1st Edition
Experimental Philosophy and its Critics
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.
1. Introduction Joachim Horvath, University of Cologne, Germany & Thomas Grundmann, University of Cologne, Germany
2. Intuitions about Personal Identity: An Empirical Study Shaun Nichols, University of Arizona, USA & Michael Bruno, Mississippi State University, USA
3. Philosophical Temperament Jonathan Livengood, University of Pittsburgh, USA, Justin Sytsma, East Tennessee State University, USA, Adam Feltz (Schreiner University, USA), Richard Scheines, Carnegie Mellon University, USA & Edouard Machery, University of Pittsburgh, USA
4. Are Philosophers Expert Intuiters? Jonathan M. Weinberg, University of Arizona, USA, Chad Gonnerman Indiana University, USA, Cameron Buckner, Indiana University, USA & Joshua Alexander, Siena College, USA
5. Saving the Doxastic Account of Intuitions, Christian Nimtz (University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany)
6. Is Experimental Philosophy Philosophically Significant? Joshua Alexander, Siena College, USA
7. Philosophical Methodology: The Current Debate Anand Vaidya, San Jose State University, USA
8. Intuitions and Meaning Divergence Ernest Sosa, Rutgers University, USA
9. Intuitions and Relativity Kirk Ludwig, Indiana University, USA
10. How (Not) to React to Experimental Philosophy Joachim Horvath, University of Cologne, Germany
11. Some Hope for Intuitions: A Reply to Weinberg Thomas Grundmann, University of Cologne, Germany
12. Philosophers and Grammarians Jens Kipper, University of Cologne, Germany
13. Intuitions, Concepts, and Imagination Frank Hofmann, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
14. On the Nature of Thought Experiments and a Core Motivation of Experimental Philosophy Joseph Shieber, Lafayette College, USA
Biography
Joachim Horvath is Post-Doctoral Researcher at the University of Cologne, Germany. He has mainly published in epistemology and metaphilosophy. His current research is on conceptual analysis, experimental philosophy, thought experiments and the theory of epistemic justification.
Thomas Grundmann is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cologne, Germany. He has published widely in epistemology and the philosophy of mind. In his current research he is mainly working on a priori knowledge, metaphilosophy, metaepistemology, scepticism and social epistemology.