As I mentioned a few of the books I'd picked up in my Amazon order was some of Donald Davidson's more recent writings. It's fairly helpful for the Davidson discussion we've been having. I was actually surprised, now that I finally have these volumes, just how many of the essays I'd actually read in the past. Given how externalism is of interest to me I was enjoying reading his "Epistemology Externalized." There he critiques the externalisms of Putnam or Burge and offers his own form. In arguing against Burge's two kinds of externalism he offered several critiques. One was the old standby of "I don't think intuitions favor your position as much as you think they do." (Always a great one in philosophy) However the other was very relevant for many current philosophical discussions.
I have a general distrust of thought experiments that pretend to reveal what we would say under conditions that in fact never arise. (199)
One thing I notice a lot of philosophers doing is appealing to thought experiments where our "judgments" about them are supposed to tell us something crucial about to topic at hand. (The classics being Gettier examples, Frankfurt examples, and perhaps even Davidson's own swamp man thought experiment)
The problem is that while we all think about these things (and more recently people actually test to see what the population thinks) that needn't tell us how people would actually think if it occurred. Consider an example that's a cliche in Hollywood movies. The new soldier who thinks he could kill but doesn't actually know how he will behave until he's under fire. But there are lots of examples like this. I can think of many situations in my life I'd considered and thought I knew how I'd react only to discover that my predictions were quite off.
So why should we give credence to our intuitions about a situation none of us find ourselves in? It may well be that how we'd think if it were really happening would be quite different from what we predict.
I love thought experiments because generally they are a more enjoyable way to do philosophy then say, spelling out a proof. And if thought experiments arised in the real world, engineers would take over and philosophers wouldn't have much to do. That's why it's philosophy, right, and not science? But, what I just don't get,is when thought experiments put nails in coffins. They do better to get discussions going rather than ending them.
It certainly makes life interesting. The old ideal of the arm chair philosopher. I confess I'm extremely skeptical that it ends up being helpful in arriving at the truth. But then I'm pretty skeptical of intuitions as well.
I hate that danged Swamp Man. That was my first exposure to Davidson, and it turned me off of him for years. I still find his intuitions pretty odd there, except for the issue of memory -- I can buy that the Swamp Man can't remember anything, even if he acts exactly like the guy writing articles on Radical Interpretation.
(He eventually regretted both the Swamp Man and the Omniscient Interpreter arguments, as well as the bit in "Mental Events" about the indeterminacy of translation supporting anomalism.)
Is the swamp man really much worse than a zombie? (grin) Both always struck me as odd thought experiments since the skeptic need only say that such an event is impossible.
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