Intuitions as Evidence in Philosophy

Philosophers advance hypotheses, and occasionally those hypotheses are to some extent justified on the basis of some evidence. But what sorts of things can serve as such evidence, and how can they do so? These are the central questions of Lycan’s book On Evidence in Philosophy. There, he claims that one sort of thing that can serve as evidence in philosophy is “intuition.” But what, in Lycan’s view, are intuitions, and what is it about intuitions that enable them to function as evidence in philosophy? In this chapter, I critically assess Lycan’s answers to these questions. Though I am sympathetic to much of what Lycan says, I argue for slightly different answers to his central questions.