Constructivism and Intuitions

A major issue in philosophical methodology concerns the use of "intuitions" -- perhaps as foundational premises, or else the initial data points which our theories then aim to systematize. The difficulty, as Alex recently pointed out, is that we don't have any obvious reason to think that such intuitions are in tune with the facts. Philosophers occasionally speak of a faculty of "rational intuition", which is supposed to somehow detect ("intuit") moral, mathematical, or other abstract truths of the Platonic realm. But it all sounds a bit wacky. (How is this mysterious faculty supposed to work, exactly?)

But perhaps the problem is not so bad if we reject Platonism. I tend to think that philosophical (as opposed to material) facts are not really things that exist out in the world. Though objective enough, their ontological status is better seen as that of a rational construction. According to this view -- call it "Conceptualism" [Update: "Constructivism" seems a better label] -- philosophical truth "just is the ideal limit of a priori inquiry; it does not answer to the sort of independent reality that might sensibly be considered beyond all epistemic reach." Whereas physical facts are made true by existing things in the world, philosophical facts are made true simply by the fact that they are what ideally rational agents would believe. For example: the truthmaker for "the cat sat on the mat" is a particular physical event involving a cat and a mat in the appropriate arrangement. The truthmaker for "2+2=4" is that ideal rational reflection would lead one to endorse the belief.

So what does all this mean for the reliability of our intuitions? Well, if they no longer have to answer to an independently existing realm of facts, perhaps they're not in such bad condition as we thought. Note that I'm not denying that there is an objective truth of the matter for many philosophical questions, so that our intuitions may in fact lead us astray (if ideal rational reflection would cause us to revise them, for example). Our intuitions must answer to this rational construction; the point is that the construction may not be wholly independent of them in the first place.

In short: the views we hold now, which are prima facie coherent and plausible, are reasonable - if fallible - guides to what we would find coherent and plausible on ideal rational reflection (which, for philosophical questions, is simply to say what is true). Intuitions have justificatory force because they're already on the road to constituting truths. Sure, obstacles might arise on further reflection that prevent the initial beliefs from being true after all. But otherwise, they're home free.