In Defense of a Broad Conception of Experimental Philosophy

Experimental philosophy is often presented as a new movement that avoids many of the difficulties that face traditional philosophy. This article distinguishes two views of experimental philosophy: a narrow view in which philosophers conduct empirical investigations of intuitions, and a broad view which says that experimental philosophy is just the colocation in the same body of (i) philosophical naturalism and (ii) the actual practice of cognitive science. These two positions are rarely clearly distinguished in the literature about experimental philosophy, both pro and con. The article argues, first, that the broader view is the only plausible one; discussions of experimental philosophy should recognize that the narrow view is a caricature of experimental philosophy as it is currently done. It then shows both how objections to experimental philosophy are transformed and how positive recommendations can be provided by adopting a broad conception of experimental philosophy.     

Twenty years of experimental philosophy research

This paper reports the first study in the literature that adopts a bibliometric approach to systematically explore the scholarship in the young and fast-growing research field of experimental philosophy. Based on a corpus of 1,248 publications in experimental philosophy from the past two decades retrieved from the PhilPapers website, the study examined the publication trend, the influential experimental philosophers, the impactful works, the popular publication venues, and the major research themes in this subarea of philosophy. It found, first, an overall growing trend in publications in experimental philosophy, encompassing four developmental stages. Second, it found that significant changes in topics of interest have taken place, with some gaining increasing attention, others seemingly going out of fashion, and still others remaining popular constantly. Third, the study identified lists of leading philosophers, frequently cited publications, and popular journals helpful for researchers and newcomers to get a quick start in learning about the field.     

Perceiving and desiring: a new look at the cognitive penetrability of experience

This paper considers an orectic penetration hypothesis (OPH) which says that desires and desire-like states may influence perceptual experience in a non-externally mediated way. This hypothesis is clarified with a definition, which serves further to distinguish the interesting target phenomenon from trivial and non-genuine instances of desire-influenced perception. Orectic penetration is an interesting possible case of the cognitive penetrability of perceptual experience. The OPH is thus incompatible with the more common thesis that perception is cognitively impenetrable. It is of importance to issues in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, epistemology, and general philosophy of science. The plausibility of orectic penetration can be motivated by some classic experimental studies, and some new experimental research inspired by those same studies. The general suggestion is that orectic penetration thus defined, and evidenced by the relevant studies, cannot be deflected by the standard strategies of the cognitive impenetrability theorist.     

Why philosophy needs a concept of progress

This paper defends the usefulness of the concept of philosophical progress and the common assumption that philosophy and science aim to make the same, or a comparable, kind of progress. It does so by responding to Yafeng Shan's (2022) arguments that the wealth of research on scientific progress is not applicable or useful to philosophy, and that philosophy doesn't need a concept of progress at all. It is ultimately argued that while Shan's arguments are not successful, they reveal the way forward in developing accounts of philosophical progress.     

蛋白质相互作用研究的哲学思考

蛋白质相互作用几乎是所有生物学过程都必需的重要的生理过程,已成为国内外生命科学研究的热点之一.近十年来,多个诺贝尔生理医学奖项目与蛋白质相互作用研究有关.从蛋白质相互作用的特点和重要性出发,结合我们实践中的点滴体会,列举有关实例与数据说明:为什么蛋白质相互作用研究是细胞通讯网络途径中的重要研究环节,从而提出:蛋白质与蛋白质相互作用研究具有丰富的哲学内涵.     

Philosophy for Children and the Extrinsic Value of Academic Philosophy

External pressure on Higher Education Institutes in the United Kingdom has brought the question of the extrinsic value of academic philosophy into focus. One line of research into questions about the extrinsic value of philosophy comes from the Philosophy for Children (P4C) movement. There is a large body of literature about the benefits of P4C. This paper argues that the distinctive nature of the P4C pedagogy limits the claims made by the P4C literature about the extrinsic value of philosophy to claims about the value of P4C. While this is not a problem within the P4C literature that recognises these limitations, the paper makes three claims about why it is sometimes inappropriate to extend claims from research into the value of P4C to claims about the value of non-P4C philosophy. It argues that more research is needed to investigate the value of non-P4C philosophy.     

THE PAST AND FUTURE OF EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY

Experimental philosophy is the name for a recent movement whose participants use the methods of experimental psychology to probe the way people think about philosophical issues and then examine how the results of such studies bear on traditional philosophical debates. Given both the breadth of the research being carried out by experimental philosophers and the controversial nature of some of their central methodological assumptions, it is of no surprise that their work has recently come under attack. In this paper we respond to some criticisms of experimental philosophy that have recently been put forward by Antti Kauppinen. Unlike the critics of experimental philosophy, we do not think the fledgling movement either will or should fall before it has even had a chance to rise up to explain what it is, what it seeks to do (and not to do), and exactly how it plans to do it. Filling in some of the salient details is the main goal of the present paper.     

