George Bealer’s (e.g., [6], [7]) and Ernest Sosa’s (e.g., [115]) inflationist accounts of intuitions tie in with the rationalist tradition after Descartes according to which intuition is understood as a source of a priori knowledge.22 Whereas traditional rationalism understands this source as infallible, contemporary ra- tionalists like Bealer and Sosa think that our intuitions sometimes lead us awry. They can thus account for the fact that we have an intuition towards each of the propositions that form a paradox, but at least one intuition is misguided.
According to Bealer, intuitions constitute a ‘sui generis, irreducible, natural [. . . ] propositional attitude that occurs episodically’.23 When we have an
intuition thatP, itintellectually seemsto us that it must be thatP and could not be otherwise. This phenomenology cannot be analyzed further, which Alvin Plantinga expresses as follows:
[Intuitions come with] that peculiar form of phenomenology with which we are all well acquainted, but which I can’t describe in any way other than as the phenomenology that goes with seeing that such a proposition is true. [92, pp. 105-106]
At first sight, Bealer’s rationalist inflationist account meets desiderata D1 to D3. In fact, the phenomena behind D1, D2, and D3 have motivated rationalist
22See also Plantinga [92]. 23Bealer [7, p. 207].
inflationist views that intuitions are an extra kind of propositional attitude.24
If intuitions are a sui generis propositional attitude, this explains that there are cases in which we have an intuition that P but no belief that P (D1), that we are not irrational in the case of a set of inconsistent intuitions or an intuition that P and a belief that not-P (D2), and that intuitions are more persistent than beliefs (D3). Bealer points to the fact that similar phenomena can be observed with respect to sensory seemings in optical illusions such as the M¨uller-Lyer illusion. In the M¨uller-Lyer illusion, it seems to us that one line is longer, but we do not believe it. We are not irrational when it seems to us that one line is longer, and the illusion is persistent.25
However, looking at our cases, it seems that in philosophy, we are not only concerned with what would qualify as an intellectual seeming. Compare Cases 5 and 6, the Paradox of the Heap and the Paradox of Emotional Response to Fiction. Whereas the rationalist inflationist would take it that the intuitions in Case 5 are a source ofa priori knowledge, she would certainly agree that the propositions in Case 6 are contingent and that they cannot be knowna priori, and hence that we cannot have rational intuitions towards them.
Bealer, however, distinguishes two kinds of intuitions, intellectual or ratio- nal a priori seemings and non-rational a posteriori seemings. He calls non- rational seemings ‘physical’ because they stem from the experience we have of the contingent physical world. Their content is not presented as necessary, and in philosophy, we are not concerned with them:
When we speak here of intuition, we mean “rational intuition.” This is distinguished from what physicists call “physical intuition.” We have a physical intuition that, when a house is undermined, it will fall. This does not count as a rational intuition, for it does not present itself as necessary: it does not seem that a house un- derminedmust fall; plainly it ispossible for a house undermined to
24Bealer [7, p. 208], [6, p. 6], Sosa [112, p. 258f], Pust [96, p. 32f]. 25See, e.g., Bealer [7, pp. 207-214].
remain in its original position or, indeed, to rise up.’ [7, p. 207]
Other cases where we have non-rational intuitions are scientific thought experiments. Bealer mentions the following case:
A classic example is Newton’s thought experiment about a rotat- ing bucket in an otherwise empty space. Would water creep up the side of the bucket (assuming that the physical laws remained unchanged)? Rational intuition is silent about this sort of ques- tion. Rational intuitions concern such matters as whether a case is possible (logically or metaphysically), and about whether a concept applies to such cases. [7, p. 207]
Another example is Schroedinger’s case of the cat which is directed against the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Schroedinger asks us to imagine a cat, placed in a sealed box together with some poison, a radioactive source and a Geiger counter. If the Geiger counter detects radiation, the poison gets released. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously dead and alive. However, we have the intuition that when we look into the box, the cat is either dead or alive, but it cannot be both. Our intuition in this case has contingent content we get to knowa posteriori.26
Bealer thinks that intuitions we are dealing with in philosophy are different from intuitions in the sciences: they are rational seemings.27 However, while
our intuitions in the Paradox of Emotional Response to Fiction would not be considered rational seemings, this case is certainly relevant to philosophy. Since its introduction by Colin Radford [97], it has played a central role in the philosophy of fiction and the philosophy of emotions. Some philosophers argue thatq, the claim that we cannot feel pity for someone we do not believe exists, is false (e.g., Carroll [13], Feagin [34]). Other philosophers denyp, the claim that we can feel pity for Anna Karenina. Some of them think that we cannot have
26See Sorensen [110] for more thought experiments in the sciences. 27Bealer [7, p. 207].
