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Philosophical expertise under the microscope

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Date
16/03/2018
Author
Egler, Miguel
Ross, Lewis D.
Keywords
Philosophical methodology
Thought experiments
Expertise defence
Intuitions
Experimental philosophy
B Philosophy (General)
T-NDAS
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Abstract
Recent experimental studies indicate that epistemically irrelevant factors can skew our intuitions, and that some degree of scepticism about appealing to intuition in philosophy is warranted. In response, some have claimed that philosophers are experts in such a way as to vindicate their reliance on intuitions—this has become known as the ‘expertise defence’. This paper explores the viability of the expertise defence, and suggests that it can be partially vindicated. Arguing that extant discussion is problematically imprecise, we will finesse the notion of ‘philosophical expertise’ in order to better reflect the complex reality of the different practices involved in philosophical inquiry. On this basis, we offer a new version of the expertise defence that allows for distinct types of philosophical expertise. The upshot of our approach is that wholesale vindications or rejections of the expertise defence are shown to be unwarranted; we must instead turn to local, piecemeal investigations of philosophical expertise. Lastly, in the spirit of taking our own advice, we exemplify how recent developments from experimental philosophy lend themselves to this approach, and can empirically support one instance of a successful expertise defence.
Citation
Egler , M & Ross , L D 2018 , ' Philosophical expertise under the microscope ' , Synthese , vol. First Online . https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-1757-0
Publication
Synthese
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-1757-0
ISSN
0039-7857
Type
Journal article
Rights
© The Author(s) 2018. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Description
Funding: Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland.
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/13069

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