Analytic Epistemology and Experimental

Philosophy Compass 2/1 (2007): 56–80, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2006.00048.
Analytic Epistemology and Experimental

Philosophy
Joshua Alexander* and Jonathan M. Weinberg†
Indiana University, Bloomington
Abstract
It has been standard philosophical practice in analytic philosophy to employ intuitions
generated in response to thought-experiments as evidence in the evaluation of
philosophical claims. In part as a response to this practice, an exciting new movement
– experimental philosophy – has recently emerged. This movement is unified behind
both a common methodology and a common aim: the application of methods of
experimental psychology to the study of the nature of intuitions. In this paper, we
will introduce two different views concerning the relationship that holds between
experimental philosophy and the future of standard philosophical practice (what
we call, the proper foundation view and the restrictionist view), discuss some of the more
interesting and important results obtained by proponents of both views, and examine
the pressure these results put on analytic philosophers to reform standard
philosophical practice. We will also defend experimental philosophy from some
recent objections, suggest future directions for work in experimental philosophy,
and suggest what future lines of epistemological response might be available to those
wishing to defend analytic epistemology from the challenges posed by experimental
philosophy.
1. Standard Philosophical Practice

Going back arguably at least to Frege (and, in some sense, all the way back
to Socrates), it has been a standard practice in analytic philosophy to employ
intuitions generated in response to thought-experiments as evidence in the
evaluation of philosophical claims.1 A philosopher, wishing to either establish
or prosecute some philosophical claim proposes a thought-experiment
intended to generate an intuition relevant to evaluating the philosophical
claim. According to standard philosophical practice, the generated intuition
provides evidence for the acceptance or rejection of the philosophical claim:
the philosophical claim is prima facie good to the extent that it accords with
the generated intuition, prima facie bad to the extent that it fails to accord
with the generated intuition.
Examples of this practice in epistemology abound. Most famous of these
examples is Edmund Gettier’s use of two thought-experiments to generate
intuitions intended to prosecute the claim that a person knows that p just
© Blackwell Publishing 2006
Analytic Epistemology and Experimental Philosophy . 57
in case that person’s true belief is justified.2 Gettier’s thought-experiments

involve a person who has deduced a true belief q from a justified false belief
that p and, on that basis, formed a justified true belief that q. According to
Gettier, despite now having a justified true belief that q, the person lacks
knowledge that q. Purportedly, when we consider this case, we will have
the intuition that the person whose epistemic position is detailed in the
thought-experiment does not know that q. Further, this is to count as
sufficient evidence against the claim that a person knows that p just in case
that person’s true belief is justified.
Seeing this role of intuitions in standard philosophical practice – as
evidence for or against philosophical claims – one naturally wonders: in
standard philosophical practice, whose intuitions are to be relied upon as
evidence? If we suppose that everyone has the same intuitions regarding
specific thought-experiments, the question has a somewhat trivial and easy
answer: “everyone’s!” However, recent results in experimental philosophy
(see section 2 below) have shown this supposition to be incorrect. As such,
the question becomes more pressing and there appear to be three candidate
answers vying for our approval. First, it might be supposed that when a
philosopher relies on intuitions as evidence, she is relying only on her own
personal intuitions as evidence. Let’s call this view, intuition solipsism. Second,
she might be relying on her own intuitions because she takes those intuitions
to be representative of the intuitions of the class of professional philosophers.
Let’s call this view, intuition elitism.3 Third, she might be relying on her own
intuitions because she takes those intuitions to be representative of the
intuitions of a broader class that includes non-philosophers – commonly
referred to as “the folk.” Let’s call this view, intuition populism.4
Despite a small handful of high-profile endorsements (see endnote 5),
intuition solipsism has little to recommend it. First, any plausible answer to
our question should make sense of how practitioners of standard philosophical
practice conceive of their own practice. However, there is little evidence
to suggest that philosophers take themselves to be appealing only to their
individual intuitions.5 On the contrary, appeals to intuitions as evidence are
often formulated using locutions such as the impersonal “it is intuitive that,”
the second-person-involving “it should be apparent to the reader that . . . ,”
and especially the first-person-plural “our intuition is that . . . ,” or “we
have the intuition that.” (These are not usually just reporting the intuitions
of a group of authors.) Second, the standard philosophical practice of
appealing to intuitions as evidence is an argumentative practice. An author
engaging in the standard philosophical practice is not simply offering up her
intellectual autobiography; she is arguing a point. If she wasn’t, it would be
hard to conceive what would be the point of her publishing the paper, or
of anyone else’s reading and responding critically to it. Third, if the appeal
to intuitions is to make sense as part of an argumentative practice, then the
evidentiary status of intuitions needs some foundation. In general, this
foundation would have to arise either from the intuition’s being shared with
© Blackwell Publishing 2006 Philosophy Compass 2/1 (2007): 56–80, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2006.00048.x
58 . Analytic Epistemology and Experimental Philosophy
one’ interlocutors, or from one’s having some recognizable privileged

authority with regard to the intuition in question. Neither type of foundation
can be determined from a solipsistic perspective. Any argument that relied
solely on the intuitions of the author of that argument would not have
sufficient evidential strength and would have little hope of convincing
anyone. But, to the extent to which the philosopher is supposing that her
relevant intuitions are representative of those of a wider group, the author
should be understood to be appealing to the intuitions of either, or both,
all philosophers or all non-philosophers.
The remaining two views – intuition elitism and intuition populism –
are both more plausible than the methodologically solipsistic interpretation
of philosophical practice. At the very least, each allows us to make sense of
the practice of employing intuitions as evidence as being part of an
argumentative practice whose goal is to convince some other persons of the
truth (or falsity) of some philosophical claim.
One argument that is sometimes made (although rarely in print) in support
of intuition elitism is that philosophers’ intuitions are privileged on account
of the technical nature of philosophical claims under investigation in standard
philosophical practice. The philosophical claims under investigation in
standard philosophical practice involve technical (philosophical) concepts
that diverge to some degree or other from ordinary concepts.6 The intuitions
of non-philosophers reflect only an understanding of ordinary concepts,
whereas the intuitions of philosophers reflect understanding of these technical
concepts. As such, the intuitions of non-philosophers are not properly
evidential in standard philosophical practice; appeal must be made to the
intuitions of philosophers.
But this can’t be the correct way to interpret philosophical practice.
Philosophical practice is not concerned with understanding the nature of
knowledge (or belief, freedom, moral responsibility, etc.) in some technical sense,
but of knowledge as the concept is ordinarily understood outside of strictly
philosophical discourse and practice. If it were concerned only with the
technical sense of the concept, it would be divorced from the concerns that
led us to philosophical investigation of the concept in the first place and its
verdicts would have little bearing on those initial concerns. As such, large
and central swaths of philosophical practice must be concerned with the
ordinary concepts.7 But, then the reasons for appealing to the intuitions of
the technician are gone. Of course, this doesn’t preclude appealing to the
intuitions of the technician; one could appeal to the technician’s intuitions
not qua technician, but qua member of the folk. But, it does introduce an
experimental burden: to demonstrate that the intuitions of philosophers are
representative of those of non-philosophers. Absent such demonstration,
however, it is difficult to sustain even the suggestion that it is valuable to
appeal to the intuitions of philosophers qua folk. Additionally, there is reason
to think that the intuitions of philosophers aren’t representative. Shaun
Nichols, Stephen Stich, and Jonathan Weinberg found that intuitions about
certain thought-experiments systematically vary depending on how many

