Concept Revision, Concept Application and the Role of Intuitions in Gettier Cases

Today's post is by Krzysztof Sękowski (University of Warsaw) on his recent paper, Concept Revision, Concept Application and the Role of Intuitions in Gettier Cases (Episteme, 2022).

Krzysztof Sękowski

According to the standard view, in thought experiments (or more specifically in the method of cases) the conclusion is justified by intuitions about the applicability of a given concept. For instance, in Gettier Cases our intuition that we can not say that the protagonist in a story KNOWS something justifies our conclusion that JTB theory of knowledge is false. According to this view, the method of cases enables us to establish some truths about that concept. Therefore, it is considered a descriptive method, as it helps discover truths about a given concept without revising, regulating or explicating its meaning.

The paper presents a different view on this method. According to it this method can be interpreted as a normative method, within which arguments for revising the meaning of a scrutinized concept are provided. Thus, the method of cases might be understood not only as a method used within conceptual analysis but also as part of the conceptual engineering enterprise.

The paper discusses two crucial distinctions. The first one distinguishes between intuitions of intension (intuitions about general properties that an object falling under a given concept has), and intuitions of extension (intuitions about the applicability of a given concept in particular situations). The second distinction distinguishes between concept-application arguments and concept-revision arguments. Concept-application arguments aim to provide reasons for a claim that a particular concept applies in a given case, while concept-revision arguments aim to provide reasons for why we should think about a given concept in a particular way. The paper argues that the method of cases might be interpreted as providing one of both of these kinds of arguments. The crucial difference between them is that concept-application arguments rely on the content of intuitions of extension, while concept-revision arguments rely on the content of intuitions of intension. The paper shows, on the example of Gettier Cases, that the crucial feature of the normative interpretation of the method of cases in which its conclusion is justified by concept-revision arguments, is that it provides reasons based on general expectations towards the concept for abandoning intuitions on whether it applies to a certain case or not. Thereby, this interpretation of the method of cases makes it a useful tool for conceptual engineering purposes.

In the last parts of the paper, it shows that the normative interpretation of the method of cases provides a defense from the critique of that method provided by the negative program of experimental philosophy. This critique aims to show that this method is unreliable as it relies on intuitions, which are, according to empirical findings, sensitive to philosophically irrelevant factors such as culture, gender, personality, etc.. However, the paper argues that the conceptual-engineering-friendly interpretation, according to which the method of cases is justified by concept-revision arguments and the content of intuitions of intension, can be defended with the help of some particular form of expertise defense. The paper argues that experts' intuitions, that is, intuitions of speakers who are immersed in philosophical discourse and who express their expectations about a target concept, can form a reliable source of evidence for revisionary arguments. This is because they do not serve as evidence for the method of cases' conclusions but they provide reasons for a particular conceptual change.

Delusions in the DSM 5

This post is by Lisa Bortolotti. How has the definition of delusions changed in the DSM 5? Here are some first impressions. In the DSM-IV (Glossary) delusions were defined as follows: Delusion. A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person's culture or subculture (e.g., it is not an article of religious faith). When a false belief involves a value judgment, it is regarded as a delusion only when the judgment is so extreme as to defy credibility.

Rationalization: Why your intelligence, vigilance and expertise probably don't protect you

Today's post is by Jonathan Ellis , Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Public Philosophy at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Eric Schwitzgebel , Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. This is the first in a two-part contribution on their paper "Rationalization in Moral and Philosophical thought" in Moral Inferences , eds. J. F. Bonnefon and B. Trémolière (Psychology Press, 2017). We’ve all been there. You’re arguing with someone – about politics, or a policy at work, or about whose turn it is to do the dishes – and they keep finding all kinds of self-serving justifications for their view. When one of their arguments is defeated, rather than rethinking their position they just leap to another argument, then maybe another. They’re rationalizing –coming up with convenient defenses for what they want to believe, rather than responding even-handedly to the points you're making. Yo...

A co-citation analysis of cross-disciplinarity in the empirically-informed philosophy of mind

Today's post is by Karen Yan (National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University) on her recent paper (co-authored with Chuan-Ya Liao), " A co-citation analysis of cross-disciplinarity in the empirically-informed philosophy of mind " ( Synthese 2023). Karen Yan What drives us to write this paper is our curiosity about what it means when philosophers of mind claim their works are informed by empirical evidence and how to assess this quality of empirically-informedness. Building on Knobe’s (2015) quantitative metaphilosophical analyses of empirically-informed philosophy of mind (EIPM), we investigated further how empirically-informed philosophers rely on empirical research and what metaphilosophical lessons to draw from our empirical results. We utilize scientometric tools and categorization analysis to provide an empirically reliable description of EIPM. Our methodological novelty lies in integrating the co-citation analysis tool with the conceptual resources from the philosoph...

Imperfect Cognitions

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