What should philosophers do with “deceptive” intuition pumps? Restrictionism vs reformism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21591718 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Arata Matsuda (The University of Tokyo, corresponding author), Masashi Takeshita (0000-0001-5853-3262, Hokkaido University) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 39 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 780-799 |
| Publication date | 2026-04-03 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Philosophical Psychology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0951-5089 • E-ISSN: 1465-394X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/09515089.2025.2498745 |
| OpenAlex | W4409957817 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 58 |
Philosophers commonly use thought experiments to elicit intuitions that serve as evidence for or against philosophical theories. Daniel Dennett calls such thought experiments “intuition pumps” and expresses concern that some of them are “deceptive” in that they elicit conflicting intuitions and thus lead to conflicting conclusions. What, then, should philosophers do with “deceptive” intuition pumps? Dennett proposes what might be called restrictionism, according to which philosophers should restrict the use of deceptive intuition pumps. In this paper, however, we argue that it faces what we call the problem of over-restriction: if philosophers restrict the use of deceptive intuition pumps, then they end up restricting the use of so many intuition pumps that they cannot continue philosophical inquiry. Then, as an alternative, we propose reformism, according to which philosophers should continue the use of deceptive intuition pumps after reforming them. We argue that reformism is more attractive than restrictionism, because it deals with the deceptiveness of intuition pumps while avoiding the problem of over-restriction. Overall, through criticizing Dennett’s restrictionism, we aim to illuminate the attractiveness of reformism, which has been underappreciated as a response to the deceptiveness of intuition pumps, and to call for future research in the reformist research program
Cognitive science · Epistemology · Intuition · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Psychology
Elbow room
Anarchy, State, and Utopia
The Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments
Philosophy without Intuitions
An Epistemic Theory of Democracy
The Myth of the Intuitive
Killing, Letting Die, and the Trolley Problem
Meaning and Reference
Gender Differences in Responses to Moral Dilemmas
Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility
Influence of wording and framing effects on moral intuitions
The meaning of ‘meaning’
Semantics, cross-cultural style
Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions
Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?
The Epistemology of Thought Experiments
Minds, brains, and programs
Mind, Language and Reality
Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds
From philosophy to science and back
Mischaracterization reconsidered
The threat of the intuition-shaped hole
Zombie intuitions
Intuitive Expertise in Moral Judgments
Bias and Fairness in Large Language Models
Why so negative? Evidence aggregation and armchair philosophy
The Instability of Philosophical Intuitions
Experimental Semantics
Epiphenomenal Qualia
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |