The Methodology of Analytic Philosophy: Intuitions, Concepts, and Conceptual Analysis
Abstract: In this essay I defend intuitions and conceptual analysis as being crucial to a
scientific analytic linguistic philosophy. This essay recognizes a distinction between
world-view intuitions and linguistic intuitions as kinds of beliefs that motivate conceptual
analyses. I argue that a theory cannot be constructed solely out of unbiased and neutral
world-view intuitions, so that the analytic philosopher must provide a theory with
hypotheses and examples that provide reasons to believe that a given world-view is true.
The mediate philosophical theory that occurs between 'world-view intuitions' (e.g. the
acceptance or non-acceptance of evolution theory, naturalism, possible-worlds realism,
empiricism, theism, atheism) and 'linguistic intuitions' (involving beliefs about the use of
particular concepts) is subject to debate as being true or false. The question about whose
intuitions and what theory is to be believed will be based on the strength of a
philosopher's argument, its clarity, and its intuitive plausibility.
The question of 'what is proper philosophical methodology?' has become the
subject of lively debate over the past three decades. While there is a long-running
historical debate about methodology between rationalists and empiricists, there has
recently been a more focused debate about the relevance of philosophical intuitions and
the methodology of conceptual analysis. In this essay I defend the use of intuitions and
conceptual analysis as being crucial to a scientific analytic linguistic philosophy. In
doing so I will (1) characterize the status of intuitions and the explanatory strategy of
-2conceptual analysis, (2) discuss what 'analytic philosophy' is, (3) defend the use of
'abductive arguments,' (4) clarify some assumptions about ontology and metaphysics, (5)
define what a 'concept' is, (6) recognize six kinds of concepts that are frequently
discussed in philosophy and psychology, (7) survey the kinds of concepts that are
appropriate for analysis, including examples: 'justification,' 'relevant,' 'aesthetic
experience,' 'axiom,' and 'analytic sentence,' and (8) defend the use of intuitions as a
source of evidence for conceptual analysis.
I. What are Intuitions?
Jaakko Hintikka (1999, p. 127) credits Noam Chomsky as being a major source of
contemporary talk about 'linguistic intuitions.'
Intuitions came into fashion as a consequence of the popularity of Noam
Chomsky's linguistics and its methodology. According to a widespread
conception, generative linguists like Chomsky were accounting for competent
speakers' intuitions of grammaticality by devising a grammar... that are intuitively
accepted by these speakers. This kind of methodology was made attractive by the
tremendous perceived success of Chomsky's theories in the 1960's and 1970's.
For Chomsky the grammaticality of sentences is determined from the data of individual
conceptual intuitions.
These intuitions allowed construction of a set of (de facto)
generative rules that produce all and only strings as 'grammatical.' The use of 'intuitions'
gradually followed into analytic philosophy.
What is an intuition? Charles Parsons (1995) defines an 'intuition' as what a
person takes to be true at the outset of an inquiry, or as a matter of common sense (p. 59).
-3David Lewis (1983), Peter van Inwagen (1997) and others similarly define an intuition as
a kind of belief, or an opinion. Intuitions have been characterized as spontaneous mental
judgments (Goldman & Prust, 1998). An intuition is a belief that we are pre-theoretically
committed to, are inclined to believe, or seems intrinsically plausible. It is a report of
'what we would say' if asked our gut-level opinion about the correct answer to a given
question. An intuitive belief can be a 'seems to be the case' and unreflectively tentative;
or alternatively an intuitive belief can be strongly-held (but not infallible).
On the view defended here, what distinguishes philosophical methodology from
the physical sciences is its reliance on personal intuitions.
Intuitions are the starting
point for the development of a philosophical theory. Intuitions provide the data to be
explained (and scrutinized) by a philosophical theory. The role of intuitional evidence in
philosophy is analogous to the role of perceptual evidence in science. Our senses bring
us perceptual evidence, while philosophical arguments bring us evidence from existing
(bur changeable) world-view intuitions. We also have existing linguistic intuitions that
express beliefs about the application and use of certain concepts. Both 'world-view
intuitions' and 'linguistic intuitions' play a role in conceptual analyses.
World-view intuitions are a person's (pre-theoretic) beliefs about the overall
character of a phenomenon (or domain) being discussed.
In contemporary analytic
philosophy there are vast differences in world-view intuitions (e.g. realism or antirealism) about the subject matter of metaethics, aesthetics, the nature of mathematics and
the practice of philosophy itself.
The world-view intuitions characterizing a
philosopher's overall viewpoint and interests are found in the preface, introduction, and
-4abstracts of their published works.
Within these world-views it is stated (1) what
philosophical questions are important and require answers, (2) what distinctions and
associated concepts are useful, and (3) the viewpoint to be articulated and defended.
Among philosophers and laypersons the acceptance (or non-acceptance) of scientific
evolution theory, rationalism, empiricism, idealism, logical positivism, naturalism,
possible-worlds realism, theism, and atheism are all strong unifying world-views.
Linguistic intuitions are narrower in scope and are about the proper application
and use of particular concepts. Linguistic intuitions are pre-theoretical beliefs about
sentence and concept use.
They are judgments made on the basis of conceptual
understanding and competence. Conceptual analyses using linguistic intuitions are the
attempt to describe our linguistic practices and intentions and interpret various natural
language uses of sentences and words. Most times our conceptual beliefs are implicit and
rarely considered. However when philosophical and conceptual questions are made
explicit, one's pre-theoretical intuitions may be conflicting or puzzling. Similarly there
can be interesting philosophical questions that one has never explicitly thought about and
one's answers to those questions may be unsuitably vague or confused. With conceptual
analysis a philosopher tries to make explicit a reader's linguistic and world-view beliefs.
