Questions for the Final

Philosophy 427: Intuitions and Philosophy

Hamilton College, Fall 2009

Questions to Prepare for the Final Exam

A subset of the following questions will appear on the final exam. A good exam will contain elements of critical work, as well as exegesis. For example, if a question asks how p demonstrates q, a perfectly respectable answer might claim that p does not demonstrate q at all. In any case, reasons (arguments) should be provided.

Foundationalism

1. What is a foundationalist epistemology? How does Descartes’s foundationalism resemble Euclid’s Elements?
2. What problems arise for Descartes’s foundational project, as seen in the Second Replies? Do these problems apply to all similar projects, or are they limited to Descartes’s work?
3. How does the foundationalism of the Locke and Hume differ from Descartes’s project? In what ways is it more plausible? In what ways is it less plausible?

Positivism

1. How is the positivist’s project British empiricism plus logic?
2. How is Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus an atomist project? How is it an analytical project?
3. How does Wittgenstein’s claim that tautologies are nonsense serve his project in the Tractatus?
4. How did Ayer argue that sense experience is secure, free from the possibility of error?
5. How does color incompatibility show a defect in Wittgenstein’s atomism? Does it undermine the positivist’s foundationalism?

Sellars and the Myth of the Given

1. What is the myth of the given? How does that so-called myth play a role in the work of both Descartes and Wittgenstein?
2. What is holism? How is it opposed to atomism?
3. How does Sellars argue that the myth of the given is really a myth?

Goodman and Reflective Equilibrium

1. According to Goodman, how are inductive and deductive practices similar? How is this claim different from a standard conception?
2. How do Hume and Goodman dissolve, rather than solve, the problem of induction?
3. What is the difference between a vicious circle and a virtuous circle? How does Goodman defend his virtuous circle?
4. How do Goodman’s claims about the nature of induction lead to questions about the how theories are confirmed by evidence? Why don’t these questions arise about deduction?

Quine, from The Web of Belief

1. How do we proceed when new evidence conflicts with an entailment of a theory we believe?
2. What is the under-determination of a theory by evidence? What problem does it create?
3. Describe Quine’s five virtues of scientific theories. Provide examples.
4. What is the importance of Quine’s virtues?

Rawls, Reflective Equilibrium in Ethics

1. What would a foundationalist ethical theory look like? Is such an account of a theory of justice plausible?
2. What is Rawls’s goal in A Theory of Justice? What is his method?
3. What is reflective equilibrium? Describe the process of achieving reflective equilibrium.
4. How does the method of reflective equilibrium differ from foundationalist approaches in ethics?
5. What is the role of rationality in Rawls’s procedure?

Chomsky, Reflective Equilibrium in Linguistics

1. What is nativism in linguistics? How does Chomsky argue for nativism?
2. Describe the competence/performance distinction. How does Chomsky argue that language should be the study of competence, rather than performance?
3. What is UG? How is UG involved in the two central tasks facing linguists?
4. What is the role of reflective equilibrium in linguistic theory? Describe both the intuitions and the goals of the linguistic theorist.

Stich and Nisbett

1. What is the gambler’s fallacy? How does it factor into Stich and Nisbett’s argument that being in reflective equilibrium is not a sufficient condition for an inductive rule to be justified?
2. What is the distinction between stable and unstable reflective equilibrium? How might the distinction help the defender of reflective equilibrium (as a method of justification)? Why doesn’t it really help?
3. What is expert reflective equilibrium? How does the method which relies on the intuitions of experts actually reflect our inductive practices? Why does it not suffice for justification?

Shafir

1. What is preference reversal? Provide an example. How does it violate procedure invariance?
2. Describe the disjunction effect. How does it violate the sure-thing principle?
3. What lesson for philosophers does Shafir draw from violations of procedure invariance and the sure-thing principle?

