<p>The Explanation Hypothesis is a psychological hypothesis about how people attribute moral responsibility. The hypothesis makes general claims about everyday thinking of moral responsibility and is also said to have important consequences for related philosophical issues. Since arguments in favor of the hypothesis are largely based on a number of intuitive cases, there is need to investigate whether it is supported by empirical evidence. In this study, the hypothesis was tested by means of quantitative experimental methods. The data were collected by conducting online surveys in which participants were introduced to a number of different scenarios. For each scenario, questions about moral responsibility were asked. Results provide general support for the Explanation Hypothesis and there are therefore more reasons to take its proposed consequences seriously.</p>

The Explanation Hypothesis is a psychological hypothesis about how people attribute moral responsibility. The hypothesis makes general claims about everyday thinking of moral responsibility and is also said to have important consequences for related philosophical issues. Since arguments in favor of the hypothesis are largely based on a number of intuitive cases, there is need to investigate whether it is supported by empirical evidence. In this study, the hypothesis was tested by means of quantitative experimental methods. The data were collected by conducting online surveys in which participants were introduced to a number of different scenarios. For each scenario, questions about moral responsibility were asked. Results provide general support for the Explanation Hypothesis and there are therefore more reasons to take its proposed consequences seriously.

Traditional philosophy has been under attack from several quarters in recent years. The traditional philosopher views philosophy as an armchair discipline relying, for the most part, on reason and reflection. Some philosophers doubt the legitimacy of this type of inquiry. Their arguments usually occur along two dimensions. Some argue that the primary data source for the armchair philosopher--intuition--does not provide evidence for philosophical theories. Others argue that conceptual analysis, which is the preferred method of inquiry for armchair philosophers, can't yield the results the philosopher is looking for, since concepts like 'knowledge' or 'free-will' vary from culture to culture or even between persons within a culture. Finally, some philosophers argue that we should abandon the armchair program because philosophy should be an empirical enterprise continuous with the sciences. I argue that attempts to undermine intuition fail and that one can justify the evidential status of intuition in a non-question begging way. I then argue that attacks on the belief in shared concepts do not succeed because they often conflate the nature of scientific objects with those of interest to the philosopher. However, if concepts do vary from culture to culture, I show that the philosopher need not abandon the armchair. She can still do conceptual analysis but it will be only the entry point into the philosophical dialogue. I apply this approach to epistemology arguing that the central epistemic questions ought to be the existential and the normative. This approach helps to vindicate epistemic internalism.

abstract: Saying, "if Mary had watered Sam's plant, it wouldn't have died," is an ordinary way to identify Mary not watering Sam's plant as the cause of its death. But there are problems with this statement. If we identify Mary's omitted action as the cause, we seemingly admit an inordinate number of omissions as causes. For any counterfactual statement containing the omitted action is true (e.g. if Hillary Clinton had watered Sam's plant, it wouldn't have died). The statement, moreover, is mysterious because it is not clear why one protasis is more salient than any alternatives such as "if Sam hadn't gone to Bismarck." In the burgeoning field of experimental metaphysics, some theorists have tried to account for these intuitions about omissive causes. By synthesizing this data and providing a few experiments, I will suggest that judgments - and maybe metaphysics - about omissive causes necessarily have a normative feature. This understanding of omissive causes may be able to adequately resolve the problems above. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Philosophy 2013

Yes / We investigate claims about the frequency of "know" made by philosophers. Our investigation has several overlapping aims. First, we aim to show what is required to confirm or disconfirm philosophers' claims about the comparative frequency of different uses of philosophically interesting expressions. Second, we aim to show how using linguistic corpora as tools for investigating meaning is a productive methodology, in the sense that it yields discoveries about the use of language that philosophers would have overlooked if they remained in their "armchairs of an afternoon", to use J.L. Austin's phrase. Third, we discuss facts about the meaning of "know" that so far have been ignored in philosophy, with the aim of reorienting discussions of the relevance of ordinary language for philosophical theorizing. / Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant (RPG-2016-193)

