Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Does the Method of Cases Rest on a Mistake?

  • Published:
Review of Philosophy and Psychology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that the method of cases (namely, the method of using intuitive judgments elicited by intuition pumps as evidence for and/or against philosophical theories) is not a reliable method of generating evidence for and/or against philosophical theories. In other words, the method of cases is unlikely to generate accurate judgments more often than not. This is so because, if perception and intuition are analogous in epistemically relevant respects, then using intuition pumps to elicit intuitive judgments is like using illusions to elicit perceptual judgments. In both cases, judgments are made under bad epistemic circumstances.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. By “intuition” I mean “intellectual seeming.” According to Brogaard (forthcoming), intellectual seemings (‘it intellectually seems that p’) are “seemings that result from implicit or explicit armchair reasoning, where armchair reasoning is reasoning that involves both a priori principles and past experience.” Chudnoff (2011b, p. 626) divides views on the nature of intuitions into two broad categories. According to doxastic views, intuitions are doxastic attitudes or dispositions. See, e.g., Williamson (2004), Williamson (2007), and Sosa (2009). According to perceptualist views, intuitions are “pre-doxastic experiences that […] represent abstract matters as being a certain way” (Chudnoff 2011b, p. 626). See, e.g., Huemer (2007) and Pryor (2005). According to Chudnoff (2011b, p. 626), “Perceptualist views differ from doxastic views in that according to them intuitions are not identical to doxastic attitudes or doxastic dispositions, but lead to doxastic attitudes and doxastic dispositions when taken at face value” (emphasis added). In other words, on perceptualist views, intuitions are prima facie evidence for beliefs (see Chudnoff 2011a and Huemer 2007). In this paper, I am concerned with the epistemology—not the nature—of intuitions. In particular, I am concerned with the method of cases as a way of generating evidence for and/or against philosophical theories.

  2. It should be noted that, contrary to the philosophers quoted here, Cappelen (2012) argues that intuitions do not play an evidential role in philosophical arguments.

  3. On why appeals to intuition are weak arguments, see Mizrahi (2012) and Mizrahi (2013).

  4. In this paper, I am not concerned with the experimentalist challenge to the method of cases. See, e.g., Swain et al (2008), Ludwig (2010), Nagel (2012), and Stich (2012). See also Kuntz and Kuntz (2011). Cf. Buckwalter (2012). Although the experimentalist critique of the use of intuitions as evidence is clearly within the scope of issues concerning the epistemology of intuition, I would like to take a different approach in this paper. The approach is to take the perception-intuition analogy seriously, as those who defend the use of intuitions as evidence do, and then see what follows from that.

  5. According to Brogaard (forthcoming), intellectual seemings (‘it intellectually seems that p’) are “seemings that result from implicit or explicit armchair reasoning, where armchair reasoning is reasoning that involves both a priori principles and past experience” (emphasis added).

  6. See also Coren and Girgus (1978).

  7. In that respect, perceptions probably vary across cultures in much the same way that intuitions do. On the cultural variation of intuitions, see Machery et al 2012.

  8. Recall that both perceptions and intuitions probably vary across cultures. See footnotes 6 and 7 above.

References

  • Bach, K. 1984. Default reasoning: jumping to conclusions and knowing when to think twice. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 65: 37–58.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bealer, G. 1998. Intuition and the autonomy of philosophy. In Rethinking intuition: The psychology of intuition and its role in philosophical inquiry, ed. M. DePaul and W. Ramsey. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bealer, G. 2000. A theory of the a priori. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 81: 1–30.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bonjour, L. 1998. In defense of pure reason: A rationalist account of a priori justification. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Botvinick, M., and J. Cohen. 1998. Rubber hands ‘feel’ touch that eyes see. Nature 391: 756.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brendel, E. 2004. Intuition pumps and the proper use of thought experiments. Dialectica 58: 88–108.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brogaard, B. (forthcoming). Intuitions as intellectual seemings. In D. Sosa (Ed.), Symposium on Herman Cappelen’s Philosophy without Intuitions. Analytic Philosophy.

