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How Distinctive Is Philosophers’ Intuition Talk?
Author(s) -
Andow James
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
metaphilosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.475
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1467-9973
pISSN - 0026-1068
DOI - 10.1111/meta.12151
Subject(s) - intuition , optimal distinctiveness theory , epistemology , scrutiny , empirical research , linguistics , psychology , sociology , philosophy , social psychology , theology
The word “intuition” is one frequently used in philosophy. It is often assumed that the way in which philosophers use the word, and others like it, is very distinctive. This claim has been subjected to little empirical scrutiny, however. This article presents the first steps in a qualitative analysis of the use of intuition talk in the academy. It presents the findings of two preliminary empirical studies. The first study examines the use of intuition talk in spoken academic E nglish. The second examines the use of intuition talk in written academic E nglish. It considers what these studies tell us about the distinctiveness of philosophical language and methods and considers some implications for evaluative and ameliorative methodology.