Subject: Re: More on intuition

From: lissa <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 Apr 1994 19:41:29 PST8PDT

Try just 

ssp<[email-masked]>

or your editor might want you to write

In%"ssp<[email-masked]>"

One of the above really should work, because you can reply
to a letter that has Joe Bloe<[email-masked]>...So 
you must be able to send a message with the same syntax..
make sense?

--Melissa
I've been arguing with Mike Huemer about epistemology for quite some
time
now, so I hope I won't be mis-interpreted as an instant and uncritical
convert.  Philip Dodds' objections are common ones, and I don't think
that
they are too difficult to answer.  (Moreover, Mike has a paper,
presumably
available by e-mail, which answers all of the common objections.  I
suspect
he would be delighted to send it...)
1. At the outset, I would note that you appear to be making _knowledge
claims_ about problems with intuitionism, but then seem to land yourself
in a fairly incoherent skepticism.  I could understand if someone with
a _different_ foundation claimed to know a refutation, but I can't
understand a proposed refutation that seriously doubts the possibility
of
foundations.
2.  Now to begin the substantive critique.  Intuition is no more
arbitrary
than any other sort of knowledge.  Granted, that someone could _say_
that
any belief at all that they possess is intuitive.  But then again,
someone
could also _say_ that they have accurately deduced their views from
clear
and distinct axioms, or they could _say_ that they have seen it with
their
own eyes, and so on.  Is the fact that intellectually dishonest people
could
abuse a form of legitimate knowledge any reason to doubt the means of
knowledge itself?  The whole idea that Mike is proposing is that
intellectually
honest people subject their intuitions to the same critical, cautious
scrutiny to which they subject their deductions, their perceptions, and
so
on; and that if they do so, then intuition (or direct reason, as I
prefer
to term it) is just as valid as any other form of knowledge.
Indeed, I would argue that if you admit the validity of deduction, you
will
be inevitably drawn to admit the validity of intuition/direct reason.
Why?
Well, introspect at how you perform a mathematical proof.  You will
notice
that at some point, you do not produce a proof of a step, but simply see
that
the step is valid and make it.  A frequent concomitant is a kind of
mental
"click," when the validity of the step becomes evident to you.  Thus, if
2a=b, and a=6, you can deduce that b=12.  Now suppose that a deduction
skeptic
came along and demanded a proof of that last step.  If he didn't see it,
you
would find it very difficult to give it to him; and even if you could
prove
that step, suppose he endlessly demanded a proof of each successive
proof.
I think that the only coherent solution is that sometimes you simply
make
a perfectly valid step from one proposition to the other without proof;
and
so much the worse for the other person who doesn't get it.  (Although
fortunately most math students eventually do "get it.")
2. Why is intuitionism supposed to rest on a re-definition of knowledge
that
makes everything we want to believe true?  I don't see any re-definition
of knowledge at all, but rather a synthetic claim about our means of
acquiring
knowledge.  And what evidence is there for Mike's alleged desperation?
He
seemed perfectly sober to me.
3. Here was one of the most interesting lines: "We should not start with
conclusions and work backwards."  Frankly, why not?  It frequently
happens
that we know the conclusions with certainty, but lack and explanation.
For example, most scientific hypotheses begin with _very_ well
documented
facts; and the theory must explain them by implying them (among other
things).
Similarly, a highly useful form of argument known as the reductio ad
absurdum
in effect starts with a conclusion and works backwards.  Not exactly, of
course.  But it disproves a premise by showing that it implies something
we
know to be false with greater certainty than we know the premise to be
true; hence, we rationally reject the premise because it contracts our
better-known conclusion.
I submit that the incoherency and indeed self-contradiction implied in
skepticism gives us an enormously strong reason to believe that we
possess
knowledge, and that therefore good epistemological theories will not
tell
us _whether_ we have knowledge, but _how_.
              --Bryan