philosophy courses one has taken.8 Nichols, Stich, and Weinberg had subjects
consider a Brain-in-a-vat scenario. In the scenario, two college roommates
– neither of whom is a Brain-in-a-vat – are discussing the Brain-in-a-vat
scenario. George – one of the roommates – appeals to certain perceptions
he has in order to justify his belief that he is not a Brain-in-a-vat. Subjects
were asked whether George “really knows” or “only believes” that he is
not a Brain-in-a-vat. Nichols, Stich, and Weinberg found that subjects who
had taken two or fewer philosophy courses were more likely than subjects
who had taken three or more philosophy courses to claim that George
“really knows” that he is not a Brain-in-a-vat (55% of subjects with two or
fewer philosophy courses claimed that George “really knows”; 20% of
subjects with three or more philosophy courses claimed that George “really
knows”).
A second argument that is often made is that philosophers’ intuitions are
privileged on account of the special competency or expertise of philosophers
to attend to the relevant features of thought-experiments and to the truth
or falsity of philosophical claims.9 Even in cases in which philosophical claims
do not involve technical concepts that diverge in important ways from
ordinary concepts, philosophers are specially equipped to attend to the
relevant features of thought-experiments and to the concepts involved in
philosophical claims. As such, the intuitions of philosophers, imbued with
a sort of expertise, have more evidential value than do the intuitions of
non-philosophers.
To argue in this way, however, philosophers must be able to offer an
argument in defense of their alleged superiority. And we do not think that
there are currently any good versions of any such argument. One might
argue, for example, that philosophers spend more time thinking about the
relevant concepts than do non-philosophers and their expertise at producing
correct intuitive judgments is a product of this sustained reflection. But,
even granting that philosophers do spend more time thinking about the
relevant concepts, it is not clear what conclusion can be drawn. First, the
fact that intuitions continue to diverge across philosophers calls into question
the suggestion mere reflection (regardless of length of time spent reflecting)
provides a good means for weeding out incorrect conceptual understanding
or incorrect intuitions. Second, in order for this argument to go through,
then it must be the case that the refection is engaged in during the process
of producing intuitive judgments. If the reflection is engaged is reflection
on intuitive judgments that the philosophers have already made, then the
fact that philosophers spend more time reflecting on concepts doesn’t support
the claim that this reflection assists them in producing correct intuitive
judgments. And, it simply isn’t clear which of these two is the case.
Alternately, one might argue that philosophical expertise has already been
demonstrated, if philosophers have a demonstrably better track record of
epistemic success than do non-philosophers. But the question of comparative
epistemic success remains an open question. Additionally, there is reason to

doubt that any such demonstration would be forthcoming even if such
research were conducted. One way to measure epistemic success might be
in terms of one’s ability to provide accurate predictions and explanations.
But on such a measure there seems little to suggest that philosophers
enjoy greater success than do non-philosophers. After all, scientists are
non-philosophers (or certainly most of them are) and scientists have such a
strong track record of success when it comes to providing accurate
predictions and explanations that it seems doubtful that research will
demonstrate that philosophers have greater success. It might be suggested
that philosophers are not in the prediction-and-explanation business, and
so a more appropriate way to measure epistemic success might be in terms
of success at answering open questions in one’s field. But, again, there
is little to suggest that philosophers enjoy better success than do
non-philosophers. After all, mathematicians are non-philosophers (or certainly
most of them are), whose field is not particularly concerned with prediction
and explanation, yet mathematicians have such a fantastic track record of
success when it comes to answering open questions in their field that it again
seems doubtful that research will demonstrate that philosophers have greater
success. So, on the assumption that philosophy is to be done by surveying
the intuitions of the epistemically successful, we would suggest that
philosophers may not be too near the front of that survey queue.
We don’t take the considerations just rehearsed to have provided anything
like a knock-down argument in favor of intuition populism; such was not
our project. We do take the points rehearsed against intuition elitism above
and the failure of the intuition elitist to establish the preconditions of their
approach to point in favor of intuition populism. Nevertheless, for our
purposes here, we are content to leave the question open whether standard
philosophical practice is better understood in accordance with intuition
elitism or intuition populism. Whichever view is adopted, standard
philosophical practice of employing intuitions as evidence will have to attend,
and respond, to the developments of experimental philosophy.
2. Experimental Philosophy
In critical response to analytic philosophy’s intuition-deploying practices, a
new movement has recently emerged in analytic philosophy: experimental
philosophy. If intuitions generated in response to thought-experiments
are supposed to be able to be used as reasons to accept or reject some
philosophical claim, then we should be interested in studying the nature of
the relevant intuitions. Experimental philosophy takes up this challenge,
applying the methods of experimental psychology to the study of the nature
of intuitions generated in response to thought-experiments.
At present there are two (broadly drawn) views within the experimental
philosophy movement concerning the relationship that holds between
experimental philosophy and the future of standard philosophical practice.

One the one hand, there are those who believe that it is the results of
experimental philosophy that should be used to provide a proper evidentiary
foundation for certain philosophical claims and projects – call this view, the
proper foundation view. On the other hand, there are those who believe that
the results of experimental philosophy should figure into a radical restriction
of the deployment of intuitions as evidence – call this view, the restrictionist
view.
The proper foundation view has been widely endorsed by experimental
philosophers working on philosophical topics such as action theory, free-will,
and moral responsibility. The view can be summarized as follows. Standard
philosophical practice involves an appeal to intuitions as evidence for or
against particular philosophical claims. Unfortunately, practitioners of standard
philosophical practice too often rest content with the assumption that their
own intuitions are representative of those of the broader class of philosophers
and/or the folk. But, resting content with such an assumption obscures the
fact that claims about the distribution of intuitions are straightforwardly
empirical claims – testable predictions about how people will respond when
presented with the thought-experiments. As such, we should be concerned
with conducting empirical research in order to determine precisely what are
the intuitions that are held by philosophers and non-philosophers alike.
Only the results of such research can deliver the intuitions that can serve as
evidential basis for or against philosophical claims. In this way, the proper
foundation view conceives experimental philosophy as providing a necessary
supplement to standard philosophical practice.
Among the more interesting recent results heralded by proponents of the
proper foundation view are those by Joshua Knobe.10 In a 2003 study, Knobe
found that people’s intuitions concerning whether or not an action A is
intentional depends on the moral qualities of A rather than simply on
whether or not the agent intended to do A.11 Knobe had subjects consider
either of two thought-experiments that differed only in the moral significance
of the action described:
(1) The vice-president of a company went to the chairman of the board and said,
‘We are thinking of starting a new program. It will help us increase profits, but
it will also harm the environment.’
The chairman of the board answered. ‘I don’t care at all about harming the
environment. I just want to make as much profit as I can. Let’s start the new
program.’
They started the new program. Sure enough, the environment was harmed.
(2) The vice-president of a company went to the chairman of the board and said,
‘We are thinking of starting a new program. It will help us increase profits, but
it will also help the environment.’
The chairman of the board answered. ‘I don’t care at all about helping the
environment. I just want to make as much profit as I can. Let’s start the new
program.’
They started the new program. Sure enough, the environment was helped.
Subjects who were considering case (1) were then asked to indicate
whether or not the chairman intentionally harmed the environment. Subjects
who were considering case (2) were asked to indicate whether or not the
chairman intentionally helped the environment. Knobe found that the two
thought- experiments generated two drastically different intuitions. Most
subjects (82%) considering the first thought-experiment (in which the action
had negative moral qualities) indicated having the intuition that the
action was intentional. By contrast, most subjects (77%) considering the
second thought-experiment (in which the action had positive moral qualities)
indicated having the intuition that the action was unintentional.12 Knobe
takes these intuitions as evidence against the philosophical claim that person
S’s action A is intentional just in case S intended to do A.
Another interesting recent result achieved by proponents of the proper
foundation view is due to Eddy Nahmias, Stephen Morris, Thomas
Nadelhoffer, and Jason Turner who found that people’s intuition is that
causal determinism is compatible with moral responsibility.13 Nahmias,
Morris, Nadelhoffer, and Turner had subjects consider the following
thought-experiment:
Imagine that in the next century we discover all the laws of nature, and we build
a supercomputer which can deduce from these laws of nature and from the
current state of everything in the world exactly what will be happening in the
world at any future time. It can look at everything about the way the world is
and predict everything about how it will be with 100% accuracy. Suppose that
such a supercomputer existed, and it looks at the state of the universe at a certain
time on March 25th, 2150 A.D., twenty years before Jeremy Hall is born. The
computer then deduces from this information and the laws of nature that Jeremy
will definitely rob Fidelity Bank at 6:00 PM on January 26th, 2195. As always,
the supercomputer’s prediction is correct; Jeremy robs Fidelity Bank at 6:00 PM
on January 26th, 2195.
Subjects were then asked to indicate whether or not Jeremy was morally
blameworthy for robbing Fidelity Bank. Nahmias, Morris, Nadelhoffer, and
Turner found that most subjects (83%) responded that Jeremy was morally
blameworthy for robbing Fidelity Bank. They take these intuitions as
evidence against the philosophical claim that causal determinism is
incompatible with moral responsibility.
The restrictionist view has been endorsed primarily by experimental
philosophers working in epistemology and philosophy of language. This
view can be summarized by reference to how it differs from the proper
foundation view. According to the proper foundation view, empirical
research should be conducted in order to determine what intuitions are
generated in response to certain thought-experiments. The results of such
research, it is proposed, can then be used as a proper evidentiary foundation
for arguing for or against certain philosophical claims. By contrast, proponents
of the restrictionist view argue that empirical research into the nature
of intuitions generated in response to thought-experiments, rather than
supporting the use of intuitions as evidence, challenges the suitability of