The Explanatory Strategy of Conceptual Analysis
Conceptual analysis is a practice that borders on the disciplines of philosophy,
social science, linguistics, cognitive science and psychology. A scientifically-inclined
linguistic philosophy seeks to provide theories with evidence obtained from both natural
and artificial languages. These philosophical theories (systems of belief) are an
-5intermediate result between how an individual interprets the world (as a world-view) and
one's beliefs about the ordinary use of linguistic terms (and associated concepts). A
conceptual analysis is the practice of analyzing terms (e.g. knowledge, justification, truth,
evidence, relevance, art, beauty) by exploring the normal uses of terms and sentences and
the intentions behind them that give a concept a significance (or meaning, intelligibility)
in a context. The ordinary use of concepts in a normal context is the best guide for what
a word designates and for forming their explicit definition. Having a concept makes one
disposed to have beliefs (or intuitions) about the correct application of the concept in
various cases. Individual conceptual analyses (within an associated theoretical network)
can assist in the development of a set of true world-view beliefs about knowledge, ethical
utterances, aesthetic judgments, mathematical assertions, counter-factual assertions, and
so on. A philosopher's interest should be in developing a lay reader's conceptual and
linguistic competence that allows for a better understanding of a natural world that
includes the beliefs, values, desires, and intentions of persons in it.1
1
The ideal of communicating (and participating) in any way with laypersons is found
repugnant by many philosophers. Herman Cappelen (2012, p. 20) embraces the opinions
of philosophical specialists and experts and against an ordinary language conceptual
analysis saying that "It is unlikely in the extreme that an 'intuition-expert' with minimal
training in linguistics, semantics and philosophy of language can make constructive
contributions to these debates. Constructive methodological reflections typically arise
from inside the field and require deep understanding of specific subject matters."
-6Who is best suited to lead a conceptual analysis?
Not surprisingly conceptual
analysis is best led by analytic philosophers who have thought long and hard about
certain questions related to the ordinary use of the concept. Philosophers tend to have an
explicit (or implicit) systematic hypothesis/theory for how words are used and how
beliefs and knowledge are obtained. Alvin Goldman (2007) argues that the best way to
understand one's personal psychological conception of a given concept is to contrast it to
those conceptions found in analyses led by experts. Goldman observes that conceptanalyzing philosophers seek the intuitions of others as well as their own. A practitioner
must be cautious about whether the proper use and applicability of a given concept in a
hypothetical situation is the same for all people, but it must be assumed that there is a
strong degree of similarity. We systemize our intuitions and test them against other
intuitions. A conceptual investigation is a proto-scientific, quasi-experimental enterprise,
where the aim is to reveal the contents of category-representing states as a starting point
for seeking a derivative public concept (Goldman, pp. 17-20).
A familiar form of 'conceptual analysis' is as follows: Describe one's own and
other people's intuitions of whether or not a concept x or the word x applies to a case
(real or imagined). A conceptual analysis attempts to develop (and test) a theory of x by
participatory surveys and thought experiments. For example, if I'm a speaker of English
and familiar with the concept of 'know,' then I have (to a large extent) mastered the use of
'know' and am capable of recognizing some situations as suitable for making a claim to
know. With respect to the concepts of truth and knowledge, most persons judge (a) as
being semantically well-formed but (b) is semantically ill-formed:
-7(a) I thought Sue was ill, but it turned out that she wasn't.
(b) I knew Sue was ill, but it turned out that she wasn't.
Pre-theoretical beliefs about the semantics and proper use of 'know' are applied to various
epistemic situations and possibilities. This thought experiment about the concept of
'knowledge' shows that it is widely-assumed that in order to know a proposition this
implies the proposition is true.
Our linguistic intuitions inform us of the
ungrammaticality or semantic inconsistency of b.
While there is often the attempt to be unbiased among philosophers using
conceptual analyses seeking to identify the content of concepts in order to advance (true)
theories of phenomena, there is a major complication.
This complication is that
conceptual analyses are always accompanied by the world-view intuitions of the
analyzer. Every philosopher and every lay person have implicit and explicit worldviews. World-view intuitions affect how one understands the function and proper
application of concepts and the underlying meaning of sentences when expressed in a
context. In effect, a substantive analytic theory is an intermediate result between how an
individual interprets the world and one's beliefs about the ordinary use of linguistic terms
and sentences. Personal intuitions can differ. Intuitive beliefs about the nature of the
world and use of concepts that are immediate, unreasoned, and non-inferential, shouldn't
be expected to be reliable (or truth-connecting) as the foundations for a true theory.
Intuitions are not indubitable. We are influenced by our social environment. Because a
theory cannot be built solely out of a series of unbiased and neutral world-view intuitions,
the analytic theorist must support one's world-view with hypotheses and examples that
-8provide reasons to believe that a given world-view is true. In a sense, such theories are
self-affirming. But an analytic exposition can be even-handed without persuading like an
advertising campaign or highly partisan politics.
II. The Characteristics of Analytic Philosophy
Before discussing how intuitions function in conceptual analyses in determining
the content of a concept, let us first consider what 'analytic philosophy' is. Analytic
philosophy is a method of doing philosophy that is wider than the practice of conceptual
analysis. The ancient Greeks were the early originators of analytic philosophy. Plato and
Aristotle strove to define 'knowledge' and 'virtue.' But what is this analytic tradition?
Hans-Johann Glock (2008) recently sought to define what 'analytic philosophy' is by
examining its history.
