Current Controversies In Experimental Philosophy

Experimental philosophy is one of the most active and exciting areas in philosophy today. In Current Controversies in Experimental Philosophy, Elizabeth O’Neill and Edouard Machery have brought together twelve leading philosophers to debate four topics central to recent research in experimental philosophy. The result is an important and enticing contribution to contemporary philosophy which thoroughly reframes traditional philosophical questions in light of experimental philosophers’ use of empirical research methods, and brings to light the lively debates within experimental philosophers’ intellectual community. Two papers are dedicated to the following four topics: Language (Edouard Machery & Genoveva Martí) Consciousness (Brian Fiala, Adam Arico, and Shaun Nichols & Justin Sytsma) Free Will and Responsibility (Joshua Knobe & Eddy Nahmias and Morgan Thompson) Epistemology and the Reliability of Intuitions (Kenneth Boyd and Jennifer Nagel & Joshua Alexander and Jonathan Weinberg). Preliminary descriptions of each chapter, annotated bibliographies for each controversy, and a supplemental guide to further controversies in experimental philosophy (with bibliographies) help provide clearer and richer views of these live controversies for all readers.

The past decade has witnessed an exciting (and controversial) new approach to philosophy: Experimental philosophers aim to supplement, and perhaps to supplant, traditional philosophical approaches by employing empirical methods from the social sciences. In Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Mind, leading experimental philosophers apply these methods to questions about the nature of the mind, the self, consciousness, moral judgment, and concepts. By bringing empirical methods to bear on key issues, Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Mind pushes the debates forward, casting new insight on perennial problems. This is an essential resource for professors, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates interested in either philosophy of mind or the burgeoning field of experimental philosophy.

Current Controversies in Philosophy of Science asks twelve philosophers to debate six questions that are driving contemporary work in this area of philosophy. The questions are: I. Are Boltzmann Brains Bad? II. Does Mathematical Explanation Require Mathematical Truth? III. Does Quantum Mechanics Suggest Spacetime is Nonfundamental? IV. Is Evolution Fundamental When It Comes to Defining Biological Ontology? V. Is Chance Ontologically Fundamental? VI. Are Sexes Natural Kinds? These debates explore the philosophical foundations of particular scientific disciplines, while also examining more general issues in the philosophy of science. The result is a book that’s perfect for the advanced philosophy student, building up their knowledge of the foundations of the field and engaging with its cutting-edge questions. Preliminary descriptions of each chapter, annotated lists of further readings for each controversy, and study questions for each chapter help provide clearer and richer snapshots of active controversies for all readers.

Experimental Philosophy: Volume 2 contains fourteen articles -- thirteen previously published and one new -- that reflect the fast-moving changes in the field over the last five years. The field of experimental philosophy is one of the most innovative and exciting parts of the current philosophical landscape; it has also engendered controversy. Proponents argue that philosophers should employ empirical research, including the methods of experimental psychology, to buttress their philosophical claims. Rather than armchair theorizing, experimental philosophers should go into the field to research how people actually think and reason. In a sense this is a return to a view of philosophy as the progenitor of psychology: inherently concerned with the human condition, with no limits to its scope or methods. In the course of the last decade, many experimental philosophers have overturned assumptions about how people think in the real world. This volume provides an essential guide to the most influential recent work on this vital and exciting area of philosophical research.

In recent years, developments in experimental philosophy have led many thinkers to reconsider their central assumptions and methods. It is not enough to speculate and introspect from the armchair—philosophers must subject their claims to scientific scrutiny, looking at evidence and in some cases conducting new empirical research. The Theory and Practice of Experimental Philosophy is an introduction and guide to the systematic collection and analysis of empirical data in academic philosophy. This book serves two purposes: first, it examines the theory behind “x-phi,” including its underlying motivations and the objections that have been leveled against it. Second, the book offers a practical guide for those interested in doing experimental philosophy, detailing how to design, implement, and analyze empirical studies. Thus, the book explains the reasoning behind x-phi and provides tools to help readers become experimental philosophers.

Experimental philosophy is one of the most recent and controversial developments in philosophy. Its basic idea is rather simple: to test philosophical thought experiments and philosophers’ intuitions about them with scientific methods, mostly taken from psychology and the social sciences. The ensuing experimental results, such as the cultural relativity of certain philosophical intuitions, has engaged – and at times infuriated – many more traditionally minded "armchair" philosophers since then. In this volume, the metaphilosophical reflection on experimental philosophy is brought yet another step forward by engaging some of its most renowned proponents and critics in a lively and controversial debate. In addition to that, the volume also contains original experimental research on personal identity and philosophical temperament, as well as state-of-the-art essays on central metaphilosophical issues, like thought experiments, the nature of intuitions, or the status of philosophical expertise. This book was originally published as a special issue of Philosophical Psychology.

In this volume, leading researchers debate five core questions in the philosophy of cognitive science. For each topic, the volume provides two essays, each advocating for an opposing approach.

The new field of experimental philosophy has emerged as the methods of psychological science have been brought to bear on traditional philosophical issues. Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy is the place to go to see outstanding new work in the field. It features papers by philosophers, papers by psychologists, and papers co-authored by people in both disciplines. The series heralds the emergence of a truly interdisciplinary field in which people from different disciplines are working together to address a shared set of questions. The papers in this third volume illustrate the ways in which the field continues to broaden, taking on new methodological approaches and interacting with substantive theories from an ever wider array of disciplines. Some recent research in experimental philosophy is going more deeply into well-established questions in the field, while other strands of research are exploring issues that scarcely appeared in the field even a few years ago. Thus, we see the introduction of new empirical and statistical methods (network analysis), new theoretical approaches (formal semantics), and the development of entirely new interdisciplinary connections (in the emerging field of "experimental jurisprudence").