agenuineemotional response to fictional situations or fictional characters, and that what we experience is a quasi-emotion (e.g., Walton [130]). Others think that the emotions we experience when we engage with fiction are really directed towards relevantly similar actual characters and situations (e.g., Charlton [14]). Obviously, the Paradox of Emotional Response to Fiction poses a problem we are discussing in philosophy.28 It seems that non-rational intuitions not only play a role in scientific thought experiments, they also play a role in philosophy. In order to justify an ontological difference between our intuitions in Case 5 and our intuitions in Case 6, Bealer could argue that the phenomenology of our intuitions in Case 5 is different from the phenomenology of our intuitions in Case 6. On introspection, I cannot find any difference between my intuition that a single grain cannot make a difference to whether something is a heap or not on the one hand and my intuition that we can feel genuine pity for Anna Karenina on the other hand. Even philosophers who share Bealer’s epistemic view disagree about the supposed phenomenological aspect of rational intu- itions. Joel Pust [96], who endorses a rationalist inflationist view very similar to Bealer’s, thinks that the content of a rational intuition only seems necessary to us on reflection.29 However, even on reflection, I do not experience such a
difference.
Sosa’s [115] account of rational intuitions does not presuppose a particular phenomenology. Sosa is mainly interested in the question of how our intuitions in paradigm cases ofa priori knowledge—such as in arithmetic, geometry, or in philosophical thought experiments and paradoxes—justify our beliefs, and how we can best account for these intuitions. According to Sosa, intuitions are intellectual seemings that, unlike perceptual seemings, are not passively received and hence are epistemically evaluable.30 A visual experience as if 28A similar case where we have intuitions with contingent, a posteriori content is the
Paradox of Painful Art which consists of the following three propositions: 1. People do not seek out situations that arouse painful emotions. 2. People have painful emotions in response to some art. 3. People seek out art that they know will arouse painful emotions. See Smuts [108, p. 60].
29Pust [96, pp. 31-39]. 30Sosa [115, pp. 46, 49].
there is a fire, for instance,
[. . . ] is thought to yield foundational justification, being itself be- yond relevant evaluation, beyond justification and unjustification. The intellectual seeming, by contrast is thus evaluable. A reason can be assigned the wrong weight, as it attracts one’s assent too much, or too little. [115, p. 49]
Sosa specifies conditions under which an intellectual seeming is intuitive
and rational.31 These conditions have to be understood in the context of his
broader epistemic view, i.e., his virtue epistemology:
[. . . ] the proposed account [of intuitions] has two parts: first, an understanding of intuitions as a special sort of intellectual seemings,
intuitiveseemings; second, a definition of the sort of intuition that is distinctively “rational.”
1. An intellectual seeming is intuitive when it is an attraction to assent triggered simply by considering a proposition con- sciously with understanding. (Of course, one may so much as understand the proposition only through a complex and pro- longed process that includes perception, memory, testimony, or inference.)
2. S rationally intuits that p if and only if S’s intuitive attraction to assent to<p>is explained by a competence (an epistemic ability or virtue) on the part of S to discriminate, among con- tents that he understands well enough, the true from the false, in some subfield of the modally strong (the necessarily true or necessarily false), with no reliance on introspection, percep- tion, memory, testimony, or inference (nor further reliance,
31Note that I am concerned with Sosa’s characterization of intuitions in his 2007 bookA
anyhow, than any required for so much as understanding the given proposition). [115, pp. 60-61]
One might think that since Sosa characterizes intuitions as attractions to assent that are epistemically evaluable, his view is similar to an elaborate defla- tionist account according to which intuitions are beliefs or doxastic inclinations to believe. In this case, it would not meet D2 and D3 for the reasons given in section 2.4. If intuitions are epistemically evaluable, it seems that we cannot explain why someone with a firm belief that not-P and an intuition that P
is rational (D2) and why intuitions are more resistant to contradictory beliefs than other beliefs (D3). However, it seems that Sosa rather characterizes in- tuitions primarily as intellectual seemings, and then specifies them asintuitive
seemings that are a certain kind of attraction and that share with beliefs the property of being rationally evaluable.
Just like Bealer, Sosa is only interested in rationala priori intuitions and how they justify our beliefs. My question, however, is what could explain the phenomena behind D1 to D3 best. Assuming that rational intuitions do not or at least do not necessarily come with a particular phenomenology, we can say the following. The intuitions we have towards the propositions in Case 6 do not seem different from the intuitions we have in Case 5 with respect to D1 to D3. Independent of whether intuitions provide a source of a priori
or of a posteriori knowledge, whether their content is modally strong or not, or whether they ought to be explained by a certain competence, the following holds. First, intuitions do not necessarily involve a belief with the same content (D1). Second, we are not irrational when we have an intuition that P and a belief thatnot-P (D2). Third, intuitions are more persistent than beliefs (D3). It seems that the ontology of our intuitions in Case 5 should be the same as the ontology of our intuitions in Case 6. I will now show how an account of intuitions as appearances can meet D1 to D3 best, because it covers all our cases. The advantage of this non-rationalist inflationist account is that it does not commit us to any particular epistemic view.