He found that analytic philosophy is best explained with a
historical and 'family resemblance' approach (p. 223). The tradition is held together by a
network of influence and communication. The concept of analytic philosophy is best
understood as a set of loose identifying principles.
Rather than describe the details of Glock's conclusions, I'm going to suggest that
the following list contains the primary characteristics of what 'analytic philosophy' is (or
should be): (1) Analytic philosophy has a critical scientific ethos. It is secular, not
following religious authority, (2) Analytic philosophy describes, classifies, clarifies,
interprets and to some extent formalizes its content. Analytic philosophy pays attention
to arguments, explanations, and the reasons used to defend a belief.
Speculative
possibilities cannot be offered without cogent reasons, (3) Analytic philosophy is written
with a respect for clarity and rigor. (4) The problems and answers offered by an analytic
-9philosopher need not directly respond to traditional philosophical questions.
New
questions and problems may be presented. (5) Analytic philosophy oftentimes features a
linguistic emphasis (e.g. logical positivism, ordinary language philosophy, and
conceptual analysis). (6) Analytic philosophy should answer substantive questions and
eliminate vagueness and incompatibilities among our ordinary thoughts, and (7) Analytic
philosophy should strive to be accessible and relevant to non-philosophers.
III. Argumentative Methodology
Historically, the favored argumentative form of analytic philosophers has been
that of deduction. A deductive argument consists of reasons expressed as premises in an
argument that entails a conclusion using the standard rules of deductive inference. The
premises should be true or plausible to someone who might not already accept the
conclusion of the argument in question. With the possibility of finding agreed-on (and
true) premises, the goal of a deductive argument is to prove the necessary truth of a
conclusion. Russell and Quine strongly believed that philosophers should paraphrase
sentences into a perspicuous logical language in order to deductively resolve pertinent
philosophical paradoxes.
But in philosophical practice it is often found that it is difficult to find agreement
on a particular set of premises and to state premises using informative, non-technical, and
non-idiosyncratic concepts. Everyday deductions using ordinary vocabulary (e.g. that
'Socrates is mortal' given that he is a man, and all men are mortal) are easy and
transparent. But when it comes to complex philosophical questions a deductive argument
-10often fails to produce an argument that is consensually accepted as sound. The form of a
deductive argument is not often disputed (as invalid) because most philosophers are
capable of presenting valid deductive arguments. Instead the premises are in dispute. A
primary benefit of a deductive argument is that it routinely leads to the valuable
identification of premise(s) that are in dispute. This is where arguments about truth of
certain premises and the adequacy of concepts can be debated. Attention is given to
whether the premises are true and whether the concepts contained in the premises can be
expected to be fruitful in resolving a question. Deductive logic is best viewed as a tool in
the practice of philosophy, but not as its standard or required methodology.2
In actual philosophical practice, analytic arguments include the frequent use of
abductive inferences. 'Abduction' is defined as 'an inference to best explanation.' This
contrasts to deductive modes of inference and standard inductive inferences. A
comparison between deductive arguments, causal inductive inferences, statistical
inductive arguments, and abductive inferences is illustrated with four examples:
a) Deductive argument: (1) Every dog has sharp teeth, (2) Shaggy is a dog.
(3) Therefore, Shaggy has sharp teeth. If the premises are true, then the
conclusion cannot be false.
b) Inductive inference (causal): If a dog bites me and penetrates my flesh, then
I will bleed.
2
Williamson (2007) vigorously disagrees and maintains that philosophers should make
greater use of deductive methods, not less.
-11c) Inductive argument (statistical): (1) 99% of the people living in Springfield
own a dog, (2) Jones lives in Springfield. (3) Therefore, it is likely that Jones
owns a dog.
d) Abductive inductive inference: (1) Smith sees a line of small muddy
footprints across the kitchen floor from near the back door. (2) Smith has a
young son and owns a dog Shaggy. (3) It is raining outside. (4) Smith infers
that his son must have recently let Shaggy inside from the rain.
Philosophers and psychologists tend to agree that abductive inference-to-bestexplanation reasoning is frequently employed in everyday reasoning. Another example
of abductive (i.e. best-explanation) reasoning is the following: Imagine that you are
walking down a city street in Boston in early spring and you overhear a woman on a cell
phone saying 'I'm not going to shovel it because it is going to melt in three days.' One
abductively infers the 'it' in her conversation designates 'snow' (with a background
knowledge context of a recent snowfall and an expected spring warming). Not only is
abduction used in everyday situations such as this, it is also used by professionals.
Medical doctors often initially diagnose a patient's specific ailment as a best-explanation
inferential hypothesis based upon their symptoms.
In the judicial system, lawyers,
judges, and juries typically rely on inductive evidence and make best-explanation
inferences to decide whether a person is innocent or guilty.
Conceptual analysis centers upon the evaluation of competing philosophical
theories using best-explanation inferences. Analytic philosophy should be viewed as a
social science with some techniques being similar to linguistics. Participants are asked to
-12critically assess their linguistic and world-view intuitions (that are subject to change and
clarification). Analyses will often include functional explanations and hypotheses about
how language is used and the intentions of particular users. Functional explanations
provide a theory of a person's reasons, assumptions, and goals for making an assertion.