intuitions to function in any evidentiary role. Thus, for proponents of the
proper foundation view, the problem with standard philosophical practice
is that proper care has not been given to determining just what are the
intuitions that should be used as evidence for or against philosophical claims.
By contrast, for proponents of the restrictionist view, the problem with
standard philosophical practice is that experimental evidence seems to point
to the unsuitability of intuitions to serve as evidence at all. This marks one
important difference between the proper foundation view and the restric-
tionist view. Equally important, however, is that the restrictionist view
presents a challenge to proponents of the proper foundation view. Proponents
of the proper foundation view, no less than proponents of standard
philosophical practice, endorse the use of intuitions as evidence. As such,
many experimental results call into question not just the correctness of
employing intuitions as evidence in standard philosophical practice, but the
correctness of employing intuitions as evidence even in philosophical practice
suitably amended to accommodate the challenge leveled by proponents of
the proper foundation view.
Among the more interesting recent results achieved by proponents of
the restrictionist view are those by Jonathan Weinberg, Shaun Nichols,
and Stephen Stich.14 In a 2001 study, Weinberg, Nichols, and Stich found
that subjects in different cultural and socioeconomic groups have significantly
different epistemic intuitions. To take one example from their study,
they had subjects consider the following version of one of Gettier’s famous
thought-experiments:
Bob has a friend Jill, who has driven a Buick for many years. Bob therefore thinks
that Jill drives an American car. He is not aware, however, that her Buick has
recently been stolen, and he is also not aware that Jill has replaced it with a
Pontiac, which is a different kind of American car. Does Bob really know that
Jill drives an American car, or does he only believe it?
Subjects in the study were asked to indicate their intuition by circling
one of the following:
REALLY KNOWS ONLY BELIEVES
Weinberg, Nichols, and Stich found that the majority (74%) of Western
subjects responded with the intuition that Bob lacked knowledge (ONLY
BELIEVES), while the majority of East Asian (56%) and Indian (61%) subjects
responded with the intuition that the Bob had knowledge (REALLY
KNOWS).15 A different study by these authors indicated an effect based on
the number of philosophy courses subjects had taken; in essence, subjects
who had taken more philosophy courses were more susceptible to skeptical
arguments than those who had taken fewer, who were willing to acquiesce
to a Moore-style antiskeptical argument.16
A closely related result was achieved by Edouard Machery, Ron Mallon,
Shaun Nichols and Stephen Stich.17 In a 2004 study, Machery, Mallon,
Nichols, and Stich found that subjects in different cultural groups have
significantly different intuitions about reference. To take one example from
their study, Machery, Mallon, Nichols, and Stich had subjects consider the
following version of one of Saul Kripke’s famous thought-experiments:18
Suppose that John has learned in college that Gödel is the man who proved an
important mathematical theorem, called the incompleteness of arithmetic. John
is quite good at mathematics and he can give an accurate statement of the
incompleteness theorem, which he attributes to Gödel as the discoverer. But this
is the only thing that he has heard about Gödel. Now suppose that Gödel was
not the author of this theorem. A man called “Schmidt” whose body was found
in Vienna under mysterious circumstances many years ago, actually did the work
in question. His friend Gödel somehow got a hold of the manuscript and claimed
credit for the work, which was thereafter attributed to Gödel. Thus he has been
known as the man who proved the incompleteness of arithmetic. Most people
who have heard the name “Gödel” are like John; they claim that Gödel discovered
the incompleteness theorem is the only thing they have ever heard about Gödel.
Subjects in the study were then asked:
When John uses the name “Gödel” is he talking about:
(A) the person who really discovered the incompleteness of arithmetic?
Or
(B) the person who got hold of the manuscript and claimed credit for the work?
The answers were scored binomially, with 0 = (A) and 1 = (B). The
scores were then summed. Machery, Mallon, Nichols, and Stich found that
Western subjects were more likely than East Asian subjects to give
causal-historical responses (mean for Western subjects = 1.13 compared
with mean for East Asian subjects = 0.63).19 They use this, and other, data
to support the claim reinforce the claim that intuitions systematically vary
between cultural groups.
The data of Weinberg, Nichols, and Stich’s and Machery, Mallon,
Nichols, and Stich’s studies support the claim that intuitions systematically
vary between cultural and socioeconomic groups. In a recently reported
study, Stacey Swain, Joshua Alexander, and Jonathan Weinberg found a
different form of systematic variation: that intuitions generated in response
to one thought-experiment can vary according to whether, and which,
other thought-experiments were considered first.20 Swain, Alexander, and
Weinberg had subjects consider the following version of Lehrer’s Truetemp
Case:
One day Charles was knocked out by a falling rock; as a result his brain was
“rewired” so that he is always right whenever he estimates the temperature where
he is. Charles is unaware that his brain has been altered in this way. A few weeks
later, this brain rewiring leads him to believe that it is 71 degrees in his
room. Apart from his estimation, he has no other reasons to think that it is 71
degrees. In fact, it is 71 degrees.
Subjects were then asked to indicate (using a five-point Likert scale with
1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neutral, 4 = agree, and 5 = strongly
agree) to what extent they agreed or disagreed with the following
statement:
Charles knows that it is 71 degrees in his room.
Swain,Alexander, and Weinberg found that compared with subjects who
considered the Truetemp Case before considering other cases (mean response
= 2.8), subjects who were first presented with a clear case of knowledge
were significantly less willing (mean response = 2.4) to attribute knowledge
in the Truetemp Case, and subjects who were first presented with a clear
case of non-knowledge were significantly more willing (mean response =
3.2) to attribute knowledge in the Truetemp Case.21 Most interesting is that
intuitions crossed the threshold of neutrality (neutral = 3) when subjects
were first presented with a clear case of non-knowledge. Although Swain,
Alexander, and Weinberg used a between-subjects design, this result suggests
that the intuitions of individual agents may be malleable, even to the point
of applying a concept when they have been considering one set of alternate
cases, but withholding it when they have been considering others.
Another form of systematic variation was discovered by Shaun Nichols
and Joshua Knobe. 22 Nichols and Knobe repeated the experiment conducted
by Nahmias, Morris, Nadelhoffer, and Turner. The results obtained by
Nichols and Knobe go beyond those of Nahmias, Morris, Nadelhoffer, and
Turner, however, in suggesting that affective content present in the narrative
of the thought-experiment might be playing a key role in generating subjects’
compatibilist intuitions. They discovered that when presented with the
initial thought-experiment – which has affective content – subjects reported
having compatibilist intuitions; however, when presented with an abstract
narrative – in which the affective content has been controlled for – subjects
reported having incompatibilist intuitions. Their data indicates that intuitions
about the relationship between causal determinism and moral responsibility
depend on the presence or absence of affective content in the narrative of
the thought-experiment. Such data indicates that intuitions about the
relationship between causal determinism and moral responsibility are unstable.
It is important to note that neither Nichols nor Knobe cast their results as
part of the restrictionist view. They view their results as part of a project
studying our folk psychology. That said, however, their results are suggestive
for those experimental philosophers interested is using the results of experimental
philosophy to challenge standard philosophical practice.
Proponents of the restrictionist view take all of this data to present a
significant challenge to standard philosophical practice. All of this data points
to the claim that intuitions generated in response to thought-experiments
are sensitive to factors irrelevant to the content of the thought-experiments
themselves. Weinberg, Nichols, and Stich and Machery, Mallon, Nichols,
and Stich found that intuitions are sensitive to such factors as cultural,
socioeconomic, and educational background. Swain, Alexander, and

