Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa and Benjamin W. Jarvis
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199661800
- eISBN:
- 9780191748325
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199661800.003.0013
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology, Philosophy of Mind
This chapter offers the core of the argument against experientialist rationalism—the view that intuitions are a special form of experience that provide a priori evidence. The target of this chapter ...
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This chapter offers the core of the argument against experientialist rationalism—the view that intuitions are a special form of experience that provide a priori evidence. The target of this chapter is strong experientialist rationalism, which holds that, ceteris paribus, a subject with the intuition that p has p as evidence by virtue of having that intuition. The central problem with strong experientialist rationalism is that it fails to account for blind irrationality—cases in which a subject's thoughts are irrational, even though he has no intuition to the effect that he is proceeding irrationally. The argument is generalized beyond strong experientialist rationalism; it also tells against Huemer's “phenomenal conservativism,” Harman's “general foundations theory,” and Foley's “subjective foundationalism.” All these views, like strong experientialist rationalism, fail to respect the objectivity of rational inquiry.Less
This chapter offers the core of the argument against experientialist rationalism—the view that intuitions are a special form of experience that provide a priori evidence. The target of this chapter is strong experientialist rationalism, which holds that, ceteris paribus, a subject with the intuition that p has p as evidence by virtue of having that intuition. The central problem with strong experientialist rationalism is that it fails to account for blind irrationality—cases in which a subject's thoughts are irrational, even though he has no intuition to the effect that he is proceeding irrationally. The argument is generalized beyond strong experientialist rationalism; it also tells against Huemer's “phenomenal conservativism,” Harman's “general foundations theory,” and Foley's “subjective foundationalism.” All these views, like strong experientialist rationalism, fail to respect the objectivity of rational inquiry.
