What are Intuitions?

I am doing a directed reading this summer on experimental philosophy (co-taught with my colleague Andrea Scarantino) and yesterday we spent a long time debating what intuitions are, since this is clearly an important question for [experimental] philosophers.  I'll post some of the ideas we discussed, and what we have found in the literature later (we'll be discussing it more in another session).  But first I wanted to ask people three sets of questions:

1. How do you conceive of intuitions?  And, if you wish to add more:  given your conception of intuitions, how do you think they relate to theories (implicit vs. explicit) and concepts?  Do you define these things in terms of their content or the process that generates them or both?  Is there a difference between philosophical intuitions and other intuitions?  Between philosophers' intuitions and folk intuitions? What do you take the evidential status of intuitions to be? etc. (Yeah, I know this is too much, but at a minimum, we're trying to find a concise, useful definition of the sorts of intuitions philosophers talk about.)

2. What are the best pieces to read to gain information about the above questions? 
The main pieces I know of are:
A nice new Goldman piece in Grazer Philosophische 2007 "Philosophical Intuitions: Their Target, Their Source, and Their Epistemic Status"
The essays in DePaul and Ramsey's Rethinking Intuitions (I've found most of these essays very useful)
Hinikka's "The Emperor's New Intuitions" (JPhil 1999)
Some other pieces by Bealer, Sosa, Weinberg, Kornblith that I don't feel like looking up right now, and Jackson's From Metaphysics to Ethics has some relevant stuff.  I have not read Joel Pust's book Intuitions as Evidence, so someone tell us if it is essential reading.
And please tell us what else is out there.

3. Has anyone taught a course on experimental philosophy yet?  If so, it'd be nice if people could share what they've taught.  I know Stich has taught such a course and his syllabus is online, but I think others have as well.  I suspect the pieces in the new Knobe and Nichols volume would be a good start, but what else?  And, related to the previous question, what sorts of background pieces would work best? 

Comments

[Eddy Nahmias]

Of course, it should be "Hintikka"
And Stich's course can be found here:
http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~stich/Experimental_Philosophy_Seminar/Experimental_Philosophy_Index.htm

[Jonathan Ichikawa]

One significant approach to intuitions, and questions about intuitions, that you haven't mentioned here is the line taken by David Lewis, Peter van Inwagen, and most explicitly, Timothy Williamson: intuitions are just beliefs, opinions, or judgments.

Williamson has a nice presentation of the approach in chapter 7 of his new book, The Philosophy of Philosophy. Alternatively, his earlier paper, "Philosophical 'intuitions' and scepticism about judgement", contains most of the same material.

[jonathan weinberg]

Some other very worthy pieces:

Tamar Gendler, "Philosophical Thought Experiments, Intuitions, and Cognitive Equilibrium", Midwest Studies, 2007

Janet Levin, "The Evidential Status of Philosophical Intuition", Phil Studies 2005

Horgan & Henderson, "The a priori isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, but it is something", Phil Topics 2002

Brian Weatherson, "What Good are Counterexamples?", Phil Studies 2003

Finn Spicer, "Epistemic Intuitions and Epistemic Contextualism", PPR 2006

Janet Nagel, "Epistemic intuitions", Phil Compass 2007

Ichikawa & Jarvis, "Thought-experiment intuitions and truth in fiction" Phil Studies forthcoming

[jonathan weinberg]

Two others I inexplicably forgot:

Michael Lynch, "Trusting Intuitions" in _Truth and Realism_

and for a really distinct take (rational intuitions are great, but they are on an epistemic par with religious revelation and psychoactive drugs), see Stephen Hales, _Relativism and the Foundations of Philosophy_

[Eddy Nahmias]

Thanks Jonathan and Jonathan. Very helpful suggestions. Now I want you to answer question 1 (tell us what intuitions are supposed to be)!

[Jonathan Ichikawa]

In my own view, Eddy, the whole literature on intuitions is pretty confused, not least because people tend to use the term in different ways. Some people talk about intuitions as psychologhical feelings -- immediate attractions to assent, akin to perceptual seemings, while some allow for us to reason ourselves to intuitions, even basing them on arguments. Sometimes you even see philosophers invoking a sense of intuition that is supposed to be factive.

I have quite a lot of sympathy with the Williamson line: intuitions are just judgments, or inclinations to judge. It's pretty obvious, I think, that this isn't what everybody means by the word, but I think it's probably the most useful way to proceed. So I think of this picture as a kind of helpful revisionist account. (I also agree with Williamson that many philosophers would be well-served to use the word 'intuition' much less than they do.)

I have laid out some of my position, along with its affinity to Williamson and some criticisms of x-phi critiques of traditional methodology, in a draft for which I'm currently soliciting comments, here:
http://philosophy.jollyutter.net/papers.htm#wni

If you're interested, take a look; maybe you'll find it useful. If you end up looking and having thoughts, I'd be very happy to hear them.

[Ron Mallon]

I taught an exphi course which is already a bit outdated (wherein we just read lots of the going papers), here: http://www.hum.utah.edu/philosophy/faculty/mallon/Materials/Course%20Webpages/Fall07/ExPhi.htm

I'm not sure whether I'll teach such a course again. As the ex phi literature develops, it seems to me that it will become more fruitful to focus more narrowly (e.g. on free will), reading ex phi and non ex phi papers. as appropriate. Then general questions about whether experiments are ever useful give way to quite specific questions about whether these experiments engage this particular issue.

On what intuitions are, it seems to me that Jonathan Ichikawa alludes to a central divide: some people treat intuitions as judgments (or beliefs) while others treat them as seemings or temptations to judge (or believe). It seems to me this is just a terminological issue, but one that's important to keep straight as one reads the literature. (I am tempted to use the term to talk about the mere seemings rather than the beliefs). I also think of intuitions as nonexplicitly and nonperceptually arrived at - a view I take to be shared by a range of others.

[Jonathan Ichikawa]

Yes, I agree that there are diverging approaches to intuitions, and that the "central divide" Ron mentions gets at one decision point. It's not the only one, though. Here are two more:

(A) To what extent are philosophical intuitions continuous with with or distinct from intuitions in other fields, such as scientific intuitions? Tamar Gendler and Timothy Williamson come to mind as people who emphasize similarity and continuity; George Bealer is a clear case of someone who wants to treat them very differently.

(B) Sometimes, philosophers discussing intuitions emphasize the spontaneousness of intuitions: intuitions are not formed out the basis of reasons. Others don't.

[jonathan weinberg]

Somewhat related to the distinction in Jonathan Ichikawa's (A), I might flag my earlier post on "Chomskyan" vs. "Platonic" metaphilosophies of intuition:
http://experimentalphilosophy.typepad.com/experimental_philosophy/2005/03/intuitions_the_.html

(Oh my god, is that post really from over three years ago? I suddenly feel very old!)

[Matt Bedke]

I have a forthcoming paper in APQ: "Ethical Intuitions: What They Are, What They are Not, and How They Justify." Though the target is to understand ethical intuitions, I talk about intuitions more generally. In my view, intuitions are best conceived as seeming states, but it can seem to one that p in a variety of different ways, and some seemings are more strongly justification conferring than others. Here is a rough breakdown of some key distinctions.

In one kind of seeming that p, the seeming is located in the very content of the seeming state (rather than a distinct seeming-type attitude taken toward p), as when it seems to you that a stick halfway in water is bent. In another kind of seeming, upon considering whether p, the semantics of the concepts involved require a particular judgment on the matter (as when it seems that XYZ is not water). In yet a third kind of seeming, upon considering whether p one has positive attendant phenomenological characteristics that make it seem as though p is true, though p is not semantically required - those who would judge that not p would not be making a semantic mistake. Ethical intuitions fall in this last category, in my view, and as a class these kinds of seemings are more weakly justification conferring than other kinds of seemings.

