>> > I think the word intuition here is being overextended.
>By "intuition" I just mean "something I am strongly inclined to say even
>in the face of contrary argument."
Doesn't this confuse intuition with dogma?
>It's not some special faculty of mind. I don't have an intuition about
>where Uruguay is. I either know or I don't. But I have an intuition that
>the external world is independent of my beliefs and desires.
This should be too difficult to confirm in communication with others though!
> The thought is that intuirions are preflective, not terribly considered,
> but more or less strongly held judgments that we try to systematize in
> reflective equilibrium.
Yeah, an intuition is like a Gadamerian prejudice, but one that can be brought into reason - and, in fact, must be formulated in terms of reasons if we're going to have a discussion about it that is anything other than trivial.
>I think it would be
>> > more appropriate to talk about a belief in God rather than just an
>> > intuition about God (at least in the case of someone jumpting out of an
>> > airplane at 10,000 feet with no parachute).
>
>In the sense described above, one might have an intuition that there is a
>God. Lots of people do.
True enough, but having an intuition about the existence of God is pragmatically distinct from having a belief in God. If I say, "I intuitively think that God exists" I'm putting this forward as a proposition: God exists. If I say, "I believe that God exists" there is a behavioural component to this, it entails that on is also going to act as though God exists. I think our confusion here lies on a semantic level - can we agree that there is a pragmatic distinction, at least in theory, between rules for action and propositions about the world? (between describing the world and acting in it).
>A belief, in good pragmatic
>> > fashion, is a rule of behaviour.
>No, that's just behaviorism.
Absolutely not! Behaviorism is completely incompatible with what I'm putting forward here. Behavioralism, and I'm no specialist here, fails to grasp the distinction between interactive and instrumental action - it is completely antithetical to the communicative approach. If I specify that a belief is a rule for action and an intuition is a propositional claim, then I hope this differentiation can be made clear. Clearly, a theory of action must take into consideration the way in which communicative interactions coordinate and affect behaviour - behavioralism simply washes its hands of the whole affair in a completely positivist way. Behavoiralist theory restricts the choice of theoreticla assumptions to a relationship between stimuli and reaction. An action approach establishes a framework that includes intentionality (need interpretation, desire, feelings and so on).
>Lots of beliefs have no behavioral consequences beyond the propensity to
>utter statements asserting them in the appropriate circumstances. I reject
>the proposition that there is no more to having a belief that having such
>a propensity, or one to act on the belief. Beliefs are (at least partly)
>internal states, and behavior, verbal and other, is evidence--no
>more--that one is in such a state.
If one believes something and does not act on that belief, then shouldn't it make sense to question whether or not they actually believe it? (if there is a discrepancy between what is said and what is done, then we have reason to suspect either some sort of self-deception or incompetence).
stage left, ken