Experimental Philosophy

May and Holton on Weakness of Will

Just a quick note to say that Josh May and Richard Holton have an exciting new experimental paper on intuitions about weakness of will (which I summarize here). 

Churchland and Suhler at On the Human

There is an on-line discussion over at On the Human about Patricia Churchland and Christopher Suhler's recent work on nonconscious control and agency.  Several experimental philosophers have already joined the conversation, so hopefully some of you will follow suit!  Here is the general introduction and here is the discussion thread.

Blame in Action

Blame in Action - How Moral Evaluation Bears on Intentionality

Venue: University of Potsdam
Dates: July 5-6, 2010

This conference brings together experimental philosophers and moral philosophers to improve our understanding of intentional action, moral responsibility, and their interrelationships. It features papers on
experimental findings and on theoretical issues in action theory and moral philosophy, as well as papers on the connections between them.

Speakers:

Frank Hindriks | Ralf Stoecker | Eric Hilgendorf | Thomas Schmidt | Alfred Mele | Thomas Nadelhoffer | Neil Roughley | Maureen Sie |Logi Gunnarsson | Constantine Sandis | Joshua Knobe | Alessandro Lanteri | Jennifer Hornsby

Check here for the preliminary program:
http://www.uni-potsdam.de/angewandte-ethik/dokumente/blame_action.pdf

X-Phi in N+1; or, the secret lives of straw monsters

Here.  The article is written by a professional philosopher (Prof. Justin Smith, of Concordia University), and so it engages the Nichols & Knobe and Appiah volumes with a level of sophistication that substantially outstrips other popular media engagements with x-phi, and Prof. Smith's historical points are, I think, particularly interesting & well-taken on the whole.

Nonetheless, there are a number of spots where I think he commits some of the common mistakes I see in people writing about x-phi.  A major example of a common error in approaching x-phi is his taking its practitioners to be claiming to offer something vastly more than they actually do claim, and then, of course, pointing out that x-phi does not live up to its (misattributed) promises.  Here is one selection:

"X-phi is packaged as revolutionary, while its defenders seem eager to offer constant reassurances of its “continuity with traditional philosophy.” One cannot help but think of the teenager who cuts loose a bit, perhaps sporting the insignias of a radical party, or the symbols of “Eastern” spirituality, but never going so far as to call his right to the family inheritance into doubt. X-phi wants to stay within the comfortable bounds of mainstream Anglo-American philosophy, while also claiming to subvert many of its basic principles. It offers assurances of its continuity with traditional (i.e., 20th-century Anglophone) philosophy, while at the same time insisting upon its newness.

This is offered as complaint -- there is no other way to take the rather silly & insulting analogy of the second sentence quoted -- but is there actually any real tension here, or even a prima facie appearance of one?  I mean, yes, it's true: some of the core commitments of x-phi are, in fact, pretty substantially at odds with aspects of current mainstream philosophical practice, even while many others are entirely consonant with other aspects.  Were we somehow to think that philosophy as it stands at the early 21st century is a seamless unity, to be taken or rejected only as a whole?  Surely not.  There's only a tension here if one (mis)reads experimental philosophers as trying to do something different, and far more radical, than what they explicitly claim to be doing.

Experimental Epistemology Overview

XPhiles,

I have just completed a draft of an overview of research in experimental epistemology: Download Beebe_Experimental_Epistemology. It will appear in a forthcoming companion to epistemology edited by Andrew Cullison (SUNY-Fredonia), published by Continuum. I would be happy to receive any comments and suggestions on it you may have.

I had to be selective in my coverage. Indeed, since the word limit is 6,000 and I am currently at 8,154, I will have to be even more selective when I submit the final draft.

Thanks, James

Measuring Beliefs about Responsibility and Agency

Eddy, Chandra, and I have been working on a new three-part instrument for measuring intuitions concerning agency, responsibility, determinism, dualism, and the like.  I posted the most recent draft over at Flickers of Freedom.  So, please drop by an give us some feedback!  We are hoping to run some pilot studies soon, but we would like to hear what the pros think about the instrument first.  Thanks in advance for your time and consideration!