<p>There are various theories in the philosophy of mind/cognitive science of what kinds of knowledge, or information carrying mental states, constitute our mental concepts. Such knowledge is used in higher acts of cognition such as in categorization, induction, deduction, and analogical reasoning when we think or reason about the extension of the concept. While most concept theories have primarily focused on concrete concepts such as `chair,' `table,' and `dog,' I take such modern theories and apply them to abstract moral concepts such as `virtue,' `right action,' and `just.' I argue for a new overall pluralistic theory of moral concepts, combining several theories of concepts. This pluralistic view differs from, for example, Ayer's non-cognitivist theory that contends that our moral concepts are constituted by or just are emotions and desires. Finally, I draw further philosophical implications my conclusion may have for applied ethics, normative ethical theory, political philosophy and meta-ethics.</p> / Dissertation

This thesis concerns two main questions: What is intuition? And can it be a source of knowledge or justification? In addressing these questions, it advances several ongoing philosophical debates, and does so in two main ways: firstly, by formulating a general account of the nature of intuitive judgement that establishes common ground amongst the often disparate views of scholars working on intuition (or intuitions) in psychology, linguistics, philosophy and various other disciplines; and, secondly, by developing a new epistemological position that combines scepticism about the evidential value of intuition with a new account of philosophical skill. The general account of the nature of intuitive judgement mainly consists in drawing a distinction between intuitive judgement and intuitive appearance which is analogous to a distinction that can be drawn between perceptual judgement and perceptual appearance. It is argued that a common type of paradox entails the distinction for the non-perceptual case; it is then demonstrated how various related notions, such as intuitive belief, intuitive thinking and intuition as a cognitive faculty, can be derived from the notion of intuitive judgement. The epistemological account receives additional support from a new theory regarding the objects of intuition, according to which the analogy between intuition and perception holds specifically for what is sometimes called 'aspect perception': it is argued that some intuitive appearances are partially constituted by an appearance of meaning and that, consequently, the analysis of intuitive judgement must distinguish between two types of object, an intentional object (typically, a thought) and a causal one (typically, an expression of thought). It is further argued that the focus on evidential value that has been prevalent in the philosophical literature is too restrictive. By contrast with the prevalent view, it is demonstrated that intuition plays a significant role in human thinking, including in philosophical and scientific enquiry, independently of whether intuition is of great or only of minimal evidential value.

A proposta geral desta tese é discutir argumentos de uma linha cognitivista sobre o uso típico de intuições na literatura epistemológica. Em particular, o uso feito por epistemológicos interessados no projeto conhecido como análise do co-nhecimento. A questão central desta tese já está formulada em seu título: qual a estrutura psicológica do conceito ordinário de conhecimento? Em outras palavras, investigamos qual a organização psicológica da unidade mental que responde por nossos julgamentos intuitivos ordinários sobre casos de conhecimento. Argumen-tamos que a resposta a esta pergunta pode gerar lições importantes para o projeto epistemológico, em especial quanto a sua satisfatoriedade. Nossa investigação per-corre literaturas da epistemologia, psicologia comparativa, psicologia do desenvol-vimento, e a psicologia popular (folk). Em uma segunda parte da tese, tratamos de outros argumentos que surgem desta linha cognitivista na literatura epistemológi-ca, tais como argumentos empíricos sobre a robustez de intuições – no sentido de serem amplamente compartilhadas – e considerações sobre as bases cognitivas de uma intuição. Por fim, descrevemos uma forma de dar sentido à metodologia epis-temológica que leva em consideração argumentos cognitivistas em termos da no-ção de equilíbrio reflexivo. / The proposal of this dissertation is to discuss issues from a cognitivist line about the typical use of intuitions in the epistemological literature. In particular, issues about the use of epistemologists interested in the traditional project of the analysis of knowledge. The central question of this dissertation is already formulated in its title: What is the psychological structure of ordinary concept of knowledge? In oth-er words, we investigate what is the psychological organization of the mental unity that responds for our intuitive judgments about cases of knowledge. We argue that the answer for this question can provide important lessons for the epistemological project, especially about whether it can be satisfied. Our inquiry goes through the literature of epistemology, comparative psychology, psychology of development, and folk psychology. In a second part, we deal with other kinds of arguments from this cognitivist line in epistemology, such as empirical arguments about the ro-bustness of intuitions – in the sense of being widely shared – and considerations about the cognitive basis of intuitions. Finally, we describe one way of making sense of the epistemological methodology which takes into account cognitivist ar-guments in terms of the notion of reflective equilibrium.

