistic imagination, we gain a better understanding of why the dream scenario remains epistemically troubling – despite attempts to explain it away through propositional or inferential models.

In the last chapter, we saw that epistemic intuition is an essential constituent of epistemic thought experiments. The question then arises: what is the nature of epistemic intuition? To answer this question, I reviewed some examples of intuition given by three of the most distinct intuition-theorists’ accounts. I argued that these intuitions belong to a Platonic kind of realm and, accordingly, are different from intuitions pumped by epistemic thought experiments. As a result, the question remains the same: what is the nature of thought experiment-generated intuition? It is now time to attempt to develop one core concept of what epistemic intuition is so that we can assess the merits of the various types of epistemic theorizing. It is my contention that there is a better form of epistemic intuition than the Platonic one. This conception of epistemic intuition is important in that it will serve to determine whether the various types of analysis concerning the structure of epistemic intuition are plausible in yielding our epistemic goals (whether they are justified by a good or legitimate reason). To this end, the goal of this chapter is devoted to developing such a conception.

As noted in the previous chapter, several views about intuition – reliabilism, skepticism and perspectival relativism – hold that intuitions play a central role in philosophical theorizing. Reliabilism believes that these intuitions function directly as evidence in philosophical arguments. Not less importantly, skepticism asserts that intuitions are usually thought to play such a role, although this is an inappropriate role for intuitions to play. And perspectival relativism admits that intuitions can be taken as a relative source of evidence. Accordingly, it seems as if contemporary analytic philosophers often use intuition as evidence in their philosophizing. I will refer to this sort of thinking as centrality. Contrary to that, several philosophers have recently raised different objections to this thesis of intuition-based evidence denying the claim that philosophers centrally depend on intuitions as evidence. Thus, intuition-deniers present a serious challenge to the claim of intuition-based evidence in philosophy.

The main goal of this chapter is to assess the various positions and arguments that epistemologists have given for and against the epistemic status of intuitions. I plan to do that in light of the conception of the nature of intuitions developed and defended in the last two chapters. It must be made clear that I am taking account of intuitions developed at the end of chapter one, transferring through chapter two to be the correct general account of the nature of epistemic intuitions, and the positions and arguments given in this chapter will be assessed in light of that account. Moreover, this chapter will be concerned with the question of whether epistemic intuitions have evidentiary status.

This first chapter aims to start putting the subject matter, the nature and epistemic status of intuitions, into perspective. Intuition forms a central aspect of contemporary theories in epistemology. Thought experiments are often used to elicit intuitions and arrive at judgments that support philosophical theories of one hue or the other. However, the problem is with establishing the claims made using intuitions. Epistemologists just take them for granted without offering a characterization of what it is to intuit. The nature of intuitions is not clear, and neither is it beyond doubt. I will articulate the nature of intuitions by investigating a number of paradigmatic thought experiments from various written texts of contemporary epistemology that would be indicative of an appeal to intuition.

In this paper, I challenge the prevailing view—in both medieval Arabic philosophy and contemporary analytic philosophy—that treats intuition as a propositional attitude. Instead, I advocate for a conception of atomic intuition—a non-propositional, object-directed cognitive state characterized by immediacy and explanatory power. Unlike propositional intuition, which serves as evidence for justifying beliefs, atomic intuition emerges instantaneously as a fundamental epistemic mechanism that provides access to essential insights. Its role in epistemic thought experiments is not to justify propositions (justification-that) but rather to illuminate why certain conclusions naturally follow in specific epistemic contexts (justification-why).

This work investigates intuitions' nature, demonstrating how philosophers can best use them in epistemology. First, the author considers several paradigmatic thought experiments in epistemology that depict the appeal to intuition. He then argues that the nature of thought experiment-generated intuitions is not best explained by an a priori Platonism. Second, the book instead develops and argues for a thin conception of epistemic intuitions. The account maintains that intuition is neither a priori nor a posteriori but multi-dimensional. It is an intentional but non-propositional mental state that is also non-conceptual and non-phenomenal in nature. Moreover, this state is individuated by its progenitor, namely, the relevant thought experiment. Third, the author provides an argument for the evidential status of intuitions based on the correct account of the nature of epistemic intuition. The suggestion is the fitting-ness approach: intuition alone has no epistemic status. Rather, intuition has evidentiary value as long as it fits well with other pieces into a whole, namely, the pertinent thought experiment. Finally, the book addresses the key challenges raised by supporters of anti-centrality, according to which philosophers do not regard intuition as central evidence in philosophy. To that end, the author responds to them, showing that they fail to affect the account of intuition developed in this book. This text appeals to students and researchers working in epistemology.