IV. Metaphysics
Metaphysics and more particularly ontology is the discipline within philosophy
that is concerned with the question 'what exists?' The term 'metaphysics' originates with
the categorization of the miscellaneous writings of Aristotle where he considers the
notion of being and substance, the first causes (or principles) of things, the notions of one
and many, the problem of change, and the existence of mathematical objects. In modern
times, in arguing what categories there are, and how they are related to one another, the
practitioners of metaphysics often understand this discipline as concerned with the
fundamental structure of reality as a whole. Metaphysics reached prominence as a highly
speculative brand of philosophy as practiced by Leibniz (1646-1716) and Spinoza (16321677) in the seventeenth century. Hume (1711-1776) and the logical positivists of the
early twentieth century became the most prominent critics of metaphysical theories that
were idiosyncratic and without ties to any possible verification.
In recent times,
metaphysics has found both resurgence and criticism about its epistemic merit. Quine
(1908-2000) was skeptical of the pretensions of realist metaphysics. Kripke in Naming
and Necessity (1980) resuscitated metaphysics using the concepts of identity, necessity, a
priori and a posteriori knowledge, and essential de re properties.
-13Recently criticisms of the discipline of ontology have been voiced by numerous
authors (e.g. Chalmers et. al. 2009). There is a suspicion that many metaphysical debates
are mere pseudo-disputes that arise from attempts to respond to defective, unanswerable
questions. For example, with respect to questions about what there is, and the principles
of identity for persistent objects, there is skepticism whether such potential answers are
truth-evaluable. In this essay I am skeptical of metaphysics and especially the epistemic
claim that there are a priori truths. On the view here, analytic philosophy is best served
by avoiding the excessive use of the concepts of 'thing,' 'universal,' 'particular,' 'object,'
'individual,' 'property,' 'possible world,' 'meaning,' 'rationality,' 'fact,' 'norm,' 'speech act'
and an alleged distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge. If we can ask
philosophically-interesting questions and avoid the excessive use of these loaded
concepts when explaining the semantics and pragmatics of assertions in ordinary
epistemic contexts, then philosophy will be in better position to inform critical inquirers.
V. What Exists? What is a Concept?
But even with a tentative and explicit rejection of some of the pretensions of
metaphysics, the question still remains, in a general form, 'what exists?' A reply by a
number of contemporary philosophers is that the question of 'what exists' is asked and
answered relative to specialized disciplines. The astronomer asks whether there exist
'black holes?' The biologist asks what kinds of 'antibodies' exist? Archaeologists ask
whether the lost city of El Dorado exists? The ordinary sense of 'existence' is contextrelative according to an inquirer's interests. When evaluating the truth of existence
claims, one normally presumes a category (or kind) of entity that is being discussed.
-14Although realist metaphysicians ask 'what exists?' and 'what are the fundamental
existents?' assuming that there are a priori true answers, it is doubtful that there are any
absolute answers to these generic questions. Instead it can be suggested that the concept
of 'existence' is a 'group resemblance concept' having cluster senses. What 'exists' is
postulated by the different physical sciences (e.g. physics, chemistry, geology, etc.),
mathematics, social sciences, literary fiction, ordinary pragmatic stipulations, and so on.
Quine and Carnap maintained that ontological issues are ultimately settled by pragmatic
considerations, depending on various interests and purposes. With this anti-realist
approach, it can be assumed that there is no true metaphysics about what 'really exists.'
Materialism
But with regard to what is the fundamental existent, we can hypothesize that
physical (or material) entities are the primary existent from which all other entities are
composed of. Materialism (or physicalism) is the doctrine that only material entities
exist, and that any other entities are constituted as physical entities. According to Stoljar
(2010, p. 2) the materialist position has become "something like a consensus position
within analytic philosophy in the 1960's and has remained so, or very nearly so ever
since. Philosophers such as Quine, Smart, Lewis, Armstrong, and many others are all
materialists." On a world-view level, the answer to 'what exists' is answered here on the
foundations of 'materialism' and 'a theory of concepts.'
Concepts
A 'concept' is understood as a functional physical entity that is found in the mental
systems of sentient creatures (and perhaps in artificial intelligence devices) that in
-15humans can be expressed by words and sentences. This definition of a 'concept' as being
a mental particular is accepted by many contemporary psychologists and cognitive
scientists (e.g. including Laurence and Margolis, 1999, p. 8). Concepts as the subject of
'conceptual' analyses are not just beliefs; they have a different form of existence and a
different function than beliefs. To possess a concept is to have a capacity for having
beliefs about the applicability of a concept in certain contexts. Concepts are subpropositional mental representations. We hold mental representations of categories with
associated thoughts (or tacit beliefs) about entities that these words represent. Concepts
function to categorize entities. For example, the non-corporal existence of a 'triangle' is
physically instantiated (i.e. encoded) as a concept in humans by its standard definition as
'a plane figure with three-sides and three angles.' The explicit definition of the content of
a given concept is the same across individuals to the extent that individuals have similar
(or identical) characteristic properties in mind for items that fall under that concept or
where there is substantial agreement of what constitutes the definiens of a definiendum.3
The practice of a critical self-examination and inter-subjective comparison of
linguistic concepts is part of the reflective participation in traditional philosophic
3
This materialist-functional analysis of a 'concept' competes with the semantic view of
concepts. On this traditional semantic view, concepts and words refer to 'things' typically
independent of persons. The meaning of a word (or concept) is what it denotes, refers to,
'picks out,' or names. Concepts are the constituents of thought where words express
concepts, and two words express the same concept if and only if they are semantically
complete and synonymous. This dominant semantic view is challenged here.
