Dale Dorsey (Kansas) has an interesting post up today at Daily Nous and OUP Blog concerning "intuitive bedrock and the philosophical enterprise." Dorsey writes,
Imagine a person who spends their entire life sitting on the couch watching and rewatching Clive Barker’s Hellraiser. He does nothing else, gains no education, no relationships with other people, no family, no friends. But he, nevertheless, loves his life, he values everything about it. He is constantly offered the opportunity to do something different, and never chooses to do so. Indeed, his choices are not the result of a lack of information or imagination—he understands perfectly well what it would like to do something else. But he so loves watching the movie that he is simply unconvinced that any alternative would be better for him.
Is this person leading a good life, at least for his own sake? Many are tempted to say “no”. After all, this life is not at all well-rounded, it maintains no knowledge or genuine appreciation of the beautiful, does not engage rational capacities (beyond, say, the bare minimum required to rewind a VHS tape). But others say “yes”. After all, what more is required for the good life for a person that they value it highly, perhaps under conditions of full information?
It seems we may have reached “intuitive bedrock”. In so many areas of inquiry (though, perhaps, not all), philosophical argument ends up bottoming out in a mere clash of intuitions, of considered judgments. But what happens now?
Because these considered judgments will help determine the content and structure of our philosophical theorizing...[it would appear that we]...need to settle which of these intuitions are the right ones.
To put my cards on the table, this seems like an impossible task. Indeed, it’s a task that seems (almost by definition) outside the bounds of philosophical argument...But there’s an alternative. Rather than seeing ourselves as answering the “big questions”, as it were, we see ourselves as exploring how to construct alternative theories, what such theories must take on board, their relations and interconnections without settling which account of the “big question” is the right one.
I think Dorsey may be right about one thing--namely, that if and when we truly reach "intuitive bedrock", there may be nothing left for philosophers to do than explore alternative theories, examining their relations and interconnections, etc. However, I also want to suggest that the [admittedly brief] picture he draws of how and when "intuitive bedrock" occurs gestures towards some important methodological lessons.
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