论医学哲学范畴

医学哲学范畴是医学哲学理论体系中最基本和最深刻的概念,是人们把握生命和健康问题的认识纲领,是对医学问题进行逻辑归类的思维形式。医学哲学范畴是哲学与医学之间多重学术关系的统一,是抽象性与具体性、普遍性与特殊性、稳定性与变易性的结合,体现了学术价值、实践价值和文化价值的等多重价值。医学哲学范畴研究以创新研究为灵魂,以基础研究为根本,以应用研究为标的。     

哲学的困境和黑格尔的幽灵——关于"中国无哲学的反思"

When Western science was introduced to modern China, more translated words were used to express fundamental concepts and terms than borrowed words. The process of academic translation, commensuration, and communication between Western and Chinese philosophy is a process of comparative philosophical research. Nowadays, however, it seems that Chinese philosophy is evaluated by a Western Hegelian criterion. This leads to the debate over whether or not China has philosophy. But it is meaningless to argue about whether or not China has the name of philosophy. The key issue is whether or not China has the actuality of philosophy. Looking at the history of Western philosophy, it seems that the Hegelian definition of philosophy was the only one that existed in Europe. However, during the last 200 years after Hegel that the two main philosophical trends of positivism (scientism) and irrationalism developed from anti-Hegelianism or “Spurning Metaphysics.” As metaphysics is being reconstructed, the ghost of Hegel has reappeared. It is clear that in the future, philosophy will evolve from the development of human metaphysics or cultural philosophy. It is a process of the “negation of negation”: from traditional metaphysics to the spurning of metaphysics, and then to human metaphysics. Translated by Wu Bo from Wenshizhe 文史哲 (Journal of Literature, History and Philosophy), 2005, (3): 18–25     

Causal inference in lead research: introduction to the special section on the neurobehavioral effects of environmental lead.

This Special Section on the Neurobehavioral Effects of Environmental Lead includes empirical reports from three major longitudinal prospective studies and a review of animal research modeling effects of lead on human cognition. This Introductory article addresses a fundamental controversy in lead and other epidemiologic research. It is argued that, contrary to conventional wisdom, valid causal inferences can be made from correlational research. Justification for this is to be found in contemporary frameworks drawn from the field of the philosophy of science; an essential, but often neglected perspective for such metatheoretical issues as causal inference. It is concluded that the nonexperimental methods described in the articles comprising this Special Section can, indeed, contribute to causal formulations of lead effects on human development, and that such inferences are not exclusive to experimental evidence.     

Lessons for experimental philosophy from the rise and “fall” of neurophilosophy

Experimental philosophy is a recent development whose broader aims and goals are still being debated. Some prominent experimental philosophers have articulated an attitude toward perennial philosophy that is reminiscent of an early explicitly defended goal of neurophilosophy, a field that predated experimental philosophy by at least one decade. But relative to that early goal, neurophilosophy quickly “fell” within broader philosophy, and came to assume its current status, a technical specialty within the philosophy of science (now more commonly referred to as “the philosophy of neuroscience”). In this paper I document the revolutionary goal of early neurophilosophy, provide a novel explanation of its “fall,” and suggest that analogous goals of some experimental philosophers set that field up for a similar “fall.” I document recent published evidence that experimental philosophy is trending in this direction.     

The irrelevance of folk intuitions to the "hard problem" of consciousness

Recently, a number of philosophers have turned to folk intuitions about mental states for data about qualia and phenomenal consciousness. In this paper I argue that current research along these lines does not tell us about these subjects. I focus on a series of studies, performed by Justin Sytsma and Edouard Machery, to make my argument. Folk judgments studied by these researchers are mostly likely generated by a certain cognitive system - System One - that will generate the same data whether or not we experience phenomenal consciousness. This is a problem for a range of current experimental philosophy research into consciousness or our concept of it. If experimental philosophy is to shed light into phenomenal consciousness, it needs to be better founded in an understanding of how we make judgments.     

Are philosophers good intuition predictors?