Weinberg, Nichols, and Stich

1. Distinguish epistemic internalism from epistemic externalism. How does the truetemp experiment demonstrate that East Asians are more likely to be internalists?
2. What is intuition-driven romanticism (the three clauses)? How is the strategy of seeking reflective equilibrium an instance of intuition-driven romanticism?
3. How do epistemic intuitions about Gettier cases differ among Westerners, East Asians, and people from the Indian subcontinent?
4. Does philosophical training refine or corrupt one’s intuitions? Explain arguments for each answer.

Machery, Mallon, Nichols, and Stich

1. Distinguish descriptivism about names (the Frege/Searle view) from direct reference (the Mill/Kripke view).
2. How do Kripke’s arguments for direct reference rely on our intuitions about reference? Be specific.
3. How do the intuitions of East Asians differ from those of Westerners regarding the Gödel and Jonah cases?
4. What conclusions for philosophical methodology do Machery et al. draw from their data?

Frankfurt

1. What is Laplacian determinism? How does it seem to negate the possibility of moral responsiblity? How does Humean compatibilism rehabilitate the notion of free will?
2. What is the principle of alternate possibilities? How does it appear to conflict with our intuitions about moral responsibility?
3. How does the principle of alternate possibilities differ from the principle that coercion excuses? How does the case of Jones4 help distinguish the two principles?
4. Is Frankfurt’s compatibilism any improvement on Hume’s version?

Woolfolk, Doris, and Darley

1. Distinguish hard determinism, libertarianism, and compatibilism.
2. When are we said to identify with a behavior? How might compatibilism based on identification yield the principle that coerciom excuses?
3. What is the causal discounting principle? What evidence against this principle do Woolfolk et al. find?
4. Are the folk naturally incompatibilists? Explain.

Nahmias, Morris, Nadelhoffer, and Turner

1. How do Nahmias, et al. conclude that compatibilism is the default intuition of the folk?
2. Do the Nahmias data refute incomatibilism? Explain.

Nichols and Knobe

1. What is a contextualist theory of free will? How are folk ascriptions of free will contextualist?
2. Distinguish the performance error, affective competence, and concrete competence accounts of free-will contextualism.
3. Why do Nichols and Knobe prefer the performance error account?

Horowitz

1. What is the doctrine of acts and omissions? How, specifically, does Warren Quinn defend the doctrine?
2. How does prospect theory differ from expected utility theory? Describe both the editing and evaluating stages. How are both propsect theory and expected utility thery consequentialist?
3. How does invoking prospect theory undermine Quinn’s argument for the doctrine of acts and omissions?

Foley

1. Distinguish the Lockean and Reidian perspectives on first-person authority. How are they different methodologically?
2. How might our first-order beliefs clash with our second-order beliefs about those beliefs? Provide an example. (Feel free to use the interview example.)
3. Describe the sanguine and bleak responses to clashes between our beliefs and our beliefs about our beliefs. What main problem does each response have?

Knobe

1. Describe the Knobe (or side-effect) effect. Why doesn’t this effect arise for our primary intentions?
2. What is a theory-theory of folk psychology? What goal do intentional ascriptions play, on theory-theory?
3. How does the Knobe effect undermine theory-theory?
4. According to Knobe, what is the purpose of intentional ascriptions? Is that claim plausible?\

Nadelhoffer

1. How is the Knobe effect relevant to jury deliberation? Provide an example. (You may discuss the related hidsight effect.)
2. How is the Knobe effect predicted by Alicke’s culpable control model?
3. What problems arise for avoiding intentional ascription bias?

Gopnik and Schwitzgebel

1. What is the instability thesis? How does evidence about children’s intuitions support the instability thesis?
2. What is semantic externalism? How does it rest on intuitive judgments?
3. Distinguish uses of intuition as hypotheses, evidence, as drawing consequences for theories.
4. What is the eschatological conclusion drawn by Gopnik and Schwitzgebel? Is it defensible?

Cummins

1. Describe five possible sources for intuitions. Why does Cummins focus on only one of them?
2. How are intuitions like, and unlike, observations? Consider their role in the construction of theories.
3. Distinguish Gopnik and Schwitzgebel’s thesis of intrasubjective instability from Cummins thesis of intersubjective instability.