Experimental Philosophy

Experimental Logic

Consider the sentence: 

(1) The circle is near the square, and it isn't near the square.

This sentence appears to be a contradiction, and it therefore seems that defenders of classical logic would have to say that it was false. However, there are other logics -- Graham Priest's dialetheist logic LP, for example -- in which sentences like this one can turn out to be true. 

A question now arises as to what ordinary folks think of sentences like (1). Do people take the apparently classical view that such sentences have to be false, or do they think that sentences like (1) can actually turn out to be true? 

In a surprising new paper, David Ripley shows that people are actually extremely willing to express agreement with apparently contradictory sentences like this one. In cases at the vague borderline between 'near' and 'not near,' people felt that it was perfectly acceptable to consider an object 'both near and not near.' In fact, they were just as willing to say that an object was 'both near and not near' as they were to say that it was 'neither near nor not near.' 

This is one of the first studies to systematically examine people's ordinary intuitions about the status of contradictions, and so far, it is looking like people think that contradictions can actually be true!

intuitions & curve-fitting

From a very interesting post at Overcoming Bias:

In the ordinary practice of fitting a curve to a set of data points, the more noise one expects in the data, the simpler a curve one fits to that data.  Similarly, when fitting moral principles to the data of our moral intuitions, the more noise we expect in those intuitions, the simpler a set of principles we should use to fit those intuitions....

The fact that our moral intuitions depend greatly on how situations are framed, differ greatly across individuals within a culture, and vary greatly across cultures, suggests lots of noise in our moral intuitions.  The fact that moral philosophers don’t much trust the intuitions of non-moral-philosophers shows they agree error rates are high.  So I wonder: what moral beliefs should we hold in the limit of expecting very large errors in our moral intuitions?

The author, Robin Hanson, uses this idea to make a pretty radical argument in moral philosophy, but the question posed there is of much more general interest and relevance than that one argument, I think.

Sommers at The Splintered Mind

I thought some of the readers of this blog might like to know that Tamler Sommers has some interesting posts up as a guest blogger over at Eric's blog The Splintered Mind.  So, check it out!

experimental philosophy & philosophy of science at Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science

Karola Stotz organized a panel at the PSA a couple of years ago, on the connections between x-phi and the philosophy of science, and she has more recently gotten most of the papers from it placed in Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science.  They are now available online:

Stotz, "Philosophy in the trenches: from naturalized to experimental philosophy (of science)" [this is an introduction to the other three articles]

Weinberg and Crowley, "The x-phi(les): unusual insights into the nature of inquiry"

Stotz, "Experimental philosophy of biology: notes from the field"

Knobe, "Folk judgments about causation"

Filosofia Experimental

I just wanted to welcome our two newest contributors--Carlos Mauros and Susana Cadilha--to the blog and post a link to the exciting blog they have recently launched called Filosofia Experimental.  Here is how Carlos explained the project to me:

We are members of a research group in philosophy named MLAG –Mind Language and Action Group (http://web2.letras.up.pt/ifilosofia/mc/mlag ) from the University of Porto, Portugal. More specifically we are the coordinators of a MLAG project entitled Action, Agency and Rationality. We are very interested in the X-Phi movement and we are also working in some experiments on akrasia and decision. Our intention is to diffuse and discuss experimental philosophy across the Portuguese-speaking countries and in order to do that we have created a blog, in Portuguese, through which we expect to explain what experimental philosophy is, and what is its function and objectives, to state the discussions around it, and to announce the most recent publications on the matter.

Obviously, this is a really exciting development for the field.  Now, if only I spoke Portuguese....

On the Burning Armchair

Soon-to-be-Jaded Dissertator (STBJD), over at The Philosophy Smoker, recently posted about the burning armchair (which has become something of a logo and anthem for X-phiers) and the tension that it and similar things can create. It's an interesting issue. STBJD ultimately concludes that the burning armchair shouldn't pose a problem. It's probably right that it shouldn't. But I wonder whether it does give the wrong impression to many people and whether that should be taken into account.

UNM fMRI Crash Course

I thought I would share the following information for those of you who might be interested.  I am already enrolled, so it would be great if some other x-philes were there to play along:

THE MRN fMRI COURSE:  The Mind Research Network and the University of New Mexico are pleased to announce the next upcoming fMRI Image Acquisition and Analysis course to be held June 15th-17th, 2008 at the Mind Research Network on the campus of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM. The course will include overview of both SPM2 and SPM5.  The course faculty include: Kent Kiehl (The Mind Research Network and the University of New Mexico), Vince Calhoun (The Mind Research Network and the University of New Mexico),  and Tor Wager (Columbia University, NY).  The course will cover experimental design, image acquisition, introductory MR physics, optimized image processing, statistical analysis (i.e., SPM2/5 with General Linear Model and Statistical Nonparametric Mapping (SnPM)) and Independent Component Analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. The course is designed for fMRI researchers who range from beginning to intermediate skill levels. The course will be small, having only 30-40 students. There will be many opportunities to work closely with the faculty.   Students will be trained to analyze example data on their laptops in SPM2, SPM5, GIFT (ICA toolbox), and related toolboxes.  Please visit http://www.mrn.org/courses/the-mrn-fmri-course.html for more course and registration information.

quote of the day

"Many philosophers in epistemology seem to suppose that they own the rights to usage of the terms ‘knowledge’ and ‘belief.’ Such philosophers are vastly outnumbered by ordinary people who are not impressed by claims to trademark these terms."

--Russell Hardin, How Do You Know?: The Economics of Ordinary Knowledge (Princeton UP)

Fisher's Exact Test

I recently noticed that in Weinberg, Nichols, and Stich's "Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions," they used Fisher's Exact Test to get their p value.  Having looked at some of the stuff on FET I was curious what people thought about using this test when analyzing data.  Perhaps the best part about it--at least compared to running chi squared tests on MS Excell!--is that there are plenty of readily available and free on-line programs such as this one.  Now, I am aware that FET is best when the sample size is relatively small, but it would be nice if one of our readers could explain when it ceases to be appropriate to analyze the kind of data we collect concerning folk intuitions, etc.  I would also be happy to hear more in general about the benefits and costs associated with using the two-tailed p value of FET to show significance.  I, for one, am surprised it seems to be used so infrequently by experimental philosophers.  Since I am tempted to start using FET rather than CHI SQ when my sample size is less than 100, I would like to hear from others who know far more about data analysis than I do.  Thanks in advance for your input! 

Buffalo All X-Phi Weekend--Oct. 2nd & 3rd, 2009

The University at Buffalo Experimental Epistemology Research Group is pleased to announce the Buffalo All X-Phi Weekend, which will take place Oct. 2nd & 3rd, 2009.

Fri., Oct. 2nd, will be a Graduate X-Phi Conference, featuring Stephen Stich (Rutgers) as the keynote speaker. A Call for Papers can be found here. Submissions from graduate students are currently being accepted until Aug. 15, 2009.

Sat., Oct. 3rd, will be an Experimental Epistemology Workshop, featuring James Beebe, Michael Bishop, Ram Neta, Shaun Nichols and Jonathan Weinberg as speakers.

Further details about the Buffalo All X-Phi Weekend will be available at http://eerg.buffalo.edu/.