-16discourse. Being critical of one's own and others' intuitions can help to resolve certain
questions and puzzles. Rejecting or modifying theses in the face of convincing examples
and counter-examples is a characteristic of philosophic argumentation.4 Introspection of
one's intuitions as well as interactive questions concerning others' thoughts expressed in a
language are certainly not sense experiences, nor are such reflections independent of
sense experience. The measurement of intentions, meanings, and references of speakers
lends philosophy to being categorized as a social science, and not an 'armchair' pursuit.
VI. Six Kinds of Concepts
We now turn to the notion of what kinds of 'concepts' there are. As stated, for a
human to possess a concept is to have a capacity for having beliefs about the applicability
of the concept in certain contexts. A major scientific goal in psychology is to understand
what kind of mental representations there are. Let us pursue this goal by surveying the
kinds of concepts discussed among physical scientists, social scientists, philosophers,
psychologists, mathematicians, and persons using ordinary language.5
4
Williamson (2007) in contrast, condemns this methodology of examining intuitions as
the 'error of psychologizing the data' because philosophical questions are not typically
psychological questions. How can we use psychological data such as intuitions (about
what we believe) to answer questions that aren't psychological? Williamson says that
philosophical methodology should be rid of its internalist preconceptions (p. 5).
5
The so-called 'classic theory' or 'standard view' of concepts holds that every concept
has some necessary and sufficient conditions for its correct application and that
philosophers seek analytic 'conceptual truths' in a bi-conditional form. I don't assume
-17In reviewing recent literature involving the notion of 'concepts' there seems to be
distinctions (although not a consensus agreement) between six kinds of concepts: natural
kind concepts, group resemblance concepts, fixed definiens concepts, fictional entity
concepts, definite description concepts, and proper name concepts.
Below is a
rudimentary summary of the intuitions and speaker intentions that frame these categories.
(1) Natural kind concepts are about natural kind entities. A natural kind entity is
thought to have intrinsic properties (and/or extrinsic properties) with an
independent nature. Water is a natural kind. Natural kinds need not be physical
nor found in nature. For example, the concept of 'knowledge' can be analyzed as
a natural kind. Also for example, synthetic plastics (not found in nature) can be
artificially created by scientists to form homeostatic natural kinds.
(2) Group resemblance concepts are about entities (or things) that have a
superficial resemblance or loose similarity, but that may not have a set of
individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions that defines the entity as a
kind. These nouns, predicates, verbs, and adjectives are sometimes called 'cluster
concepts.' These concepts may be subject to precise descriptive characterizations
or precise disjunctive definitions. Examples of group resemblance terms include
this, and neither do most contemporary philosophers. There are two other alternative
viewpoints that are also rejected here: 1) conceptual analysis is the decomposition of
complex concepts into simpler concepts (e.g. G.E. Moore) and 2) conceptual analysis is
the hierarchal regressive axiomatic enterprise of determining what concepts fall under
other broader basic concepts (e.g. Aristotle).
-18'game,' 'chair,' 'statue,' 'virtue,' 'poverty,' 'toothpaste,' 'sports bar,' 'rude,' 'generous,'
'democracy,' and 'art.'
(3) Fixed definiens concepts have two characteristics that make up their
uniqueness: (a) a fixed definiens concept is a term that is stipulatively defined to
unequivocally identify any item(s) that fall under its definition, and (b) a fixed
definiens concept is stable and not subject to alteration, without creating a new
concept. Examples of fixed definiens concepts occur in (a) kinship/gender
vocabularies (e.g. a 'bachelor' is an unmarried male; a 'vixen' is a female fox), (b)
the deductive sciences (e.g. a 'valid deductive argument' is an argument where if
the premises are true, it is impossible for the conclusion to be false; the 'successor'
of ordinal number x is the next ordinal number, or x +1)6, (c) grammatical
concepts; indexicals (e.g. 'I' refers to self or to a speaker), connectives (e.g. 'not' is
to make negative a given proposition), and (d) miscellaneous instances (e.g. the
'equator' is an imaginary circle around the earth).
(4) Fictional entity concepts are about entities created (or brought into existence)
at a certain time through the acts of an author or story-teller. We ordinarily accept
that we can talk about fictional entities to account for the truth of various
intuitively true sentences that purportedly refer to fictional things.
6
Frege preferred that definitions and concepts should have a sharp boundary and
unambiguously determine whether any item falls under a concept. In proof theory,
concept formation and assumptions are fixed in such a way that a strict formalization of
proofs is possible using the expressed means of symbolic logic.
-19(5) Definite description concepts are phrases used to designate, denote, or specify
certain entities that may or may not exist (or may be fictional). For example, the
concept of 'the first man on the moon' designates Neil Armstrong. The concept of
'the first person on Mars' designates nothing.
(6) Proper name concepts are understood to designate or denote particular
existing or fictional entities (when used in a context). A proper name is normally
used in a context where a listener can infer the speaker's intended denotation. The
same proper name can designate different entities in different contexts. Some
entities have more than one proper name.
Following this conception, persons can understand 'testosterone' and 'estrogen' as natural
kind chemicals found in men and woman. If one understands the group resemblance
concept of 'house' one can identify its extensions with variable materials and designs. If
one understands 'square' one identifies its instances as four-sided. If one understands the
fictional concept Spiderman one is able to identify a portrait of him. If one understands
'the tallest president of the United States' one can do research to identify the entity. If one
hears 'Springfield' in a context, one will likely infer that it is the proper name of a city.
Of course, many words fall outside of this categorization (and have no intentional
content) and are conceptualized (and defined) only according to their use. Words and
concepts that lie outside these six categories have just reported uses and definitions.7
7
For example the word 'there' is defined by an ordinary dictionary as having three
senses/uses: 1) as an adverb 'to indicate in or at that place' (e.g. there is the cat), 2) as a
pronoun (e.g. there's a pen here), and 3) as a noun (e.g. get away from there).
