Transcendental Arguments Workshop: Grundmann

In his paper, "Transcendental Arguments in Defence of Philosophical Intuitions", Thomas Grundmann argued that sceptical arguments against the evidential status of philosophical intuitions are epistemically self-defeating. This he did via a form of transcendental argument. A representative sceptical argument was his 'argument from sceptical possibilities':

1. It is possible that our intuitions permanently deceive us unnoticed.
2. As long as the possibility of such a permanent deception is not ruled out, intuition is not a legitimate source of evidence.
3. We cannot rule out the possibility of a permanent deception of our intuition.
So,
4. Intuition is not a legitimate source of evidence.

Grundmann argued that such arguments against the evidential status of intuitions invariably contain at least one premise (in this case, 1) that must be based on philosophical intuition (he had earlier distinguished philosophical from folk intuition). As such, one must already believe that intuitions are a good source of evidence if one is to endorse the premise. So, the argument involves what he called an 'epistemic inconsistency', and is self-defeating.

One issue concerns the extent to which the sceptic can simply reformulate his arguments to evade this charge. An argument form that does not require one to be justified in believing (or even to believe) one's premises is reductio ad absurdum. Can't then the sceptic restate the argument as a reductio of the claim that philosophical intuition is a good form of evidence. Considered in this way, it is this claim (rather than the sceptic's position) that is self-defeating.

Another potential problem concerns the relation between judgements of intuition and conceptual capacities. Some of the claims that Grundmann suggested were based on philosophical intuition look like they might plausibly said to be based merely on an understanding of concepts. If so, they might be thought to be analytic and, if that's right, the question of whether they are based on good evidence misses the point.