Experimental Philosophy

XPS session at the Eastern APA

Hi folks! For those of you who have or who will be able to get there, we just want to let you know that our group session scheduled for 7:30-10:30 tomorrow night -- though a few presenters short -- will still be happening.

We hope you'll come join us!

X-Phi in The Philosopher's Magazine

The good news: the recent issue of The Philosophers' Magazine has a number of articles on x-phi that many of you will want to read.  The bad news: that magazine's articles are not generally available to nonsubscribers (including me).  The good news: I've got a hold of a few of the penultimate versions of those articles, which we can thus legally post and/or link to here.  I hope to complete the collection soon, and will update as more of them come in.  And in the meantime, folks can use the discussion thread here to moot about the contents of the articles (which I am excited to now get a chance to read myself!)

Buckwalter & Stich, "Gender and the Philosophy Club"

Phelan, "Just What are Your Intentions?"

Knobe, "Is Morality Relative?"

Machery & Sytsma, "Robot Pains and Corporate Feelings" 

Papineau, "What is X-Phi Good For?"

Sommers , "In Memoriam: The X-Phi Debate"

 UPDATE: Jeremy Stangroom of TPM has kindly made the published versions available for us to post here!  You can use the following links to download the articles:

Download Forum tpm 52 Knobe

Download Forum tpm 52 Machery Sytsma

Download Forum tpm 52 Papineau

Download Forum tpm 52 Phelan

Download Forum tpm 52 Sommers

Download Forum tpm 52 Stich Buckwalter

Experimental Philosophy Syllabi

Chris Hill (Brown University, philosophy) is going to be teaching a course on experimental philosophy, and he was thinking that it would be helpful to take a look at some of the syllabi people have used for courses on the topic thus far.

So if you have put together a syllabus for an experimental philosophy course, feel free to email Chris. Or, what might be even more helpful, add a link in the comments to this post or email the document to me so that I can add it in.

It seems like it might be nice to make available some information about the different ways in which different instructors have organized these courses. That way, people who are working out the details of their own courses can get a good sense for some of the good ideas that have already been tried out.

UPDATE:

Here are a few example syllabi:

Michael Bruno (Arizona)

Murray Clarke (Concordia)

John Fischer (UC Riverside)

Brian Huss (York University, year-long course) 

Chris Keegan (SUNY Oneonta)

Joshua Knobe (for a course at UNC)

Edouard Machery (Pitt)

Edouard Machery (for a course at CalTech)

Ron Mallon (Utah)

Shaun Nichols (for a course in Oslo)

Hagop Sarkissian (Baruch College)

Stephen Stich (Rutgers)

Joseph Ulatowski (University of Las Vegas)

And here are some course descriptions (without full syllabi):

Eric Margolis (University of British Columbia)

Chandra Sripada (Michigan)

I will make further syllabi available as they come in.

Experimental Philosophy Lab Meeting in NYC: Sripada and Sheskin (Dec 10)

Join the Metro Experimental Research Group for an experimental philosophy lab meeting this Friday, December 10th, at 3:30 at the NYU Philosophy Department, room 202 (the 2nd floor seminar room). Presentations by Chandra Sripada and Mark Sheskin will be followed by informal discussion at a local pub. Please note: This time talks will be held at NYU, not CUNY. Titles and abstracts follow. More details (including our calendar) are available at: http://www.yale.edu/cogsci/mergcalendar.htm

Chandra Sripada
University of Michigan, Philosophy

Title: The depth of psychological attitudes: A basic dimension of folk psychology?

Abstract: People readily distinguish between evaluative states that are more fundamental  (e.g., values, commitments, and personal priorities) from states that are more ‘superficial’ (e.g., urges, whims, and certain desires and emotions). I will discuss the notion of the depth of a psychological attitude that provides the basis for this distinction. I present the results of studies that show that the perceived depth of an agent’s psychological attitudes influences people’s judgments involving a number of agency-related concepts. These studies involve judgments of responsibility, intentionality, free will, and having a normative reason, among others. I offer a proposal for why depth of psychological attitudes might exert common effects across a broad range of agency-related judgments.

Mark Sheskin
Yale University, Psychology

Title: Preferences regarding explanation generality

Abstract: Which is a better explanation for a hat falling to the ground: “Gravity pulls down hats” or “Gravity pulls down everything”? These explanations vary in their generality, specifically in the taxonomic level of the objects they talk about. The first explanation more specifically addresses the explanandum and is less likely to have exceptions, whereas the second explanation provides information about a larger class of objects and a more general framework for understanding the explanandum. Experiments I conducted with adults and 5-10 year old children indicate that, from a young age, people have a preference for generality in the physical domain and specificity in the biological domain. In this talk, I will present the results of these studies and discuss potential origins of the domain difference.