Some philosophers have criticized experimental philosophy for being superfluous. Jackson (1998) implies that experimental philosophy studies are unnecessary. More recently, Dunaway, Edmunds, and Manley (2013) empirically demonstrate that experimental studies do not deliver surprising results, which is a pro tanto reason for foregoing conducting such studies. This paper gives theoretical and empirical considerations against the superfluity criticism. The questions concerning the surprisingness of experimental philosophy studies have not been properly disambiguated, and their metaphilosophical significance have not been properly assessed. Once the most relevant question is identified, a re-analysis of Dunaway and colleagues’ data actually undermines the superfluity criticism.     

Metaphilosophy and the Role of Intuitions

The practice of appealing to intuitions as evidence has recently been criticized by experimental philosophers. While some traditional philosophers defend intuitions as a trustworthy source of evidence, others try to undermine the challenge this criticism poses to philosophical methodology. This paper argues that some recent attempts to undermine the challenge from experimental philosophy fail. It concludes that the metaphilosophical question whether intuitions play a role in philosophy cannot be decided by analyzing our use of the word ‘intuition’ or related terms, and what philosophers rely on may not be manifest on the surface of what they write. The question what intuitions are and what their role is in philosophy has to be settled within the wider framework of a theory of knowledge, justification, and philosophical methodology.

     

Two models of unawareness: comparing the object-based and the subjective-state-space approaches

This article attempts to motivate a new approach to anti-realism (or nominalism) in the philosophy of mathematics. I will explore the strongest challenges to anti-realism, based on sympathetic interpretations of our intuitions that appear to support realism. I will argue that the current anti-realistic philosophies have not yet met these challenges, and that is why they cannot convince realists. Then, I will introduce a research project for a new, truly naturalistic, and completely scientific approach to philosophy of mathematics. It belongs to anti-realism, but can meet those challenges and can perhaps convince some realists, at least those who are also naturalists.     

How to think about informal proofs

It is argued in this study that (i) progress in the philosophy of mathematical practice requires a general positive account of informal proof; (ii) the best candidate is to think of informal proofs as arguments that depend on their matter as well as their logical form; (iii) articulating the dependency of informal inferences on their content requires a redefinition of logic as the general study of inferential actions; (iv) it is a decisive advantage of this conception of logic that it accommodates the many mathematical proofs that include actions on objects other than propositions; (v) this conception of logic permits the articulation of project-sized tasks for the philosophy of mathematical practice, thereby supplying a partial characterisation of normal research in the field.     

Is scientific research driven by opportunity,problems, or observations?

With the recent rise of the philosophy of scientific practices, SSK (Sociology of Scientific Knowledge), and feminist approaches to the philosophy of science, a new perspective is gradually coming into being, holding that the starting point for scientific research is opportunity. Opportunistic features in solar neutrino experiments, Opportunistic features of complexity studies emerging from economics, and the measurement of insects’ flight can prove the above perspective from different angels. It is important and significant to determine whether the starting point for scientific research is opportunity, a problem, or an observation.     

Experimental philosophy and the fruitfulness of normative concepts

Philosophical Studies - This paper provides a new argument for the relevance of empirical research to moral and political philosophy and a novel defense of the positive program in experimental...     

Redefining Ecological Ethics: Science,Policy, and Philosophy at Cape Horn

In the twentieth century, philosophy (especially within the United States) embraced the notion of disciplinary expertise: philosophical research consists of working with and writing for other philosophers. Projects that involve non-philosophers earn the deprecating title of "applied" philosophy. The University of North Texas (UNT) doctoral program in philosophy exemplifies the possibility of a new model for philosophy, where graduate students are trained in academic philosophy and in how to work with scientists, engineers, and policy makers. This "field" (rather than "applied") approach emphasizes the inter- and transdisciplinary nature of the philosophical enterprise where theory and practice dialectically inform one another. UNT's field station in philosophy at Cape Horn, Patagonia, Chile is one site for developing this ongoing experiment in the theory and practice of interdisciplinary philosophic research and education.     

Experimental Explication

Two recently popular metaphilosophical movements, formal philosophy and experimental philosophy, promote what seem to be conflicting methodologies. Nonetheless, I argue that the two can be mutually supportive. I propose an experimentally‐informed variation on explication, a powerful formal philosophical tool introduced by Carnap. The resulting method, which I call “experimental explication,” provides the formalist with a means of responding to explication's gravest criticism. Moreover, this method introduces a philosophically salient, positive role for survey‐style experiments while steering clear of several objections that critics of “positive experimental philosophy” raise. Thus, it provides the experimentalist with a more defensible example of how empirical work can have positive philosophical import. For these reasons, experimental explication should appeal to experimental philosophers (at least those working within the positive program) and formal philosophers alike.