Experimental Philosophy

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.

Joshua Knobe is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Yale University. Shaun Nichols is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona.

Preface Credits Contributors Part I. Metaphilosophy Antti Kauppinen. The Rise and Fall of Experimental Philosophy. Joshua Alexander, Ron Mallon, and Jonathan M. Weinberg. Accentuate the Negative. Jen Wright. On intuitional stability: The clear, the strong, and the paradigmatic. Part II. Consciousness Heather Gray, Kurt Gray, and Daniel Wegner. Dimensions of mind perception. Justin Sytsma and Edouard Machery. Two conceptions of subjective experience. Adam Arico, Brian Fiala, Robert F. Goldberg & Shaun Nichols. The Folk Psychology of Consciousness. Part III. Metaethics Geoffrey Goodwin and John Darley. The psychology of meta-ethics: Exploring objectivism. Hagop Sarkissian, John Park, David Tien, Jennifer Wright & Joshua Knobe. Folk Moral Relativism. Part IV. The Impact of Morality on Judgment Joshua Knobe. Person as Scientist, Person as Moralist. Mark Alicke, David Rose & Dori Bloom. Causation, Norm Violation and Culpable Control. Kevin Uttich and Tania Lomborozo . Norms inform mental state ascriptions: A rational explanation for the side-effect effect. Part V. Miscellaneous Paul Griffiths, Edouard Machery and Stefan Linquist. The Vernacular Concept of Innateness. Wesley Buckwalter and Stephen Stich. Gender and Philosophical Intuition. Eric Schwitzgebel and Fiery Cushman. Expertise in Moral Reasoning? Order Effects on Moral Judgment in Professional Philosophers and Non-Philosophers. Index