Tentative Resolution

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Tentative Resolution

make progress

[This is about university philosophy]

As I understand the A-Level syllabus, a lot of it is about knowing what a variety of famous dead people thought. That’s still important at university but it’s not the whole thing.

I expect you to make genuine progress in solving philosophical problems like the ones we’ve been solving today.

Just here—in making progress—you face a problem. You are not famous. Most of you are not even dead. So why would anyone care what you think?

no opinons

Of course they do not. My ex Philomena thought moon landings were faked and that really bothered me. But I don’t care what you think about them, or about anything else.

You are a philosopher contributing to a small research group, helping to make progress in solving problems. You can contribute by knowing the facts, by analysing arguments and identifying possible objections, and, just occasionally, by offering a novel discovery.

McCloskey, Caramazza, & Green (1980, p. figure 2B)

McCloskey et al. (1980, p. figure 2D)

Kozhevnikov & Hegarty (2001, figure 1)

‘Two metal balls are the same size, but one weighs twice as much as the other. Both are thrown straight up with the same initial velocity. The time it takes the balls to reach a certain height H will be:’

Fix shape and size. Also fix initial velocity. How would increasing the object’s mass affect how quickly it decelerates when launched vertically? Impetus: larger mass entails greater deceleration (so slower ascent). Newtonian: larger mass entails lower deceleration (so faster ascent) if considering air resistance; otherwise size makes no difference.

simplified from Kozhevnikov & Hegarty (2001)

But even more convincingly, the prediction generated by Kozhevnikov and Heggarty’s conjecture about the computational description of the system underpinning representational momentum has been directly confirmed.

So while not decisive, I take this to be strong evidence for a \textbf{vertical distinction} between two systems for physical cognition.

reliable

unreliable

physical intuitions

straight tubes

horizontal motion

curved tubes

vertical motion

Why do physical intuitons have these limits? They are largely a product of evolution, and evolution focusses on getting things right in situations that were frequent and significant in human experience.

It makes sense that physics would be limited in this way.

This means that physical intuitons are a source of knowledge in a limited range of cases only. First point: we don’t base our understanding of the physical on common-sense.

‘In putting forward an account of light, the first point I want to draw to your attention is that it is possible for there to be a difference between the sensation that we have of it, that is, the idea that we form of it in our imagination through the intermediary of our eyes, and what it is in the objects that produces the sensation in us, that is, what it is in the flame or in the Sun that we term ‘light’’

(Descartes, 1998, p. 81 (AT XI:3))

Descartes, The World (AT 3)

This quote is quite complex. Let's try to simplify. (Do this when quoting in your own work.)

Note that this is Descartes’ starting point (in an early work that was never published because of fear of religious repression.)

Further illustration (not from The World). Descartes’ explanation of why the rainbow is a bow. Relevant because of the gap between sensory perception and the things which cause it. And shows Descartes examines sensory perceptions.

physical intuitions
are a source of knowledge
but only within limits

reliable

unreliable

physical intuitions

straight tubes

horizontal motion

curved tubes

vertical motion

ethical intuitions

food sharing in small bands

cooperative breeding

trolley problems

climate change

1. Ethical intuitions are necessary for ethical knowledge.

2. Ethical intuitions concerning X are too unreliable to be a source of knowledge.

therefore:

3. Ethical knowledge concerning X is not possible.

Those who defend ethical intutions are right insofar as intuitions they are a reliable source of knowledge in a limited but useful range of situations.

Those who attack ethical intutions are right that ethical intutions are not a source of knowledge concerning the things that philosophers are interested in. (That said, it is not the influence of extraneous factors which makes intutions too unreliable to be a source of knowledge; nor does the existence of inconsistent intuitions between cultures demonstrate this—see **MISSING XREF TO unit:getting_started_doing_philosophy/moral-knowledge-for/**.)

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Tentative Resolution

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