  • Buckwalter, W. 2012. Surveying philosophers: A reply to kuntz and kuntz. Review of Philosophy and Psychology 3: 515–524.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cappelen, H. 2012. Philosophy without intuitions. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Chudnoff, E. 2011a. The nature of intuitive justification. Philosophical Studies 153: 313–333.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chudnoff, E. 2011b. What intuitions are like? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 82: 625–654.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chudnoff, E. 2013. Intuitive knowledge. Philosophical Studies 162: 359–378.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coren, S., and J.A. Girgus. 1978. Seeing is deceiving: The psychology of visual illusions. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deliza, R., J.H. MacFie, and D. Hedderley. 2003. Use of computer-generated images and conjoint analysis to investigate sensory expectations. Journal of Sensory Studies 18: 465–486.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dennett, D.C. 1984. Elbow room: The varieties of free will worth wanting. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dennett, D.C. 1991. Consciousness explained. Boston: Little Brown.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dennett, D.C. 1995. Intuition pumps. In The third culture: Beyond the scientific revolution, ed. J. Brockman, 180–197. New York: Simon & Schuster.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dorbolo, J. 2006. Intuition pumps. Minds and Machines 16: 81–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ehrsson, H.H., N.P. Holmes, and R.E. Passingham. 2005. Touching a rubber hand: Feeling of body ownership is associated with activity in multisensory brain areas. Journal of Neuroscience 25: 10564–10573.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goldman, A.I. 2007. Philosophical intuitions: Their target, their source, and their epistemic status. Grazer Philosophische Studien 74: 1–26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hales, S.D. 2012. The faculty of intuition. Analytic Philosophy 53: 180–207.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huemer, M. 2007. Compassionate phenomenal conservatism. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 74: 30–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jackson, F. 1982. Epiphenomenal qualia. Philosophical Quarterly 32: 127–136.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kornblith, H. 2007. Naturalism and intuitions. Grazer Philosophische Studien 74: 27–49.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuntz, J.R., and J.R.C. Kuntz. 2011. Surveying philosophers about philosophical intuition. Review of Philosophy and Psychology 4: 643–665.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewkowicz, D.J., and A. Ghazanfar. 2009. The emergence of multisensory systems through perceptual narrowing. Trends in Cognitive Science 13: 470–478.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ludwig, K. 2010. Intuitions and relativity. Philosophical Psychology 23: 427–445.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Machery, E., R. Mallon, S. Nichols, and S. Stich. 2012. If folk intuitions vary, then what? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2011.00555.x.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maudlin, T. 2007. The metaphysics within physics. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • McGurk, H., and J. MacDonald. 1976. Hearing lips and seeing voices. Nature 264: 746–748.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mizrahi, M. 2012. Intuition mongering. The Reasoner 6: 169–170.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mizrahi, M. 2013. More intuition mongering. The Reasoner 7: 5–6.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nagel, J. 2012. Intuitions and experiments: A defense of the case method in epistemology. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 85: 495–527.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pryor, J. 2005. There is immediate justification. In Contemporary debates in epistemology, ed. M. Steup and E. Sosa. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pust, J. 2001. Against explanationist skepticism regarding philosophical intuitions. Philosophical Studies 106: 227–258.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rescher, N. 2005. What if? Thought experimentation in philosophy. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rookes, P., and J. Willson. 2000. Perception: Theory, development and organisation. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schett, A. 1999. The discovery of the ophthalmoscope by Hermann von Helmholtz. Strabismus 7: 241–144.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Segall, M.H., D.T. Campbell, and M.J. Herskovits. 1963. Cultural differences in the perception of geometric illusions. Science 139: 796–771.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Slater, M., B. Spanlang, M.V. Sanchez-Vives, and O. Blanke. 2010. First person experience of body transfer in virtual reality. PLoS ONE 5(5): e10564. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0010564.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sosa, E. 1996. Rational intuition: Bealer on its nature and epistemic status. Philosophical Studies 81: 151–162.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sosa, E. 2009. Replies to commentators on a virtue epistemology (Oxford University Press, 2007). Philosophical Studies 144: 137–147.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stein, B.E., and M.A. Meredith. 1993. The merging of the senses. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stich, S. 1988. Reflective equilibrium, analytic epistemology and the problem of cognitive diversity. Synthese 74: 391–413.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stich, S. 2012. Do different groups have different epistemic intuitions? A reply to Jennifer Nagel. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2012.00590.x.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swain, S., J. Alexander, and J.M. Weinberg. 2008. The instability of philosophical intuitions: Running hot and cold on Truetemp. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 76: 138–155.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thomson, J.J. 1971. A defense of abortion. Philosophy and Public Affairs 1: 47–66.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williamson, T. 2004. Philosophical ‘intuitions’ and skepticism about judgment. Dialectica 58: 109–153.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Williamson, T. 2007. The philosophy of philosophy. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer of The Review of Philosophy and Psychology for helpful comments on an earlier draft.

A version of this paper was presented at the New Jersey Regional Philosophical Association conference in Bergen Community College (November 2012). I would like to thank the audience, especially Joshua Knobe, for their useful feedback. I am also grateful to David Morrow and an anonymous reviewer of Review of Philosophy and Psychology for helpful comments on earlier drafts.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Philosophy Department, St. John’s University, 8000 Utopia Parkway, Queens, NY, 11439, USA

    Moti Mizrahi

Authors
  1. Moti Mizrahi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Moti Mizrahi.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Mizrahi, M. Does the Method of Cases Rest on a Mistake?. Rev.Phil.Psych. 5, 183–197 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-013-0164-1

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-013-0164-1

Keywords

Search

Navigation