Intuition, Imagination, and Philosophical Methodology

Concerns about philosophical methodology have emerged as a central issue in contemporary philosophical discussions. In this volume, Tamar Gendler draws together fourteen essays that together illuminate this topic. Three intertwined themes connect the essays. First, each of the chapters focuses, in one way or another, on how we engage with subject matter that we take to be imaginary. This theme is explored in a wide range of cases, including scientific thought experiments, early childhood pretense, thought experiments concerning personal identity, fictional emotions, self-deception, Gettier and fake barn cases, the relation of belief to other attitudes, and the connection between conceivability and possibility. Second, each of the chapters explores, in one way or another, the implications of this for how thought experiments and appeals to intuition can serve as mechanisms for supporting or refuting scientific or philosophical claims. Third, each of the chapters self-consciously exhibits a particular philosophical methodology: that of drawing both on empirical findings from contemporary psychology, and on classic texts in the philosophical tradition (particularly the work of Aristotle and Hume.) By exploring and exhibiting the fruitfulness of these interactions, Gendler promotes the value of engaging in such cross-disciplinary conversations to illuminate philosophical questions.

Table of Contents:
Preface Introduction Part I: Thought Experiments, Intuitions and Philosophical Methodology Thought Experiments in Science 1: Galileo and the Indispensability of Scientific Thought Experiment 2: Thought Experiments Rethought - and Reperceived Thought Experiments and Personal Identity 3: Exceptional Persons: On the Limits of Imaginary Cases 4: Personal Identity and Thought-Experiments Intuitions and Philosophical Methodology 5: The Real Guide to Fake Barns: A Catalogue of Gifts for Your Epistemic Enemies 6: Philosophical Thought Experiments, Intuitions and Cognitive Equilibrium Part II: Pretense, Imagination and Belief Imaginative Resistance 7: The Puzzle of Imaginative Resistance 8: Imaginative Resistance Revisited Pretense and Belief 9: On the Relation between Pretense and Belief 10: Self-Deception as Pretense Imagination and Emotion 11: Genuine Rational Fictional Emotions 12: Imaginary Contagion Belief and Alief 13: Alief and Belief 14: Alief in Action (and Reaction)

About the Author :
Tamar Szabó Gendler is a professor of philosophy and chair of the Cognitive Science Program at Yale University

Review :
This book is richly detailed and fully deserves a careful study. Gendler has made strong contributions to the nature of belief, imagination, intuition, and imagination, as well as the role of thought experiments in science and in philosophy. Furthermore, she is making original contributions in the rather neglected field of philosophical methodology. a scintillating book... sparkling, erudite, compellingly unorthodox papers, stuffed with interesting and provocative examples and theses and ideas for future work... This book offers a tantalizing picture of a totally new philosophical psychology. Should I devote time to reading this volume? That question lingers when the book in question is a collection of previously published essays, and you the prospective reader have likely read a few of the better-known pieces already. In this case, the answer is a firm yes. Gendler has compiled and edited the book with loving care ... Reading the more nuanced understandings of belief, affect, and imagination from later papers back into earlier papers stimulates insight not had from reading earlier papers separately.