Abstract

A number of experimental philosophers argue that within philosophy intuitions are used to support substantial philosophical claims. They find this problematic as cross-cultural surveys show that the intuitions used by philosophers are not universally shared. In this paper I wish to focus on this critique in relation to the notion of reference within the philosophy of language. In Sections 1 and 2 I examine the claims made by experimental philosophers and the cross-cultural surveys they have done to shed light on intuitions about semantic claims. Section 3 discusses how the results of experimental philosophy are inconclusive and possible reasons as to why we should not expect conclusive results. And thirdly, in Sections 4 and 5, I discuss specific sceptical challenges known as the qua and the triviality problems of reference. Although these problems offer additional challenges to the project of developing a theory of reference, I use the problems to offer guidance as to how an adequate theory of reference should look like. This also helps to point out that the critique of the experimental philosophers against the use of intuitions in the philosophy of language overemphasizes their significance and fails to recognize that other theoretical considerations are considerably more important.