The Epistemological Challenge of Revisionary Metaphysics

There are, in fact, two distinct kinds of appeal to intuition in the annals of metaphysics. On the one hand, there are intuitions whose propositional content concerns whether a (typically counterfactual) object, feature, or scenario falls under a certain (typically pre-philosophical or ‘folk’) concept. On the other hand, there are intuitions whose propositional content concerns the allegedly manifest truth of some general principle (universally or existentially quantified). I will call intuitions with the former content singular intuitions, and those with the latter content general intuitions. Gettier intuitions about knowledge and Kripkean intuitions about reference are prime examples of singular intuitions; Kim’s principle of causal closure and Lewis’ principle rejecting ontic vagueness are examples of general intuitions. My claim in this section is that in neither case is it clear how the intuition provides evidence for revisionary-metaphysical theories. I argue, in §2.1, that while it is clear how singular intuitions may provide evidence for theories in descriptive metaphysics, it is unclear how they are supposed to have an evidentiary connection to theories in revisionary metaphysics; and in §2.2, that while general intuitions are relevant to revisionary metaphysics, it does not seem to be in an evidential capacity that they are.