Experimental Philosophy

Experimental Philosophy... in the 3rd Dimension!

So a few years ago I had a post here (Are People Actually Moral Objectivists?) reporting some data we had collected about folk views concerning the status of morality.  Much discussion ensued.  That research project eventually yielded a  co-authored paper in Mind & Language.  

More recently (and more awesomely) the intrepid experimental filmmaker Ben Coonley put together a fantastic, short film based on that paper, starring Amanda Palmer!

Folk Moral Relativism in 3-D  (grab those red/blue 3-D glasses if you have them!)

You may already have seen Ben Coonley's previous short films on the Knobe effect, as well as a multi-part, interactive film on happiness, both inspired by experimental philosophy research, each of which has thousands of views.  This one makes three in this series (so far).  Not only are they great illustrations of the experiments, but they help get folk outside the academia to think about these philosophical issues!

 Have a look!

 

 

Quick x-phi notes around the web

1. Congrats to Wes B., for winning the "Top Quark" from the 3QuarksDaily (which is a great aggregation site, if you're not already familiar with it).  It's for this outstanding post of his a little while back on this very blog.  The prize comes with both bragging rights and 1,000 smackeroos, so, if you see Wes, drinks are on him.

2. Congrats to Josh A., for getting his book reviewed by Williamson (forthcoming in Philosophy), and with a shout-out on the Leiterblog to boot.  

3. Interesting post on the NewAPPS blog by Catarina Dutilh Novaes, How can philosophical theories be empirically tested?  It's a shame there hasn't been more of an exchange between this blog and that one so far.

Update: Appearing this morning, a discussion by Eric Schliesser of the item in #2 in the blog mentioned in #3.

3:AM Interview with Pierce

Congratulations to our own Bryony Pierce, who was recently interviewed by 3:AM.  If you haven't already checked out some of Marshall's earlier interviews, they are all excellent--much like this one!

New *Interactive* Experimental Philosophy Video on YouTube

You all will probably remember the experimental film maker Ben Coonley, who was the creative force behind the YouTube video on the side-effect effect starring Eugene Mirman. Well, he's back, and this time he's actually managed to take it even further.

Focusing on some recent research on happiness and moral evaluations (which was inspired by Sven Nyholm's earlier finding), Ben has made af fully interactive YouTube video in which viewers can learn about experiemntal philosophy research on happiness while participating in a within-subjects version of the original study. That is really taking it to the next level. Check it out:

 

Nahmias Interview with 3:AM

Our own Eddy Nahmias has an illuminating  interview with 3:AM's Richard Marshall--who has been doing a number of really nice interviews as of late with a wide variety of philosophers.  So, when you're done reading the interview with Eddy, you should check out some of Marshall's other interviews for 3:AM as well!

Mele's Interview with 3:AM

Yet another interesting and illuminating interview by 3:AM's Richard Marshall.  This time, Al Mele talks about free will, self-deception, neuroscience, experimental philosophy and a number of other themes.  Check it out!

Joshua Knobe Interview at 3:AM Magazine

A funky little piece by Richard Marshall, if y'all haven't already noticed.

Nahmias, Neuroscience, and Free Will in the NYT

Congrats to our own Eddy Nahmias, who has an op-ed on neuroscience and free will in today's NYT Opinionator/The Stone entitled, "Is Neuroscience the Death of Free Will?"   

X-Phi in Scientific American

There are two new x-phi related pieces in Scientific American.  The first is by Josh Knobe and is entitled, "Thought Experiments: Philosophers."  The second is by Shaun Nichols and is entitled, "Is Free Will and Illusion."   Needless to say, the field of experimental philosophy has come a long way!  

X-Phi in the Stanford Magazine

Stanford Magazine has a nice piece on experimental philosophy.  One of the more interesting bits from the article is a quote from Allen Wood, who will apparently not be standing in line to purchase tickets for our bandwagon tour:

"That more people believe one thing over another, I don't think there is anything very deep to be learned that way," he says. "I'm afraid I don't think that experimental philosophy enables you to learn anything you didn't already know about philosophy, because it's very hard to devise experimental tests to verify claims that are philosophically interesting. Experimental philosophers tend to underestimate the difficulty of designing experiments and research programs. It's much easier to 'know' something than to verify it in a scientific manner. You're more likely to just confirm your own philosophical prejudices and presuppositions. I think a lot of it is false, misleading, pointless at best and maybe even harmful."

If nothing else, it is a bit comical that a non-experimental philosopher would charge us with not appreciating the difficulty of  designing experiments and research programs!  As a free will skeptic who both expected and wanted the data on folk intuitions about free to come out incompatibilist and yet whose name is on a series of papers arguing for natural compatibilism, I can at least say with confidence that not all experimental philosophers are simply fishing for evidence that confirm their own philosophical prejudices and presuppositions.  But at least I can sleep easy knowing that "at best," our work may be pointless.  That alone should dispell the myth that experimental philosophy isn't properly philosophical!