A proposta geral desta tese é discutir argumentos de uma linha cognitivista sobre o uso típico de intuições na literatura epistemológica. Em particular, o uso feito por epistemológicos interessados no projeto conhecido como análise do co-nhecimento. A questão central desta tese já está formulada em seu título: qual a estrutura psicológica do conceito ordinário de conhecimento? Em outras palavras, investigamos qual a organização psicológica da unidade mental que responde por nossos julgamentos intuitivos ordinários sobre casos de conhecimento. Argumen-tamos que a resposta a esta pergunta pode gerar lições importantes para o projeto epistemológico, em especial quanto a sua satisfatoriedade. Nossa investigação per-corre literaturas da epistemologia, psicologia comparativa, psicologia do desenvol-vimento, e a psicologia popular (folk). Em uma segunda parte da tese, tratamos de outros argumentos que surgem desta linha cognitivista na literatura epistemológi-ca, tais como argumentos empíricos sobre a robustez de intuições – no sentido de serem amplamente compartilhadas – e considerações sobre as bases cognitivas de uma intuição. Por fim, descrevemos uma forma de dar sentido à metodologia epis-temológica que leva em consideração argumentos cognitivistas em termos da no-ção de equilíbrio reflexivo. / The proposal of this dissertation is to discuss issues from a cognitivist line about the typical use of intuitions in the epistemological literature. In particular, issues about the use of epistemologists interested in the traditional project of the analysis of knowledge. The central question of this dissertation is already formulated in its title: What is the psychological structure of ordinary concept of knowledge? In oth-er words, we investigate what is the psychological organization of the mental unity that responds for our intuitive judgments about cases of knowledge. We argue that the answer for this question can provide important lessons for the epistemological project, especially about whether it can be satisfied. Our inquiry goes through the literature of epistemology, comparative psychology, psychology of development, and folk psychology. In a second part, we deal with other kinds of arguments from this cognitivist line in epistemology, such as empirical arguments about the ro-bustness of intuitions – in the sense of being widely shared – and considerations about the cognitive basis of intuitions. Finally, we describe one way of making sense of the epistemological methodology which takes into account cognitivist ar-guments in terms of the notion of reflective equilibrium.

A proposta geral desta tese é discutir argumentos de uma linha cognitivista sobre o uso típico de intuições na literatura epistemológica. Em particular, o uso feito por epistemológicos interessados no projeto conhecido como análise do co-nhecimento. A questão central desta tese já está formulada em seu título: qual a estrutura psicológica do conceito ordinário de conhecimento? Em outras palavras, investigamos qual a organização psicológica da unidade mental que responde por nossos julgamentos intuitivos ordinários sobre casos de conhecimento. Argumen-tamos que a resposta a esta pergunta pode gerar lições importantes para o projeto epistemológico, em especial quanto a sua satisfatoriedade. Nossa investigação per-corre literaturas da epistemologia, psicologia comparativa, psicologia do desenvol-vimento, e a psicologia popular (folk). Em uma segunda parte da tese, tratamos de outros argumentos que surgem desta linha cognitivista na literatura epistemológi-ca, tais como argumentos empíricos sobre a robustez de intuições – no sentido de serem amplamente compartilhadas – e considerações sobre as bases cognitivas de uma intuição. Por fim, descrevemos uma forma de dar sentido à metodologia epis-temológica que leva em consideração argumentos cognitivistas em termos da no-ção de equilíbrio reflexivo. / The proposal of this dissertation is to discuss issues from a cognitivist line about the typical use of intuitions in the epistemological literature. In particular, issues about the use of epistemologists interested in the traditional project of the analysis of knowledge. The central question of this dissertation is already formulated in its title: What is the psychological structure of ordinary concept of knowledge? In oth-er words, we investigate what is the psychological organization of the mental unity that responds for our intuitive judgments about cases of knowledge. We argue that the answer for this question can provide important lessons for the epistemological project, especially about whether it can be satisfied. Our inquiry goes through the literature of epistemology, comparative psychology, psychology of development, and folk psychology. In a second part, we deal with other kinds of arguments from this cognitivist line in epistemology, such as empirical arguments about the ro-bustness of intuitions – in the sense of being widely shared – and considerations about the cognitive basis of intuitions. Finally, we describe one way of making sense of the epistemological methodology which takes into account cognitivist ar-guments in terms of the notion of reflective equilibrium.