-20VII. What Concepts are Subject to Analysis?
Alvin Goldman (2007) states that "concepts that correspond to natural kinds
should be privileged, those that don't, shouldn't" (p. 17). Goldman says that given that
natural kind concepts should be given attention, the major problem is that it's doubtful
that every target of philosophical analysis has a corresponding natural kind. What are the
natural kind concepts in philosophy?
Besides the concepts of knowledge, reference,
identity, and causation (all mentioned by Goldman), the concepts of truth, belief,
justification, reason, representation, fact, intention, explanation, mind, mentality,
consciousness, pain, freedom, beauty, art, goodness, virtue, happiness, justice, number,
set, infinity, existence, meaning, proper name, and necessity have all been subject to
philosophical analysis. With respect to this list of concepts, which of these can be
interpreted as natural kind concepts? The answer will depend on a philosopher's broad
world-view beliefs. For example, a moral realist, an aesthetic realist, and philosophers
inclined toward strong realist metaphysics will have a different viewpoint about what
concepts denote natural kinds from those who hold anti-realist positions. The only way
to clarify alternative positions is to compare best-explanation arguments with the
mediation of one's given world-view intuitions and linguistic-conceptual intuitions.
While Goldman is correct that natural kind entities should be given priority, there
is a need to analyze some 'group resemblance' concepts (e.g. 'justification,' 'relevant,'
'aesthetic experience') and 'fixed-definiens' concepts (e.g. 'axiom,' 'analytic sentence').
We will examine these examples. Whether a conceptual analysis is judged to be true
depends partially upon the explanatory success of the theory in which it is embedded.
-21The Concept of Epistemic 'Justification'
The group resemblance term 'justification' has two standard senses that are not
always recognized by philosophers. When speaking of epistemic justification, we can
speak either about a person S being justified in holding a belief, or about a belief p being
justified. The first sense is concerned with what it takes for a person S to be justified in
believing a proposition, and the second sense is concerned whether a belief p has the
property of being justified from an external perspective. With this distinction in mind,
we can recognize the senses of 'personal justification' and 'belief justification' as follows:
Personal justification (sense PJ): 'S is justified in believing p' if p is acquired
as an immediate non-inferential belief, or S has reasonably (non-recklessly)
acquired strong evidence and used good inferential reasoning for believing p.
Belief justification (sense BJ): 'p is a justified belief' if p is believed from
inductive evidence (or deductive reasoning) that is relevant (i.e. truth-connecting,
pertinent, non-defective) for why p should be believed true.
These two senses of 'justification' are not arbitrary stipulations. They reflect a real
difference in the domains of discussion: persons and beliefs.
The Concept of 'Relevance'
Another group resemblance concept in epistemology that is ambiguous and not
typically noticed by philosophers is the term 'relevant.' Suppose that a house in a
residential neighborhood is substantially damaged by a fire. The cause of the fire is
initially unknown. Local fire investigators are called in to determine 'why did the fire
start?' Pre-theoretically, we believe that there are relevant reasons for why a house
-22catches on fire. When seeking the cause(s) of why a fire started, fire investigators want
to discover whether an arsonist was involved, or if there was careless smoking, or an
electrical problem, or a lit candle, or lightening and so on. In order to obtain knowledge
of the cause, the investigators seek objectively relevant evidence and relevant reasons for
why the house caught fire, and wish to discard the consideration of any extraneous (and
irrelevant) states-of-affairs not associated with the cause of the fire.
Let us suppose that fire investigators offer this final report that explains why the
fire started: 1) an upended candle was found in the bedroom of the home, where most of
the fire damage occurred, 2) the pattern of how the fire spread, and resulting damage
suggests that the fire started in the bedroom near the fallen candle, 3) a resident of the
home admits having left a candle burning while leaving the home several hours earlier, 4)
there is no other evidence (indicating arson, electrical problems, etc.) suggesting that the
candle was not the cause of the fire, so therefore 5) p: the fire was caused by an
unattended lit candle that fell and ignited nearby combustible materials.
Whether the four premises stated by the investigators are 'relevant' for why the
fire started is not something we decide. Instead, if these are the relevant reasons for why
the house caught fire, it is because the reasons (i.e. evidential premises) are truthconnecting, objective, and independent of us. This sense of 'relevant' is consistent with
ordinary use. The objectivity and truth-connectedness of relevant evidence is presumed
by physical scientists (e.g. chemists, physicists, etc.) seeking the causal factors for
physical processes. A dictionary definition states that 'relevant' (an adjective) means
'bearing on the matter at hand, germane, material, applicable, pertinent.'
-23With this sense of 'relevance' it is assumed that an evidential proposition e can be
either: (1) true and relevant for why p should be believed or (2) e is true and coincidental,
and irrelevant for why p should be believed or 3) e is false and irrelevant for why p
should be believed. In other words, it is assumed that S's body of evidence (or reasons)
for believing p might contain true and/or false propositions. It is assumed that persons
may (unintentionally) have false beliefs as 'evidence' (or reasons) for believing p.8
With respect to another common sense of 'relevant,' it is also oftentimes said that
what counts as 'relevant evidence' is any evidence that is 'somehow related' or 'might have
some significance or probability' for why p is true or false.
