If Philosophers Aren't Using Intuitions as Evidence, What Are They Doing

Various philosophers have recently argued for a descriptive account of philosophical methodology in which philosophers do not use intuitions as evidence. This paper raises and considers an objection to such accounts. The objection is that such accounts render various aspects of philosophical practice inexplicable. The contribution of this paper is to demonstrate that one can provide a satisfactory account of the relevant aspects of philosophical practice without saying that philosophers use intuitions as evidence. One could, for example, maintain that the relevant aspects of philosophical practice serve purely explanatory roles

Epistemology · Experimental philosophy · Philosophical methodology · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Philosophy · Psychology