[lit-ideas] Incorregible Intuitions -- and Gettier

  • From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2009 07:57:38 EDT

I agree with R. Paul that 'intuit' is a trick of  a verb.

I for one don't use it, unless applied to my  mother:

--- "My mother intuits he is a  criminal"

---- But then I use 'subscript':

-- My  mother intuit-amgs he is a criminal"

This allows me to add, "But as often  she is wrong".

With Gettier we could claim, against Chisholm, that  'intuit' is like 
'know' only different.

Let us take the fictional  example:

Mr. Geach intuits that boiling one baby is 'better' than boiling  two 
babies.

Miss Anscombe disagrees: she intuits that boiling one baby  cannot be 
'better' _regardless_.

"The problem," Anscombe would say, 'is  with 'better'. This is a 'royalist' 
verb, I call them".

She would stick,  alla R. Paul, with 'right' and wrong' (It is important to 
introduce 'wrong'  because 'not right' is never so strong).

"I intuit that boiling one baby  is wrong"

With "I intuit" as parenthetical -- see Urmson's book,  "Intuitionism" and 
"Parentheticals" essay.

Urmson would say the claim, "I  intuit that boiling one baby is wrong" is 
_softer_ than

"Boiling one baby  is wrong"

-- ('methinks the lady doth protest too much').

The good  thing about 'Boiling one baby is wrong' is that it eliminates the 
source of the  claim to 'know' or 'intuit'.

"Most of my mother's intuitions, as they  turned out to be, were false" -- 
Geary, "Mother Who Bored  Me".

Cheers,

JLS  

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