Intuitions' Linguistic Sources: Stereotypes, Intuitions and Illusions

Abstract

Abstract Intuitive judgments elicited by verbal case‐descriptions play key roles in philosophical problem‐setting and argument. Experimental philosophy's ‘sources project’ seeks to develop psychological explanations of philosophically relevant intuitions which help us assess our warrant for accepting them. This article develops a psycholinguistic explanation of intuitions prompted by philosophical case‐descriptions. For proof of concept, we target intuitions underlying a classic paradox about perception (‘argument from illusion’), trace them to stereotype‐driven inferences automatically executed in verb comprehension, and employ a forced‐choice plausibility‐ranking task to elicit the relevant stereotypical associations of perception‐ and appearance‐verbs. We obtain a debunking explanation that resolves the philosophical paradox.