Knowledge Second (for Metaphilosophy)

Abstract

Epistemic concepts like knowledge play an important role in both experimental philosophy and metaphilosophy concerning intuitions. Many philosophers employ these epistemic notions in their criticisms or defenses of the idea that intuitions have a positive evidential status. I argue, however, that epistemic concepts like knowledge are ill-suited for evaluations of our philosophical methodologies. The epistemic standards that govern inquiry in philosophy are separate from, and more stringent than, the standards for ordinary knowledge. I contend that other counterpart terms—evidenceP, justificationP, knowledgeP, and the like—are needed to refer to the epistemic states that result from meeting the higher epistemic standards generated by these philosophy-specific norms. That a given method or process generates evidence, justification, or knowledge does not guarantee that it will generate evidenceP, justificationP, or knowledgeP. The appropriate conclusion to draw from experimental philosophy is best stated in terms of philosophy-specific epistemic categories like these, rather than the categories familiar from standard analytic epistemology. I argue that, while intuitions may produce knowledge, experimental findings indicate biases and epistemic flaws that suggest that our current use of intuition may not produce knowledgeP. This, I suggest, is a much less problematic stance than ‘intuition skepticism.