Imperfect Cognitions

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 o...

Caitrin Donovan  and  Reinier Schuur  report from the 2015 University of Sydney Winter School. The programme was entitled "Cross-cultural psychological differences and their philosophical implications" and seminars were led by  Stephen Stich  (Rutgers) and  Dominic Murphy  (University of Sydney). From the 19th till the 23rd of October the unit for History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney held its second winter school programme, this year on the topic of “Cross-cultural psychological differences and their philosophical implications”. Intuitions have been long been the bread and butter of various philosophical projects, which use them to evaluate semantic, epistemic, ethical and ontological theories and concepts. This can be seen in ‘Gettier cases’ in epistemology where accounts of knowledge are tested against intuitions on what counts as knowledge, and in ‘trolley cases’ in ethics where what is morally justified action i...