Weinberg found that intuitions generated in response to thought-experiments
are sensitive to whether, and which, other thought-experiments are
considered first. Nichols and Knobe found that intuitions generated in
response to thought-experiments are sensitive to affective content. Standard
philosophical practice had not allowed that the facts about what knowledge
(or meaning, or responsibility) is should depend on such factors. But, if
intuitions generated in response to thought-experiments systematically vary
on the basis of irrelevant factors, then it is possible to use intuitions generated
in response to thought-experiments as evidence for divergent – even
contradictory – philosophical claims.23 But such instability impugns the status
of intuitions as evidentiary, making it unlikely that there would be any fixed
set of intuitions about a particular thought-experiment that can stand in any
sort of evidential relationship with a philosophical claim.
The upshot is that standard philosophical practice, if it is to be maintained,
will have to admit that intuitions that demonstrate such variability cannot
serve as an evidentiary basis for or against philosophical claims after all and
restrict the appeal to intuitions as evidence to only those intuitions that are
shard by all groups. If philosophers are going to avoid the restrictionists’
pessimistic claims about their practice, their options appear to be limited to:
(a) finding a way of preferencing one set of intuitions over another; or (b)
arguing that philosophical claims are to be relativized to such factors as
ethnicity, socioeconomic status, affective state, and so on. Considerations
like those rehearsed in section 1 provide reason to doubt the possibility of
finding any non-magisterial way of preferencing one set of intuitions over
another. This leaves either relativism – or a restriction of the practice of
appealing to intuitions as evidence. We don’t have any knock-down
arguments to show that all forms of philosophical relativism are false. In fact,
we doubt that such an argument is even possible. However, our concern is
not with relativism per se, but with the ability of relativism to save standard
philosophical practice from the challenges raised by experimental philosophy.
And, here we think there is a significant burden not met by a proponent of
this line of response. First, and most important, is that the proponent of this
line of response would need more than the present data to move the response
anywhere past pure speculation. The present data is about the instability and
systematic variation of intuitions. To get this line of response off the ground,
it is not just intuitions that must be shown to vary, but the relevant philoso-
phical facts themselves. And, the relativist would need some independent
argument to make plausible the suggestion that the relevant philosophical
facts vary according to such things as: cultural, socioeconomic, and
educational background; and whether, and which, other thought-experiments
were considered first; and affective content. And, we doubt that there is any
plausible argument of this kind. In any case, in the absence of such an
argument, we take the data to challenge the suitability of intuitions to
function in any evidentiary role. Standard philosophical practice should
admit that intuitions that demonstrate the kinds of variability demonstrated

by proponents of the restrictionist view cannot serve as evidence for or
against philosophical claims.
3. Epistemological Responses to Experimental Philosophy

Unsurprisingly, experimental philosophy has met with some resistance from
the more armchair-oriented philosophical community. One prominent
recent critic of experimental philosophy has been Ernest Sosa.24 Sosa observes
that experimental philosophers’ method involves asking subjects to consider
a thought-experiment, which consists of a short narrative, and to answer a
question where this answer is meant to reveal what relevant intuition they
have about the case described in the narrative. However, when reading a
narrative passage, we tend to import a certain amount of information not
explicitly contained in the passage itself. He thus argues that it is not clear,
for any two subjects, that they are actually responding to the same contents
– it is possible that each has filled-in different details not explicit in the
passage. But if it isn’t clear, for any two subjects, that they are responding
to the same set of filled-in contents, then it is not clear what conclusion can
be drawn from any similarity or difference found to obtain between their
reported intuitions. After all, the subjects may have filled in the cases with
different philosophically relevant contents, and thereby have appropriately
different intuitions about what are really different cases.
However threatening this line of objection may be to experimental
philosophy, it is important to note that it is no less threatening to standard
philosophical practice. First, this line seems to threaten a kind of
methodological solipsism. On this line, no two people can ever be sure,
when talking about some imagined case that they are actually talking about
the same thing. Or worse, it seems just as reasonable to suppose that a subject
might fill in the details of some imagined case differently on one occasion
than she did on another as it does to suppose that two people might fill-in
the details differently. In fact, if this line of objection is to handle the
kind of data obtained by Swain, Alexander, and Weinberg (in which
intuitions about a thought-experiment varied according to which other
thought-experiments had preceded it), then it would have subjects filling
in the details differently on the basis of fairly minor and recent perturbations
in their cognitive environment and over even very shorts spans of time. But
then subjects can never be sure when they are reflecting on the same
thing. The concern applies equally well whether we are considering the
subjects studied by experimental philosophers or philosophers themselves.
For if we cannot know that two experimental subjects are really disagreeing
when they have putatively divergent intuitions, it would follow that we
cannot know that two philosophers are really agreeing when they have
putatively convergent intuitions. A skepticism about intuitions would be
the result. Sosa’s argument would thus score a victory for armchair
philosophy that is both Pyrrhic and Pyrrhonian. Second, and consequently,

this line would reduce the standard philosophical practice of employing
intuitions as evidence to the practice of a person relying only on their own
intuitions as evidence.
For reasons discussed earlier we take methodological solipsism to be the
wrong interpretation of standard philosophical practice. Additionally, we
don’t take such skepticism to be warranted; and, thus, don’t take the mere
possibility that any two subjects will fill-in different details to really present
much of a worry for proponents of either experimental philosophy or
standard philosophical practice. To really provide a challenge to either
experimental philosophy or standard philosophical practice, some evidence
is needed to support the plausibility of the claim that, when we consider a
given narrative, philosophers and non-philosophers do in fact import a
different information not explicitly contained in a narrative and that philoso-
phers do in fact import the same information as other philosophers. The
mere suggestion that we do is insufficient. Second, this evidence must do
more than indicate that we import a certain amount of information not
explicitly contained in a narrative; it must demonstrate that this information
is relevant to the intuitive judgments we make in response to those
narratives. Without a demonstration of the latter sort, even a demonstration
of the former sort wouldn’t be relevant to either the practice of experimental
philosophy or to standard philosophical practice.
A second line of criticism leveled against experimental philosophy
suggests that the intuitions of the subjects studied in experimental philosophy
may not reflect the relevant concepts.25 That is, it is sometimes argued that
any substantive variation of intuitions (either between subjects and
philosophers or between different groups of subjects) can be dismissed as
resulting simply from the fact that subjects studied by experimental
philosophers are employing different concepts (either from those employed
by philosophers or from those employed by different groups of subjects).
Such variation between groups doesn’t challenge standard philosophical
practice since the variation results only from there being multiple concepts
in play.
It is not clear, however, what sense this line of criticism makes for one
wishing to defend standard philosophical practice. First, any systemization
of intuitions about thought-experiments can only be valuable if we can tell
when concepts are being used univocally across various thought-experiments.
That we might explain a diversity of intuitions generated in response to
some thought-experiment in terms of a diversity of concepts only saves the
evidentiary status of intuitions at the cost of there being any use in appealing
to intuitions as evidence in philosophical disputes. Second, this line inherits
a substantial burden: if it is appropriate to worry that the subjects studied
by experimental philosophers aren’t using concepts univocally, why it is no
less appropriate to worry that philosophers are similarly not using concepts
univocally? Third, the response only makes sense for those who want to
privilege philosophers’ intuitions. The response basically discounts the

