Against Strong Experiential Rationalism
Against Strong Experiential Rationalism
This chapter offers the core of the argument against experientialist rationalism—the view that intuitions are a special form of experience that provide a priori evidence. The target of this chapter is strong experientialist rationalism, which holds that, ceteris paribus, a subject with the intuition that p has p as evidence by virtue of having that intuition. The central problem with strong experientialist rationalism is that it fails to account for blind irrationality—cases in which a subject's thoughts are irrational, even though he has no intuition to the effect that he is proceeding irrationally. The argument is generalized beyond strong experientialist rationalism; it also tells against Huemer's “phenomenal conservativism,” Harman's “general foundations theory,” and Foley's “subjective foundationalism.” All these views, like strong experientialist rationalism, fail to respect the objectivity of rational inquiry.
Keywords: intuitions, rationalism, blind irrationality, phenomenal conservativism, general foundations theory, subjective foundationalism, objectivity of rational inquiry
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