The Monist 95:2 April 2012, Special Issue on Experimental Philosophy
Advisory Editor: James Beebe, University at Buffalo (jbeebe2@buffalo.edu)
In recent years an increasing number of philosophers have been utilizing the experimental methods of the cognitive sciences to test key empirical claims advanced in various areas of philosophical dispute. Much of the time these experiments have taken the form of philosophical thought experiments presented to ordinary subjects which test whether the responses elicited match philosophers' claims. A number of surprising findings have been made by experimental philosophers that seem to bear directly on debates in action theory, epistemology, ethics, folk psychology, metaphysics and philosophy of language. But the philosophical significance of these findings continues to be the subject of debate. Contributions in the current issue present some new results of applying experimental methods to philosophical hypotheses, while others address the significance of these results and the methodological challenges posed by experimental philosophy.
Table of Contents
Amie L. Thomasson, “Experimental Philosophy and the Methods of Ontology,” pp. 175–199
Jonathan M. Weinberg, Joshua Alexander, Chad Gonnerman, and Shane Reuter, “Restrictionism and Reflection: Challenge Deflected, or Simply Redirected,” pp. 201–222
Niki Pfeifer, “Experiments on Aristotle’s Thesis: Towards an Experimental Philosophy of Conditionals,” pp. 223–240
Florian Cova and Nicolas Pain, “Can Folk Aesthetics Ground Aesthetic Realism?,” pp. 243–263
Mark Alfano, James R. Beebe, and Brian Robinson, “The Centrality of Belief and Reflection in Knobe-Effect Cases: A Unified Account of the Data,” pp. 264–289
Shaun Nichols, “The Indeterminist Intuition: Source and Status,” pp. 290–308
Chris Zarpentine, Heather Cipolletti, and Michael Bishop, “WINO Epistemology and the Shifting-Sands Problem,” pp. 309–329
Ram Neta, “Knowing from the Armchair that Our Intuitions Are Reliable,” pp. 330–352
Abstracts
Amie L. Thomasson, “Experimental Philosophy and the Methods of Ontology,” pp. 175–199
Those working in experimental philosophy have raised a number of arguments against the use of conceptual analysis in philosophical inquiries. But they have typically focused on a model that pursues conceptual analysis by taking intuitions as a kind of (defeasible) evidence for philosophical hypotheses. Little attention has been given to the constitutivist alternative, which sees metaphysical modal facts as reflections of constitutive semantic rules. I begin with a brief overview of the constitutivist approach and argue that we can defend a role for conceptual analysis, so understood, in ontological disputes against both the general skepticism about the relevance of intuitions, and against the specific worries raised by experimental results. Finally, I argue that even if the constitutivist view is adopted, experimental philosophy may still have quite a useful role to play, though purely empirical inquiries cannot in principle do the ontological work alone.
Jonathan M. Weinberg, Joshua Alexander, Chad Gonnerman, and Shane Reuter, “Restrictionism and Reflection: Challenge Deflected, or Simply Redirected,” pp. 201–222
It has become increasingly popular to respond to experimental philosophy by suggesting that experimental philosophers haven’t been studying the right kind of thing. One version of this kind of response, which we call the reflection defense, involves suggesting both that philosophers are interested only in intuitions that are the product of careful reflection on the details of hypothetical cases and the key concepts involved in those cases, and that these kinds of philosophical intuitions haven’t yet been (and possibly cannot be) adequately studied by experimental philosophers. Of course, as a defensivemove, thisworks only if reflective intuitions are immune from the kinds of problematic effects that form the basis of recent experimental challenges to philosophy’s intuition-deploying practices. If they are not immune (or at least sufficiently less vulnerable) to these kinds of effects, then the fact that experimental philosophers have not had the right kind of thing in their sights would provide little comfort to folks invested in philosophy’s intuition-deploying practices. Here we provide reasons to worry that even reflective intuitions can display sensitivity to the same kinds of problematic effects, although possibly in slightly different ways. As it turns out, being reflective might sometimes just mean being wrong in a different way.