findings of experimental philosophy by rejecting the relevance of folk
intuitions to standard philosophical practice. But, for reasons discussed above,
the practice of relying only on philosophers’ intuitions as evidence faces
significant challenges of its own.
A third, and related, line of criticism leveled against experimental philosophy
concerns the extent to which the intuitions of the subjects studied in experi-
mental philosophy may or may not reflect proper understanding of the
relevant concepts. Standard philosophical practice, it is argued, is concerned
with reflective, robust intuitions that express complete understandings of
the relevant concepts. The intuitions studied in experimental philosophy
are superficial, reflecting incomplete understandings of the relevant concepts.
Because of such differences, the results gathered about the intuitions of
subjects studied in experimental philosophy don’t directly challenge standard
philosophical practice.
Again, however, it is not clear that such a suggestion can serve well in
the defense of standard philosophical practice. If it is legitimate to worry
that the intuitions of subjects studied by experimental philosophers reflect
defective or imperfect understanding of the relevant concepts, it is no less
legitimate to worry that the intuitions of trained philosophers reflect similar
defects or imperfections. Simply stipulating that philosophers’ intuitions are
indicative of complete understanding of the relevant concepts will not
do. What is needed is a principled way of determining which intuitions
are indicative of real competence and which are indicative of defects or
imperfections. Also needed is an argument (or better yet, a demonstration)
to the effect that the intuitions of philosophers are of the first kind while
intuitions of subjects studied in experimental philosophy are of the second.
But what might an argument of this kind look like? It would presumably
be an argument that philosophers enjoy a special intuitive competency
or expertise with certain concepts like knowledge not shared by non-
philosophers.26 Only an argument of this kind would be sufficient to make
plausible discounting the intuitions of the subjects studied in experimental
philosophy while privileging the intuitions appealed to in standard
philosophical practice. We rehearsed two versions of such an argument
above, in the context of the debate between intuition elitism and intuition
populism. We considered whether the elitist could make appeals to
philosophers’ higher degree of reflection, and to their presumed greater
epistemic success than non-philosophers. And we argued that neither move
works to secure intuition elitism. The same arguments serve to rebut any
case made for the existence of any special philosophical intuitive competence.
And, without a way to make this case, we don’t think that there is a way
to make plausible discounting the intuitions of the subjects studied in
experimental philosophy.
It is also important to note that challenges like the ones just rehearsed
involve speculating on empirical possibilities: that the intuitions of subjects
studied in experimental philosophy reflect different concepts than do those

of professional philosophers; that, even between groups of subject, multiply
concepts are in play with will be reflected in diverging intuitions about some
thought-experiments; or that the intuitions of subjects reflect defective or
imperfect understanding of the relevant concepts. But it is not sufficient to
rest content with mere speculation, for it confuses the dialectical burden of
proof. The growing body of work in experimental philosophy continues to
shift that burden to the person who would defend standard philosophical
practice. It might be that somewhere down the road we will come to be in
possession of empirical evidence for the truth of one (or more) of these
empirical possibilities. Such evidence might help vindicate part, or all, of
the standard philosophical practice of relying on intuitions as evidence.
But that day is not today. As such, anyone wishing to defend standard
philosophical practice in this way would have to go out and collect evidence
that the suggested empirical possibilities are actually true. And the challenge
of experimental philosophy is that even a successful defense of standard
philosophical practice will have to come through the practice of doing
experimental philosophy.
A different overall strategy in response to the challenge from experimental
philosophy has been to insist that, nonetheless, our intuitive capacities must
be fundamentally in good standing. The most ambitious of these responses
argue that restrictionism would entail, not just the discrediting of many
philosopher’s favorite intuitions, but the complete collapse of our epistemic
position into an unsustainable skepticism. There may be no argument for
skepticism about intuitions that would not just as well impeach other crucial
sources of evidence; for example, if the restrictionists are merely arguing
that we have experimental evidence of intuitions’ fallibility, then we are in
deep trouble indeed, since memory and perception are both fallible as well,
and we would not want to jettison those epistemic capacities.27 Some sort
of a priori intuitions may be required to license even the most basic inferences
that take us beyond the evidence of our senses, and such “hinge” propositions
as the existence of the external world which, if they are unjustified, might
result in the entire edifice of our cognition being unjustified.28
Another aprioristic strategy is to contend that the relationship between
intuition and intuited is profoundly unlike that of percept and perceived:
in the latter, our psychological state counts as evidence because they track
the facts that they put us in contact with, but in the former, it may be that
our psychological states at least in part constitute the facts they report on. At
the same time, such views do not hold that all of the intuitions are
constitutive – to do so would entail that wherever two persons disagree in
any of their intuitions, they must be talking past each other – but rather,
that it is the totality of the intuitions involving a concept which must more
or less determine its meaning. For example, Brian Weatherson offers a
version of Lewisian semantics in which the referents of our concepts are
whatever property out there in the world is the simplest, most natural
property that does the best job of fitting our intuitive judgments in applying
it. One of the key virtues of the theory, he argues, is “it can account for the
possibility of mistaken intuitions, while still denying the possibility that
intuitions about meaning can be systematically and radically mistaken” (9).29
If Westerners and East Asians have different intuitions about the application
of “knows,” or philosophers and non-philosophers, or even different
time-slices of individual agents, that might be fine, so long as they all have
the best fit. And, if some of these differences in intuitions are so great that
they approximate different natural properties, then we get a little bit of
relativism, but of a non-crazy sort – speakers whose intuitions are that
objectively divergent should count as talking past each other.
In addition to such a transcendental and aprioristic approaches, one can
also make a posteriori replies based on the track-record of intuition as well
as naturalistic hypotheses about the processes that produce them. George
Bealer has done so by appeal to the track record of our intuitive capacities
on the whole. According to Bealer,“the on-balance agreement of elementary
concrete-case intuitions is one of the most impressive general facts about
human cognition” (“Intuition” 214). If one also takes intuitions to be
reporting primarily on facts about our own concepts – the particular
psychological entities in our heads – then, again, it is easy to tell a story
about how such intuitions might be mostly true. Such a story might appeal
to something like analyticity, as a means for explaining why they will
generally turn out true.30 But it does not need to do so; concepts might just
be rich, tacit, empirically informed, and empirically corrigible theories of
the categories of the world, and hence intuition’s reliability is a special case
of the general reliability of our cognition of the empirical world.31
What these latter arguments all have in common is that they aim to
demonstrate that our intuitions must be generally and on balance accurate in
their deliverances. As such, they are inconsistent with what we might call
an eliminationist position regarding intuitions: the view that they should be
done away with in our philosophical practice altogether. And certainly some
naturalistically minded philosophers have occasionally sounded like they
were endorsing such a position.32 But these arguments are in fact consistent
with the restrictionist, who advocates not the root and branch removal of
all intuitions, but just the pruning away of some of the more poisoned
philosophical branches. The peculiar and esoteric intuitions that are the
philosopher’s stock-in-trade represent a fairly small portion of the entire
human intuitive capacity, and it hardly impugns the latter if the former
turn out to be untenable. (Contending that squinting in dim light is a
poor way to see the world accurately would, likewise, not be to cast
doubt on perception on the whole.) So the epistemologists’ responses give
us, at best, that intuitions are on average reliable, when to save the
armchair practice from the restrictionists, what they need to offer is some
reason to think that philosophers’ intuitions about typical philosophical hypothetical
cases are reliable.
Importantly, the restrictionists’ experiments do not merely suggest that

philosophers’ intuitions are fallible; they also reveal that fallibility in places
that armchair philosophers were not at all expecting to find it.“Sure, maybe
the likes of Swampman will get all sorts of weird responses,” we can imagine
them saying, “but not Truetemp!” And the Gettier cases, after all, are not
buried off in some obscure corner of the epistemological literature, but
rather have been at the heart of the discipline for close to half a century –
epistemologists were clearly not expecting to find their intuitions about
those cases put into jeopardy. And so the surprise that these experimental
results have provoked also underscores just how insensitive the philosophical
community has been to these sorts of errors. The existence of errors is mere
fallibility, and a cause only for caution, not panic. But such errors in the
absence of any decent means for catching and correcting them is a far worse
charge, and the arguments for on-balance reliability of intuitions on the
whole simply do not apply to this concern.33
Timothy Williamson has also developed a more radical response to the
restrictionist threat: rejecting the picture of philosophical practice as
depending on intuitions at all!34 He argues that our evidence, in considering
the cases like those listed in section 1, is not any sort of mental seeming, but
the facts in the world. He compares philosophical practice to scientific
practice, where we do not take the perceptual seemings of the scientists as
our evidence, but the facts about what they observed. Similarly, then, we
should construe Gettier’s evidence to be not his intellectual seeming that
his case is not an instance of knowledge, but rather the modal fact itself
that such a case is not an instance of knowledge. We retreat from talk of
the world to talk of percepts when we (mistakenly) attempt to accommodate
the skeptic; so, too, do we retreat to talk of intuitions only under the pressure
of skeptical arguments. And since Williamson is himself antiskeptical,
emphasizing the continuity between ordinary modal cognition and
philosophical cognition, he concludes we should give up thinking of our
philosophical evidence in the thinly psychological terms of intuitions.
But we do not think that Williamson’s arguments can provide much
solace for traditional analytic philosophers. For the results of experimental
philosophers are not themselves framed in terms of intuitions, but in
terms of the counterfactual judgments of various subjects under various
circumstances. Although the results are often glossed in terms of intuitions
to follow standard philosophical usage, inspection of the experimental
materials reveals little talk of intuitions and mostly the direct evaluation of
claims. The restrictionist challenge does not need to turn on a (potentially
mistaken) psychologization of philosophers’ evidence; that it does not turn
on that skeptical move hopefully helps make clear that it is not itself a
skeptical challenge. In terms that Williamson should be happy with, the
challenge reveals that at the present time philosophers may just not know
what their evidence really is. And the true extent of their evidence is not,
we think, something that they will be able to learn from their armchairs.
4.The Future of Experimental Philosophy

