Forming Impressions: Expertise in Perception and Intuition

by Elijah Chudnoff

Overview

Perception and intuition are our basic sources of knowledge about the concrete world around us, and more abstract matters such as mathematics, metaphysics, and morality. Perception and intuition, however, are also capacities we deliberately improve in ways that draw on our knowledge about these domains. How can the sensory and intellectual impressions that lie at the foundation of our knowledge themselves be informed by our knowledge? In Forming Impressions: Expertise in Perception and Intuition, Chudnoff addresses this and other questions that derive from trying to understand the improvability of our basic sources of knowledge. At the extreme of improvement lies expertise, and there is a wealth of research on the structures and mechanisms underlying expert perception and expert intuition that promises to illuminate the nature and significance of improvements to these sources of knowledge in general. Taking this cue, the first part of the book lays the groundwork for the rest by elaborating an interpretation of the psychology of expertise. The second part develops a setting for thinking about the epistemology of expert perception and expert intuition. The third part of the book explores the significance of the resulting view of intuition and its improvability for recent debates about philosophical methodology. Chudnoff defends a rationalist view of the role of intuition in philosophy that can be traced back to classic works on methodology such as Descartes' Rules and Spinoza's Emendation of the Intellect.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198863021
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/23/2021
Pages:	244
Product dimensions:	8.60(w) x 5.50(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Elijah Chudnoff, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Miami

Elijah Chudnoff is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Miami, where he has taught since receiving his PhD from Harvard University in 2008. He works primarily on topics at the intersection of theory of knowledge and philosophy of mind. He is the author of Intuition (2013, Oxford University Press) and Cognitive Phenomenology (2015, Routledge).

Table of Contents

PrefaceIntroductionPart 1: Characterizing Expert Impressions1. Locating Expert Impressions2. Expertise and Perceptual Modularity3. The Accessibility of Expert IntuitionPart 2: The Epistemology of Expert Impressions4. Presentational Conservatism5. Cognitive Penetration, Expertise, and Background InformationPart 3: Expert Impressions in Philosophy6. The Standard Picture7. The Place of Expert Intuition in PhilosophyConclusionBibliography

Editorial Reviews

"Chudnoff describes his view of the experience, representational content, and epistemology of perceptual and intellectual impressions. His ideas and arguments are thoughtful and thoughtworthy. The discussion benefits from results in other fields, especially psychology and neuroscience." — Ida Toivonen, Metascience

"In this careful and thoughtful book Chudnoff clarifies understanding of intuition ... Chudnoff's work is compelling and forces readers, including this one, to revisit some previously held beliefs." — J. F. Richeimer, CHOICE

"Chudnoff describes his view of the experience, representational content, and epistemology of perceptual and intellectual impressions. His ideas and arguments are thoughtful and thoughtworthy. The discussion benefits from results in other fields, especially psychology and neuroscience." — Ida Toivonen, Metascience

"Chudnoff describes his view of the experience, representational content, and epistemology of perceptual and intellectual impressions. His ideas and arguments are thoughtful and thoughtworthy. The discussion benefits from results in other fields, especially psychology and neuroscience." — Ida Toivonen, Metascience

From the Publisher