For instance, the fire
investigators at the start of their inquiry will be interested in any relevant evidence that
may have a bearing on why a fire started. Pragmatic interests guide investigators to what
items are considered 'relevant.' In this sense, any and all evidence (e.g. the electrical
system, smoking materials, etc.) that might have some significance, are considered as
items 'relevant' to determining the cause of the fire. This is a wider sense of 'relevant'.9
8
This is consistent with Williams (2001) that "empirical evidence, which provides the
premises for empirical arguments, is itself only contingently true..." (p. 41). It is contrary
to Williamson (2000) who says "knowledge, and only knowledge, constitutes evidence"
(p. 185) and Leite (2013) who claims if e is false, it is not evidence for anything (p. 84).
9
Many philosophers are accustomed to just the wider sense of 'relevant.' Gail Stine
(1976) says that an alternative is 'relevant' only if there is some reason to think that it is
true. Stewart Cohen (1988) says that "factors pertaining exclusively to S's own evidence
affect whether alternatives become relevant.... an alternative h is relevant, if S lacks
-24The Concept of 'Aesthetic Experience'
The group resemblance concept of 'aesthetic experience' can be characterized:
An 'aesthetic experience' (AE) is a mental state where one comes in contact with
an object x, and x produces a feeling, emotion, or intellectual stimulation, where
one is engaged with x in a way to have some release from practical concerns,
where x is experienced as an object of appreciation. An aesthetic experience is
unique or 'stands out' from routine experience. A positive-AE is a feeling of
reward (or appreciation) when experiencing an item x. A negative-AE is a feeling
of disappointment (dislike, emptiness) when experiencing an item x. Typical
items of aesthetic appreciation include the experiences of the arts, nature, culinary
taste, olfactory scent, and tactile qualities.
The Concepts of 'Axiom' and 'Analytic Sentence'
In mathematics, the fixed definiens term 'axiom' can be systematically and
conceptually analyzed despite not being a natural kind concept.
An 'axiom' is an independent foundational prescriptive assertion that underlies a
set of stipulative definitions, grammar-syntax, and inference rules that measure a
specified domain. An axiom is typically (but not always) adopted if it helps map
(or represent) the physical world (or linguistic discourse) in a fruitful way.
In contrast, the definition of an 'axiom' as being 'a self-evident truth' is rejected.
Similarly with the analysis of an 'analytic sentence,' it can be defined as 'a sentence that
sufficient evidence (reason) to deny h..." (p. 103). John Hawthorne (2004) says that
"What counts as relevant depends on the interests and intentions of the user" (p. 55).
-25is true relative to and entailed solely by the fixed definiens of the definitions-vocabulary
and grammar-syntax rules of a language without explicitly using any discrete axioms or
inference rules.'
In contrast, the vague conception of an 'analytic proposition' as being
true solely in virtue of its meaning is rejected. The truth or falsity of these motivated
definitions of 'axiom' and 'analyticity' is not the issue here; it is just that (fixed definiens)
concepts are subject to analysis without representing natural kind entities.
Conceptual analyses involve clarifying, resolving ambiguities, and promoting
consistency. Conceptual analysis is not the discovery of necessary, non-empirical truths
about the meanings (or natures) of things, but involves a dialectic among language users.
With natural kind concepts, our attention is paid to the (objective) nature of the
phenomena involved. With group resemblance concepts, attention is paid to how persons
use a term in natural language and its correct application. With fixed-definiens concepts,
the consistency of concepts and their relations are sought.
VIII. The Status of Intuitions: How can they be Evidence in the Study of Concepts?
The question arises however, as indicated above, how does a conceptual analysis
proceed when there are disputed pre-theoretic world-views of the phenomena under
consideration (about the nature of morality, aesthetics, mathematics, knowledge,
semantics)? Further how does a conceptual analysis proceed when there are disputed
pre-theoretic beliefs associated with a contested concept? It is obvious that a theory
cannot be built solely out of a series of neutral pre-theoretic world-view and linguistic
intuitions because the beliefs of various people can be contradictory. Let's examine some
example cases of conflicting world-view intuitions and then revisit these questions.
-26Example Cases of Divergent World-View Intuitions
In Ethics, a secular moral realist maintains that ethical assertions are true or false
and that when considering a moral question we search about who is right, and where our
obligations lie. With this world-view, there are true moral answers awaiting discovery.
Mark Schroeder (2010) suggests that it is intuitively the case that there is objective moral
wrongness that is not relative to the interests of (groups of) persons. He cites the practice
of infibulation as a conduct that is wrong in any circumstance, no matter what any person
believes or values.10 In contrast, a secular anti-realist believes that moral value owes its
existence to the interests and desires of humans. A human consensus is sought to
prescribe conduct. (Most persons, of course, deny any secular position and believe that a
god is the source of objective moral law).
In Aesthetics up to the 18th century most philosophers believed that 'beauty' was
an objective property of an aesthetic item (e.g. a painting). With attention to a broader
view of aesthetic predicates (e.g. engaging, amusing, suspenseful, horrifying, thoughtprovoking), a dispute has arisen between 'realists' and 'anti-realists' in aesthetics. An
aesthetic realist will say that an aesthetic judgment 'this painting is beautiful' is about the
painting, and that the particular painting has the property of 'beauty' that emerges from its
10
Infibulation is a kind of genital cutting and as many as 300,000 different girls undergo
this procedure every year according to the World Health Organization. There are no
known health benefits of this procedure, but it can lead to bacterial infection, open sores,
recurrent bladder and urinary tract infections, and increased risk of transmission of HIV.
It also substantially raises the risk involved in child birth (Schroeder, p. 1).
-27base physical properties. There are objective perceivable properties that explain why one
can make a true or false assertion about the painting having beauty. An aesthetic
subjectivist, on the contrary, believes that 'this painting is beautiful' reports a subjective
experience, and is about whether the painting satisfies one's interests and tastes.