To the extent that philosophy remains interested in developing theories
about such things as knowledge, belief, justification, intentionality, respon-
sibility, and reference that are responsive to our ordinary epistemic, linguistic,
and social practices and to our ordinary, pre-philosophical intuitions about
such things, any acceptable theory will have to account for and accord with
our ordinary folk understandings and our ordinary intuitive judgments.
To the extent that philosophy remains interested only with specialized,
philosophical practice and intuitions, it remains true that an acceptable theory
must still account for and accord with some set of understandings and
intuitive judgments: in this case, those of philosophers.35 In either case, the
projects of experimental philosophy will continue to be extremely important:
to determine whether intuitions are suitable as evidence and, if so, to
determine what the relevant intuitions are.
The results obtained by proponents of the proper foundation view have
already indicated ways in which standard philosophical practice has produced
philosophical theories that stray from what intuitions people actually
have. This signals that, for the future of experimental philosophy, it will be
important for proponents of the proper foundation view to continue to
investigate what the actual folk intuitions are. Only such research can help
philosophical practice break from resting content with deliverances of
proponents of standard philosophical practice who merely speculate on what
those intuitions are. It will also be important for proponents of the proper
foundation view to continue to: (1) develop, and test, hypotheses about
what factors influence peoples’ intuitive judgments; and (2) develop accounts
of the relationship between our intuitions and the phenomena about which
philosophical practice aims to provide understanding.
Equally important are the results that have been obtained by proponents
of the restrictionist view. These results have already brought under suspicion
the view that intuitions are suitable as evidence. These results are troubling
and should give pause for both proponents of standard philosophical
practice and proponents of the proper foundation view. For the future of
experimental philosophy, it will be particularly important for proponents
of the proper foundation view to account for and respond to the challenge
the restrictionist view poses. It will be no less important for proponents of
the restrictionist view to continue to: (1) investigate what, if any, other ways
intuitions are labile, systematically heterogeneous, biased, or distorted; (2)
investigate whether the demonstrated unsuitability is local or global; and,
(3) begin to grapple with the question of how philosophical practice is to
proceed if we restrict or eliminate the use of intuitions as evidence.
Some important work has already begun on how epistemological practice
should proceed without appeal to intuitions. This work is being carried out
by Michael Bishop and J. D. Trout, Hilary Kornblith, Ram Neta, and
Jonathan Weinberg, among others. Bishop and Trout advance a view they
call strategic reliabilism.36 According to strategic reliabilism, epistemology
should be concerned with promoting the efficient allocation of cognitive

resources to reliable reasoning strategies and applying these reasoning
strategies to significant problems. On this view, normative epistemological
prescriptions arise from the empirical findings of ameliorative psychology.
Hilary Kornblith defends a view that might be described as radical
epistemological naturalism – treating knowledge as a natural kind to be
studied empirically.37 Both Neta and Weinberg scout ways of using Edward
Craig’s Knowledge and the State of Nature as a tool for doing post-intuitive
epistemology.38 According to Craig, the concept of knowledge has the
function of picking out those potential informants upon whom we can rely
in forming our beliefs. Drawing on this, Neta argues that epistemological
theory is answerable to both intrinsic features of our ordinary epistemological
practices and to the relation those practices bear to the rest of our lives.39
Additionally, Neta defends the view that claims that possessing an
epistemological status with respect to a particular proposition is a matter of
being a more or less credible informant as to whether or not it is the case
that p. According to Neta, epistemological facts are then fixed by our interests
in flagging credible informants. According to Weinberg’s reconstructive
neopragmatism, we analyze concepts not by consulting intuitions about cases,
but by first investigating for what purposes we have a practice of attributing
those concepts, and then considering what sorts of distinctions and norms
governing those concepts would best serve those purposes.40 If one wishes
to get at the nature of epistemic justification, for example, then the operative
question would be: what would we include, what would we strengthen and
what would be abandon as outmoded were we to consider a radical
reconstitution of our epistemic norms?
In addition to work on how epistemological practice should proceed if
we eliminate the use of intuitions as evidence, the tradition of ordinary
language philosophy might represent a way for standard philosophical practice
to proceed if we restrict (rather than eliminate) the use of intuitions as
evidence. Consider, for example, the work of J. L. Austin.41 Austin would
agree with restrictionists that some restriction needs to be placed on the
appeal to intuitions as evidence. That said, however, he was an advocate of
appealing to intuitions about ordinary language use as evidence provided
that certain restrictions were in place. Among the restrictions endorsed by
Austin are: (1) that we shouldn’t appeal to intuitions generated in response
to thought-experiments whose content radically departs from ordinary
experience; and (2) that we shouldn’t appeal to intuitions generated in
response to thought-experiments that aren’t sketched with sufficient
detail. An Austinian model might provide for a way of securing at least some
of standard philosophical practice.
A great deal of work remains both for experimental philosophers and for
those wishing to defend standard philosophical practice from their challenges.
It remains to be seen whether a new standard of philosophical practice is
needed and just how radical a departure the new standard will be from the
old. Our growing sense is that a sea-change in philosophical practice is