I discuss Audi, Huemer, and Bealer a bit, and I would recommend these guys for any list of readings. I would also welcome any comments on my paper (offprint available on my website - apologies for the self-promotion).

[Wesley Buckwalter]

So, given all that's going on in the other post on "recording" I'm a little hesitant to reference it, however I'm pretty sure that this one is officially approved! I hope I don't need anyone's permission to think about it.

In the Q&A at the end of the Jean-Nicod Lectures, Steve Stich has some great comments on intuition, 1:43:01 into "Debunking Morality" video:

"The method of philosophy from Plato to the present has been one that has just been imbued with relying on intuition, and I think relying on intuitions is a perfectly reasonable thing to do cautiously and carefully, of course, if what you're interested in is something inside your head--syntax, semantics, a visual process. Intuitions as spontaneous judgements can give you good, important information if we use it carefully. No problem about that. But when you're using intuitions to make judgments about things that aren't apparently inside your head, why should you take it seriously? [....] Plato did this and he had an answer, as far as I can see he was the last person to have an intellectually respectable answer, at least he asked the question. And he had the doctrine of an-amnesis. Why should you take intuition seriously? Well, you saw the forms of how things really were in heaven before you were born, you were traumatized coming through the birth canal, and your intuitions are just recovered memories. Well, if you believe that, then it would be perfectly reasonable to use intuitions to judge how we should behave, but I have never met anybody that takes that view seriously. It's not even clear to me that Plato took it seriously. And if you don't take it seriously, why should we take intuitions seriously?"

http://www.institutnicod.org/lectures2007_outline.htm#4

[Joel Pust]

I would have thought Pust's book was essential reading. ;)

[Jonathan Livengood]

Has anyone involved in the contemporary debate about intuitions reflected on the nineteenth century debate (featuring Hamilton, Mill, and Peirce to name just three) on the topic? For those guys, as I understand it, the problem was largely about whether intuitions had any evidential value, but intuitions were widely agreed to be cognitions that are not developments of or depend on prior cognitions. Of course, Mill pretty famously criticized intuitions: he says in his autobiography that the point of his Logic was to drive intuitionists out of their stronghold (in logic and mathematics).

[Billie Pritchett]

Well, if my intuitions about 'intuition' are (potentially) as good as anyone else's, then I will try to answer the question. I think of 'intuition' as denoting (assuming it denotes at all) a family of other concepts, themselves decomposable in a number of ways. I imagine it comprises common sense, prejudices, and judgments.

By common sense, I mean those things we can't help but observe to be of a certain way due to the fact that we are this type of biological organism. As such, we can't help but seeing, for example, that water is one kind of thing and that land is another. I admit that even the concept 'common sense' is fuzzy. For instance, it is unclear whether or not the homo habilis would have observed similar boundaries and a similar world as the homo sapien, or even to what degree he would. Also, it's unclear whether or not many of the borders that appear natural us do so due to acculturation. This is why I'd say that this concept (and the ones to follow) are decomposable in a number of ways.

Prejudices are what would come about within a person given her personality or culture, I would suppose. For example, one would begin with assumptions that have been influenced not by reason but by 'what folks around here think' or by 'what I just know to be true.' I take it, although it is only now a weak thesis, that whatever you think of Kant's moral philosophy that it was influenced in part by his Pietist upbringing and perhaps by other cultural and personal influences. I would guess, but I do not know for certain, that it would be unlikely that such a moral philosophy would have emerged under vastly different circumstances (and don't press me on what those 'vastly different circumstances' would be). But I could be wrong, of course.

And judgments would denote those things, if I were to guess, that we arrive at through reasoning about them. No doubt some of these judgements are going to be influenced by prejudices and what we can't help but think to observe being the organisms that we are (what I mean by common sense). But they would also help form part of what we mean by intuition.

These three things taken together I take to be the class that we call intuition. I could be completely wrong, and for whatever reason, I don't expect much of a response. Experimental philosophy isn't my bailiwick, after all, although I have a great deal of interest and excitement about it. But this would be a relative novice's two sense.