Niki Pfeifer, “Experiments on Aristotle’s Thesis: Towards an Experimental Philosophy of Conditionals,” pp. 223–240
Two experiments (N1 = 141, N2 = 40) investigate two versions of Aristotle’s Thesis for the first time. Aristotle’s Thesis is a negated conditional, which consists of one propositional variable with a negation either in the antecedent (version 1) or in the consequent (version 2). This task allows us to infer if people interpret indicative conditionals as material conditionals or as conditional events. In the first experiment I investigate between-participants the two versions of Aristotle’s Thesis crossed with abstract versus concrete task material. The modal response for all four groups is consistent with the conditional event and inconsistent with the material conditional interpretation. This observation is replicated in the second experiment. Moreover, the second experiment rules out scope ambiguities of the negation of conditionals. Both experiments provide new evidence against thematerial conditional interpretation of conditionals and support the conditional event interpretation. Finally, I discuss implications formodeling indicative conditionals and the relevance of this work for experimental philosophy.
Florian Cova and Nicolas Pain, “Can Folk Aesthetics Ground Aesthetic Realism?,” pp. 243–263
We challenge an argument that aims to support Aesthetic Realism by claiming, first, that common sense is realist about aesthetic judgments because it considers that aesthetic judgments can be right or wrong, and, second, that becauseAesthetic Realism comes from and accounts for “folk aesthetics,” it is the best aesthetic theory available.We empirically evaluate this argument by probing whether ordinary people with no training whatsoever in the subtle debates of aesthetic philosophy consider their aesthetic judgments as right or wrong. Having shown that the results do not support the main premise of the argument, we discuss the consequences forAesthetic Realism and address possible objections to our study.
Mark Alfano, James R. Beebe, and Brian Robinson, “The Centrality of Belief and Reflection in Knobe-Effect Cases: A Unified Account of the Data,” pp. 264–289
Recent work in experimental philosophy has shown that people are more likely to attribute intentionality, knowledge, and other psychological properties to someone who causes a bad side effect than to someone who causes a good one. We argue that all of these asymmetries can be explained in terms of a single underlying asymmetry involving belief attribution because the belief that one’s action would result in a certain side effect is a necessary component of each of the psychological attitudes in question. We argue further that this belief-attribution asymmetry is rational because it mirrors a belief-formation asymmetry, and that the belief-formation asymmetry is also rational because it is more useful to form some beliefs than others.
Shaun Nichols, “The Indeterminist Intuition: Source and Status,” pp. 290–308
Evidence from experimental philosophy indicates that people think that their choices are not determined.What remains unclear is why people think this. Denying determinism is rather presumptuous given people’s general ignorance about the nature of the universe. In this paper, I’ll argue that the belief in indeterminism depends on a default presumption that we know the factors that influence our decision making. That presumption was reasonable at earlier points in intellectual history. But in light of work in cognitive science, we are no longer justified in sustaining the presupposition that we know what influences our choices.As a result, I’ll suggest, our belief in indeterminist choice is unjustified.
Chris Zarpentine, Heather Cipolletti, and Michael Bishop, “WINO Epistemology and the Shifting-Sands Problem,” pp. 309–329
By making plausible the Diversity Thesis (different people have systematically different and incompatible packages of epistemic intuitions), experimental epistemology raises the specter of the shifting-sands problem: the evidence base for epistemology contains systematic inconsistencies. In response to this problem, some philosophers deny the Diversity Thesis, while others flirt with denying the Evidence Thesis (in normal circumstances, the epistemic intuition that p is prima facie evidence that p is true). We propose to accept both theses. The trick to living with the shifting-sands problem is to expand epistemology’s evidential base so as to include scientific evidence. This evidence can provide principled grounds on which to decide between incompatible intuitions. The idea of resolving inconsistencies in an evidential base by adding more independent lines of evidence is commonplace in science. And in philosophy, it is simplyWide Reflective Equilibrium.We contend that the idea that epistemology would depend crucially on scientific evidence seems radical because many traditional epistemologists practice reflective equilibrium that isWINO,Wide In Name Only.We suggest five different lines of scientific evidence that can be, and have been, used in support of non-WINO epistemological theories.
Ram Neta, “Knowing from the Armchair that Our Intuitions Are Reliable,” pp. 330–352
In recent years, a growing body of experimental literature has called into question the reliability of our intuitions about hypothetical cases, and thereby called into question the use of intuitions in philosophy. In this paper, I critically assess one prominent example of this challenge, namely, Swain, Alexander, and Weinberg’s recent study of order effects on the Truetemp intuition. I argue that the very data that Swain,Alexander, and Weinberg find do not undermine, but instead support, the reliability of intuition. I also show how intuition can itself be marshaled in the service of figuring out just when we can and cannot expect to find order effects on our intuitions.