The crux of this paper is to provide a concentrated critical evaluation of Galen Strawson's innovative approach to the self. To that end, I will first attempt to concisely introduce his general thesis, which seems appropriate to be broken up into two major pieces: the phenomenology (experience) of the self, what the self would have to be; and the metaphysics of the self (i.e., a query refers to its metaphysics [its existence and nature]: whether there is any). Explaining and discussing Strawson's twofold account of the self is my first target in this paper. And it is with these two parts that I take issues. Accordingly, I shall determinedly try to develop a counterargument according to which Strawson's establishment of his entire enterprise of the self is based merely on unjustified intuitive generalisation. Next, I will put more effort into making some more argumentative points, mainly to show how his metaphysics does not give much thought to some vital matters of the self in comparison with the systems of metaphysics of his forebears of Western philosophers. What all this means is that Strawsonian metaphysical analysis of the self so conceived and so described appears philosophically to drive itself to justly be placed in an ahistorical context.

The deep source of interest in this paper lies in the paramount argument it provides for philosophy namely, articulating an individualistic view of the nature of intuition. This is fundamental to saying what is significant and distinctive about one being intuiting. On this view, intuitions are individualistically individuated. Contrary to common opinion, the proposed account suggests that an intuition is built out of facts about the individual intuiter. It is something this intuiter has personally experienced. Hence, it is better to be understood from the first person point of view. Revising what is intuition in contemporary philosophy, I shall support my argument first through using some empirical findings of some studies from neuroscience and psychology as well as theoretical analysis of some texts that were often thought to be among the main works that contain thought experiments in which the authors rely on intuitions. I will also try to consider some probable objections to my argument showing their failure.

This paper is a defense of the evidentiality of epistemic intuitions. To that end, I will first briefly discuss both experimentalists’ and some salient forms of reliabilists’ accounts of intuition, showing that they bring us up to a stalemate. To find a way out of this standoff, I will argue that reliabilists’ accounts pave the way for experimentalists’ challenge to the epistemic value of intuitions in two ways. First, each of reliabilists’ accounts leaves enough space to be occupied by normativity. Second, their foundationalism being established on an intuition-perception analogy also does so. Subsequently, I will argue that reliabilists’ line of argument overlooked what I call as the metaphysical necessity of epistemic intuitions. Keeping in mind this necessity, I say, allows us to eliminate the standoff and to draw the boundaries between two distinct kinds of intuition which, I will conclude, should be isolated but also fit together in a unified and inclusive model.

From Plato to the present, intuition plays a central role in epistemology. My concern in this paper is with the nature and epistemic status of intuition. To that end, I will be reviewing both Bealer’s and Wittgenstein’s accounts of intuition. I will be arguing that by ‘intuition’ Bealer understands modal intuition that has Platonic and metaphysical roles. Subsequently, I shall also show that although Wittgenstein’s view avoids these two issues, it amounts to the idea that intuition is a normative activity with a dialectical value. As a result, if Bealer and Wittgenstein are right, then intuition should no more have any epistemic and evidential role.

This review is a critical evaluation of the main points of Steven D. Hales’ significant book: Relativism and the Foundations of Philosophy. To that end, I will first summarize his major line of argument pointing out to the richness and significance of the book. After that, I will argue that Hales’ account of intuition is subject to the challenge shown by some recent works written on the topic, and that it postulates a concept of knowledge that opposes Gettier’s one, without arguing why it is so. And, I will show that except rational intuition, none of the methods adopted by Hales are adequate to acquire beliefs about philosophical propositions. Next, I will argue that his method of wide reflective equilibrium is committed to foundationalism and conservatism, and that all what his criticism of skepticism show is that skepticism is true. Also, I will try to show that his form of perspectival relativism is committed to the problem of infinitum; it is incompatible with his foundationalism. It is powerless regarding some forms of skepticism, sharing the same source with some others. It is not progressive, and not perspectival enough regarding Goldman’s view, naturalists’ view, and its alternatives. And, if it is perspectival enough, then it refutes itself.