Concept Revision, Concept Application and the Role of Intuitions in Gettier Cases

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to determine the role of intuitions in Gettier cases. Critics of the Method of Cases argue that arguments developed within this method contain a premise that is justified by its intuitiveness; they also argue that intuitions are unreliable sources of evidence. By contrast, Max Deutsch argues that this critique is unsound since intuitions do not serve as evidence for premises. In Gettier cases, an intuitive premise is justified by other arguments called G-Grounds. I propose a different view on the role of intuition in Gettier cases. I introduce a distinction between concept-revision arguments and concept-application arguments. On the basis of this distinction and Craig's and Spicer's distinction between intuitions of intension and intuitions of extension, I show that (1) intuitions of extension do not serve as evidence for any G-Grounds; (2) intuitions of intension do play an evidential role for all G-Grounds, but (3) in the case of G-Grounds which are used as concept-application arguments, they are a poor source of evidence, while (4) in the case of G-Grounds used as concept-revision arguments, they could be a reliable source of evidence if they are intuitions of intension of a speaker immersed in philosophical discourse.

Empirical evidence in conceptual engineering, or the defense of 'predictive understanding'

“…Identifying deficiencies in concepts can be approached from various angles, and one significant tradition in philosophy involves employing thought experiments for this purpose. Consider, for instance, the role of Gettier cases in reevaluating the concept of "knowledge" (Gettier, 1963;Sękowski, 2022), or the examples of cognitive extension presented by Clark and Chalmers to challenge the adequacy of the concept of "belief" (Clark & Chalmers, 1998). Nevertheless, the escalating skepticism surrounding philosophers' intuitions (an early critique of this aspect is found in Machery, 2004) and "armchair" methodologies has prompted a shift towards incorporating empirical evidence.…”