needed and that the continued work of experimental philosophers will play
a crucial role in directing the shape of the transformation. But, even if
proponents of standard philosophical practice turn out to be vindicated in
the end, at a minimum experimental philosophy will have had the very
salutary effect of forcing proponents of standard philosophical practice to
set out clearly what the practice involves and why (despite the apparent
experimental evidence to the contrary) it is a good practice. By helping
either to replace philosophers’ intuitive methods, or to clarify the basis for
their legitimacy, experimental philosophy will ultimately be of value for
radical and traditionalist alike.
Short Biography
Joshua Alexander received an M.A. in Philosophy from the University
of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and is currently a doctoral candidate in Philosophy
at Indiana University, Bloomington. His current research is focused on a
priori justification and empirical revisability, naturalized epistemology, and
experimental philosophy. His dissertation is entitled “A Priori Justification,
Intuition and Empirical Revisability,” and he has published in Philosophy of
Science.
Jonathan M. Weinberg is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and a member
of the Center for Cognitive Science at Indiana University, Bloomington.
He received his degree from Rutgers in 2002. His current research involves
the application of empirical methods and results to such fields as
epistemology, philosophy of mind, and aesthetics, and he has published in
Philosophical Topics, Nous, Philosophy of Science, and Journal of Aesthetics and
Art Criticism.
Acknowledgment
We would like to thank John Alexander, Joshua Knobe, Adam Leite, Mark
Kaplan, and an anonymous referee for Philosophy Compass for valuable
feedback on earlier drafts of this paper.
Notes
* Correspondence addresses: Department of Philosophy, Indiana University, Sycamore Hall 026,
Bloomington, IN 47405, USA. Email: joshuaa@indiana.edu, † jmweinbe@indiana.edu.
1 For our purposes, an intuition will be taken to be an intellectual seeming of opaque origin. For
further discussion of what intuitions are in the sense relevant to the practice of relying on intuitions
as evidence, see the following: G. Bealer, “The Incoherence of Empiricism,” Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society 66 (1992): 99–138; Bealer,“A Priori Knowledge and the Scope of Philosophy,”
Philosophical Studies 81 (1996): 121– 42; Bealer, “Intuition and the Autonomy of Philosophy,”
Rethinking Intuition, eds. M. DePaul and W. Ramsey (Lantham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield
Press, 1998), 201– 40; A. Goldman, “Philosophical Intuitions: Their Target, Their Source, and
Their Epistemic Status,” Grazer Philosophische Studien (forthcoming); M. Lynch, “Trusting
Intuition,” Truth and Realism: Current Debates, eds P. Greenbough and M. Lynch (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2005, 227–38); J. Pust, Intuitions as Evidence (New York: Garland Press, 2000);
E. Sosa, “Intuitions: Their Nature and Epistemic Efficacy,” Grazer Philosophische Studien
(forthcoming).
2 E. Gettier, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” Analysis 23 (1963): 121–3. Other prominent
examples of the use of intuitions as evidence in epistemology include: BonJour’s Clairvoyance Case,
Cohen and Lehrer’s New Evil Demon Case, DeRose’s Bank Cases, Dretske’s Painted-Mule Case,
Ginet and Goldman’s Fakebarn Case, Lehrer’s Truetemp Case and Nogot/Havit Case, and Lehrer
and Paxson’s Tom Grabit Case. See, L. BonJour, The Structure of Empirical Knowledge (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1985); S. Cohen and K. Lehrer, “Justification, Truth, and
Coherence,” Synthese 55 (1983): 191 – 207; K. DeRose, “Contextualism and Knowledge
Attribution,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52 (1992): 913 –29; F. Dretske, “Epistemic
Operators,” Journal of Philosophy 67.24 (1970): 1007– 23; A. Goldman, “Discrimination and
Perceptual Knowledge,” Journal of Philosophy 73 (1976): 771–91; K. Lehrer, Theory of Knowledge
(Boulder, CO:Westview Press, 1990) and “Knowledge,Truth, and Evidence,” Analysis 25 (1965):
168 –75; K. Lehrer and T. Paxson, Jr., “Knowledge: Undefeated Justified True Belief,” Journal of
Philosophy 66.8 (1969): 225–37.
3 George Bealer is often cited as representative of the proponent of this view. See endnote 1 for
references to the relevant papers by Bealer. Michael Devitt,Terry Horgan, David Henderson, and
Antti Kauppinen have also expressed (to one degree or other) support for the appeal to philosophers’
intuitions. See, M. Devitt, “Intuitions,” (forthcoming) in a volume edited by M. Dumitru based
on the International Symposium on Current Issues in Analytical Philosophy the Philosophical
Foundations of Cognitive Science in Bucharest, May 2003; also in the Proceedings of VI International
Ontology Congress,“From the Gene to Language: the State of the Art” in San Sebastian, September
2004. See also, T. Horgan and D. Henderson, “The A Priori Isn’t All That It’s Cracked Up To
Be, But It Is Something,” Philosophical Topics 29 (2002): 219 –50; A. Kauppinen, “The Rise and
Fall of Experimental Philosophy,” unpublished manuscript;T. Williamson,“Armchair Philosophy,
Metaphysical Modality and Counterfactual Thinking,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 105
(2005): 1–23.
4 Frank Jackson is often cited as representative of the proponent of this view. See, F. Jackson, From
Metaphysics to Ethics: A Defense of Conceptual Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1998). Although Jackson is a proponent of the suggestion that when philosophers appeal to
intuitions as evidence, we should appeal to the intuitions of the folk, most experimental philosophers
would find fault with Jackson’s suggestion that, in order to determine what the intuitions of the
folk actually are, all philosophers need to do is conduct informal polls of their students. See, for
example, S. Stich and J. Weinberg, “Jackson’s Empirical Assumptions,” Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research 62.3 (2001): 637 –43. Hilary Kornblith has recently expressed similar
criticism of Jackson’s methodology. See, H. Kornblith, “Naturalism and Intuitions,” Grazer
Philosophische Studien (forthcoming).
5 This is not to say that no philosopher conceives of his or her project in this way. For example,
Hilary Kornblith has recently noted that David Lewis writes as if he conceives of himself as doing
just this when he writes that he discovered his own intuitions about counterfactuals and then
attempted to construct a theory which successfully captured those intuitions. See, Kornblith,
“Naturalism and Intuitions.” See also, D. Lewis, Counterfactuals (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1973). Alvin Goldman has also recently proposed that the proper object of
philosophical study is personal psychological concepts and the intuitions that reflect such concepts.
Most interesting for proponents of experimental philosophy is the claim Goldman goes on to
make in response to the objection that personal psychological concepts (and corresponding personal
intuitions) can’t be what philosophy is after. Goldman claims that the only thing that will allow
philosophical analysis to move beyond personal psychological concepts and personal intuitions is
experimental research into whether there is substantial agreement across individuals’ personal
psychological concepts. And this just is one of the certain objects of study conducted in experimental
philosophy! Additionally, Goldman thinks that the experimental results of Weinberg, Nichols,
and Stich (see Section 2) provide significant reason to doubt that a move from personal psychological
concepts (and intuitions) to shared psychological concepts (and intuitions) is possible. See, Goldman,
“Philosophical Intuitions.”

6 Barry Stroud takes something like this position. See B. Stroud, Understanding Human Knowledge
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). For an interesting, critical evaluation of Stroud’s position,
see A. Leite,“Epistemological Externalism and the Project of Traditional Epistemology,” Philosophy
and Phenomenological Research (forthcoming).
7 Shaun Nichols and Henry Jackman make similar points. See S. Nichols, “Folk Concepts and
Intuitions: From Philosophy to Cognitive Science,” Trends in Cognitive Science 8.11 (2004): 514–8;
H. Jackman, “Ordinary Language, Conventionalism and a priori Knowledge,” Dialectica 55.4
(2001): 315–25. Provided what has just been said, populism might seem to be open to the following
kind of objection: While populism is plausible for a concept like knowledge, isn’t plausible for a
concept like tautology. For a concept like tautology, it seems inappropriate to be concerned with
the ordinary sense of the concept. Additionally, there seem to be concepts even in epistemology
(warrant, for example) for which it would seem similarly inappropriate to be concerned with the
ordinary sense of the concept. It seems rather uncontroversial that for a concept like tautology, we
ought to defer to expert intuitions. Furthermore, that is probably just what philosophers do. That
said, it is important to keep two things in mind. First, experimental philosophers don’t take
themselves to be challenging this practice. Second, concepts like knowledge, belief, freedom, moral
responsibility, etc. are not of a piece with tautology.
8 S. Nichols, S. Stich, and J. Weinberg, “Metaskepticism: Meditations in Ethno-Epistemology,”
The Skeptics: Contemporary Essays, ed S. Luper (Burlington,VT: Ashgate Press, 2003): 227–47. In
addition to this paper, two others deserve special mention. Michael Bishop and J. D. Trout argue
that the special education and highly specialized set of skills possessed by philosophers counts
against the plausibility of taking philosophers’ intuitions to be representative of folk intuitions.
See, M. Bishop and J. Trout, Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2005). Mark Kaplan also argues against the claim that philosophers have some
special claim to expertise. Kaplan’s concern is with the use put to this claim to discredit the probity
of ordinary language as a source of evidence in epistemology. See, M. Kaplan, “To What Must
an Epistemology be True?” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 61 (2000): 279–304.
9 Timothy Williamson, for example, seems to hint towards such an argument: “It would not be
at all surprising if the reliability of a person’s application of concepts such as knowledge and
justification to particular cases can be improved by training (compare the training of lawyers in
the careful application of very general concepts to specific cases).” See,T.Williamson, “Armchair
Philosophy, Metaphysical Modality and Counterfactual Thinking,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society 105 (2005): 31.
10 It is important to note that Knobe is not, himself, a proponent of the proper foundation view
since he actually takes himself to be doing something different; namely, just studying our folk
psychology.
11 J. Knobe,“Intentional Action and Side Effects in Ordinary Language,” Analysis 63 (2003):
190–3.
12 The result is highly statistically significant. χ2(1, N = 78) = 27.2, p < 0.001.
13 E. Nahmias, S. Morris, T. Nadelhoffer, and J. Turner, “Surveying Free Will: Folk Intuitions
about Free Will and Moral Responsibility,” Philosophical Psychology 18.5 (2005): 561–84. Similar
results were obtained by Rob Woolfolk, John Doris, and John Darley. See R. Woolfolk, J. Doris,
and J. Darley, “Attribution and Alternate Possibilities: Identification and Situational Constraint as
Factors in Moral Cognition,” Cognition (forthcoming).
14 J. Weinberg, S. Nichols, and S. Stich, “Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions,” Philosophical
Topics 29 (2001): 429–60.