In Mathematics an ontological realist contends that mathematics is about the
discoverable objective features of the world. For example, numerals denote objective
numbers, and numbers are abstract and eternal. In order for numerals to exist, and for
mathematical knowledge to exist, their propositions must be about something. In contrast
an anti-realist formalism focuses upon the use of stipulation and contends that the socalled 'truths' of formal deductive systems should be understood as 'true-in-a-language.'
In Epistemology with respect to the problem of radical skepticism, some
epistemologists have a strong pre-theoretic world-view belief that a person can know that
one is not a brain-in-a-vat (by affirming a closure principle) while others argue that one
cannot know this (denying the closure principle). In considering whether one can know
that one isn't a disembodied brain-in-a-vat, Keith DeRose (1995) argues that one can
know this, while Dretske (1971) argues that one cannot.
There are strong opposing positions about what the discipline of Philosophy
should be about. Should philosophers only be concerned about what is necessarily true
(as opposed to what is contingently true)? Should deductive arguments be its standard
methodology? Is there a priori knowledge? Should philosophers proceed with strong
materialist-naturalist assumptions? Should philosophy be studied as a social science with
linguistic, conceptual, and world-view intuitions as its primary data?
-28Linguistic Intuitions as Data and Evidence in Support of a Word-View
In a defense of world-view intuitions, philosophers offer conceptual thoughtexperiments with a motivation to resolve an apparent ambiguity or complexity, or from a
background of a creative systematic hypothesis (e.g. principles) that requires dialectical
inquiry. The plausibility of a given conceptual analysis is found in its appeal to persons
who are adequately informed but not strongly-committed to a theoretic position. If a
theory or set of principles generates hypotheses or predictions about whether 'S knows p'
or 'x is art' in given thought-experiment situations, and if an open-minded audience to
those experiments agrees with the predictions and the results of a hypothetical or realworld case, then that theory will be respected as truly explaining the details of a sharedconcept. A person's final post-theoretic beliefs are sometimes said to be in 'equilibrium'
where plausible ordinary beliefs and intuitions coincide with a theory's prediction or
explanation (and endorsed world-view). As Gary Gutting (2009, p. 225) states "Prior to
philosophic reflection our convictions are not very well articulated and can be profitably
regarded as expressing general pictures, that is, general schemes for thinking about some
major aspect of the world. One of the main projects of philosophical thinking is the
development of the precise and detailed formulations of important pictures... called
theories."
IX. A Reply to Experimental Philosophy: Yes, Intuitions Aren't Neutral/Reliable
Surveys of the intuitions of ordinary speakers by so-called 'experimental
philosophers' have shown that hypothetical thought experiments and conceptual intuitions
can be diverse and conflicting. Philosophers such as Machery, Mallon, Nichols & Stich
-29(2004) have raised the objection that because intuitions are culturally variable, they
cannot serve as the fixed-point for philosophical theorizing. Joshua Alexander (2012)
identifies the irrelevant static interference from the ethnicity, gender, affectivity of
persons and presentation order of thought experiments as a reason for dispensing with
intuitions (p. 3). Because intuitions are not reliable for ascertaining truth, it is argued that
these kinds of beliefs should have no evidential role for philosophy.
In response to this finding, it has been maintained here that neither personal
world-view nor conceptual intuitions should be interpreted as the foundational neutral
data that is in need of explanation. The goal of analytic philosophy isn't to just measure
and interpret existing ordinary intuitions. Instead analytic philosophy and conceptual
analyses are an attempt to sharpen linguistic/conceptual intuitions in order to support (or
show false) a given world view. Intuitions surveyed from 'folk theory' opinion polls
about various thought-experiments might undermine a theory (if the folk intuitions were
in fact self-consistent and there was a consensus) but a strong explanatory philosophical
theory can account for (or lead to reconsideration of) conflicting intuitions.
One largely unnoticed problem associated with arguments about the diversity of
responses is that experimental philosophers presume that one (or another) of the extant
theories to certain philosophical issues must be genuinely plausible. One much-discussed
example is that of 'reference' and theories about the use/function of proper names, such as
with Kripke's example of 'Godel.' But what if the competing 'descriptivist' and 'causal'
-30theories are both substantially in error?11 If philosophers currently argue over two false
and misleading theories about 'linguistic reference' it seems natural that there will be
differences in thought-experiment intuitions. That two bad philosophical theories lead to
diverse layperson intuitions in thought-experiments isn't surprising. A better theory (e.g.
about 'speaker reference') might lead to a greater cross-cultural consensus in intuitions.
X. Conclusion
Intuitions are not always truth-connecting (or reliable) sources of theoryconstruction. Since a theory cannot be constructed solely out of unbiased and neutral
world-view intuitions, the analytic philosopher must provide a conceptual analysis with
hypotheses and examples that provide reasons to believe that a given world-view is true.
The mediate philosophical theory that occurs between world-view intuitions and
conceptual intuitions is subject to debate (as being true or false). Contradictory worldviews cannot all be true, nor can contradictory conceptual analyses. The question about
whose intuitions and what theory is to be believed will be based on the strength of a
philosopher's argument, its clarity, and its intuitive plausibility.
11
I have argued in previous essays that 'semantic theories' (i.e. descriptivist and causal)
are both in error because they falsely assume that (1) linguistic entities literally refer to
(or 'pick out') things in a context (when this is only a metaphor), and (2) the 'principle of
compositionality' is indispensible (when it actually may be dispensed with, or set aside).
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