Surveying Philosophers About Philosophical Intuition

This paper addresses the definition and the operational use of intuitions in philosophical methods in the form of a research
study encompassing several regions of the globe, involving 282 philosophers from a wide array of academic backgrounds and
areas of specialisation. The authors tested whether philosophers agree on the conceptual definition and the operational use
of intuitions, and investigated whether specific demographic variables and philosophical specialisation influence how philosophers
define and use intuitions. The results obtained point to a number of significant findings, including that philosophers distinguish
between intuitions used to formulate (discovery) and to test (justification) philosophical theory. The survey results suggest
that strategies implemented to characterise philosophical intuition are not well motivated since, even though philosophers
do not agree on a single account of intuition, they fail to capture a preferred usage of intuitions as aspects of discovery.
The quantitative summary of survey findings informs the debate on this topic, and advances more defined routes for subsequent
approaches to the study of intuitions.