15 The results were highly statistically significant. In the case where Westerners were compared
with East Asians, p = 0.006414; in the case where Westerners were compared with Indians, p = 0.002.
16 See endnote 8 for reference.
17 E. Machery, R. Mallon, S. Nichols, and S. Stich, “Semantics, Cross-Cultural Style,” Cognition
92.3 (2004): B1–B12.

18 See S. Kripke, Naming and Necessity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980).
19 The result is highly statistically significant, p < 0.05.
20 S. Swain, J. Alexander, and J. Weinberg, “The Instability of Philosophical Intuitions: Running
Hot and Cold on Truetemp,” The 32nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Philosophy and
Psychology,Washington University, St. Louis, June 2006.
21 The result is highly statistically significant, p = 0.048.

22 See S. Nichols and J. Knobe, “Moral Responsibility and Determinism: The Cognitive Science
of Folk Intuitions,” Nous (forthcoming).
23 It might be objected that the Nichols and Knobe results don’t neatly fit this picture. According
to this objection, affective content is a relevant factor in making judgments about moral responsibility
and the ability to pick-up on affective content is part of an agent’s competency in making such
judgments. However, even if affect-based variation is not automatically pernicious to standard
philosophical practice, the fact that this affect-based variation comes as a surprise to practitioners
of standard philosophical practice does point to a significant flaw in the practice. To put it mildly,
that a practice is not good at identifying where and how variations arise surely tells against the
practice.
24 E. Sosa,“A Defense of the Use of Intuitions in Philosophy,” Stich and His Critics, eds. M. Bishop
and D. Murphy (forthcoming).

25 This line of criticism has been suggested by Alvin Goldman, Frank Jackson, Antti Kauppinen,
and Ernest Sosa. See, A. Goldman, “Replies to the Contributors,” Philosophical Topics 29 (2001):
461–511; F. Jackson, “Responses,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 62.3 (2001): 653 –64;
Kauppinen,“Rise and Fall of Experimental Philosophy”; and, E. Sosa,“Experimental Philosophy
and Philosophical Intuition,” Philosophical Studies (forthcoming).
26 Of course, philosophers do have competencies and expertise not shared by non-philosophers
– e.g., whose judgments are you going to trust on what is or is not a transcendental argument, or
an instance of Humean skepticism? See, for example, endnote 7 above.
27 This point has been argued for by Ernest Sosa and George Bealer. See, E. Sosa, “Minimal
Intuition,” Rethinking Intuition, eds. M. DePaul and W. Ramsey (Lantham, MD: Rowman and
Littlefield Publishing, 1998): 257–70; and, E. Sosa, “Experimental Philosophy and Philosophical
Intuition,” Philosophical Studies (forthcoming). See also endnote 1 for reference to the relevant
papers by Bealer.
28 This point has been argued for by Laurence BonJour and Michael Lynch. See, L. BonJour, In
Defense of Pure Reason (Cambridge University Press, 1998). See also endnote 1 for reference to the
relevant paper by Lynch.
29 Brian Weatherson, “What Good Are Counterexamples?” Philosophical Studies 115.1 (2003):
1–31. Other proponents of the constitutivity approach include Alvin Goldman (see endnote 1 for
reference) and Henry Jackman. See, H. Jackman,“Intuitions and Semantic Theory,” Metaphilosophy
(forthcoming).
30 This point is argued by Terry Horgan and David Henderson. See endnote 3 for relevant
reference.
31 Michael Devitt argues for this point. See endnote 3 for relevant reference.
32 See, for example, Robert Cummins,“Reflection on Reflective Equilibrium,” Rethinking Intuition,
eds. M. DePaul and W. Ramsey (Lantham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishing, 1998).
Something like this position can also be found in the paper by Jonathan Weinberg, Shaun Nichols,
and Stephen Stich, we must admit.
33 We can thus see what is insufficient about Sosa’s argument when he contends, against the results
reported by Swain, Alexander and Weinberg, that “[t]he upshot is that we have to be careful in
how we use intuition, not that intuition is useless.” With perception, we have a rich set of folk
practices, shaped further by psychological scientific discoveries, that enable us to be careful. But
with intuition, beyond a few nearly worthless bromides like “think hard about the case” or “don’t
intuit when you’re three sheets to the wind”, we don’t know (yet) what it would take to be
careful. But one possible positive application of experimental philosophy for the practicing analytic
philosopher may be to help learn just what types of measures are called for, in practicing safe
intuition. See, E. Sosa,“Experimental Philosophy and Philosophical Intuitions”, op. cit.
34 T. Williamson, “Philosophical ‘Intuitions’ and Scepticism about Judgment,” Dialectica 58.1
(2004): 109–55.
35 And, where appropriate, other specialists operating with the same technical concept, such as
mathematicians.
36 See endnote 8 for reference to the relevant work by Bishop and Trout.
37 See, H. Kornblith, Knowledge and It’s Place in Nature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002);
Kornblith, “Appeals to Intuition and the Ambitions of Epistemology,” Epistemology Futures, ed.
S. Hetherington (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 10–25. And work cited above in
endnote 5.
38 E. Craig, Knowledge and the State of Nature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
39 R. Neta, “Epistemology Factualized: New Contractarian Foundations for Epistemology,”
Synthese (forthcoming).
40 J. Weinberg, “What’s Epistemology for? The Case for Neopragmatism in Normative
Metaepistemology,” Epistemology Futures, ed. S. Hetherington (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2006): 26–47.
41 J. L. Austin, Philosophical Papers, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979); Austin, Sense and
Sensibilia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962). We thank our colleagues Mark Kaplan and
Adam Leite for pointing out this potential use of ordinary language philosophy.
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Philosophy Compass 2/1 (2007): 56–80, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2006.00048.

Analytic Epistemology and Experimental

1. Standard Philosophical Practice

in case that person’s true belief is justified.2 Gettier’s thought-experiments

one’ interlocutors, or from one’s having some recognizable privileged

certain thought-experiments systematically vary depending on how many

epistemic success remains an open question. Additionally, there is reason to

experimental philosophy and the future of standard philosophical practice.

supporting the use of intuitions as evidence, challenges the suitability of

socioeconomic, and educational background. Swain, Alexander, and

admit that intuitions that demonstrate the kinds of variability demonstrated

3. Epistemological Responses to Experimental Philosophy

philosophy that is both Pyrrhic and Pyrrhonian. Second, and consequently,

privilege philosophers’ intuitions. The response basically discounts the

studied in experimental philosophy reflect different concepts than do those

Importantly, the restrictionists’ experiments do not merely suggest that

4.The Future of Experimental Philosophy

should be concerned with promoting the efficient allocation of cognitive

old. Our growing sense is that a sea-change in philosophical practice is

Metaphysics to Ethics: A Defense of Conceptual Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

© Blackwell Publishing 2006 Philosophy Compass 2/1 (2007): 56–80, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2006.00048.x

Topics 29 (2001): 429–60.

92.3 (2004): B1–B12.

© Blackwell Publishing 2006 Philosophy Compass 2/1 (2007): 56–80, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2006.00048.x

and D. Murphy (forthcoming).

Metaepistemology,” Epistemology Futures, ed. S. Hetherington (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

© Blackwell Publishing 2006 Philosophy Compass 2/1 (2007): 56–80, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2006.00048.x

Kornblith, H. “Appeals to Intuition and the Ambitions of Epistemology.” Epistemology Futures.

© Blackwell Publishing 2006 Philosophy Compass 2/1 (2007): 56–80, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2006.00048.x

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