The post is to point readers to a forthcoming article of potential interest: 'X-phi and Carnapian explication'. I co-authored it with James Justus. In the paper we try to bring together experimental philosophy and Rudolph Carnap’s notion of explication. The result is a view on the philosophical value of experimental philosophy that departs in certain ways from both the ‘negative program’ and the ‘positive program,’ as those labels are normally applied.
The paper is archived at PhilPapers, and should be out in Erkenntnis soon:
http://philpapers.org/rec/SHEXAC
Here’s the abstract:
The rise of experimental philosophy (x-phi) has placed metaphilosophical questions, particularly those concerning concepts, at the center of philosophical attention. X-phi offers empirically rigorous methods for identifying conceptual content, but what exactly it contributes towards evaluating conceptual content remains unclear. We show how x-phi complements Rudolf Carnap’s underappreciated methodology for concept determination, explication. This clarifies and extends x-phi’s positive philosophical import, and also exhibits explication’s broad appeal. But there is a potential problem: Carnap’s account of explication was limited to empirical and logical concepts, but many concepts of interest to philosophers (experimental and otherwise) are essentially normative. With formal epistemology as a case study, we show how x-phi assisted explication can apply to normative domains.
Very excited to read this! I get the sense that many of us feel somewhat disconnected from the traditional negative and/or positive projects of x-phi, but have had troubling explicating an alternative positive thesis.
Readers of the blog might like to know that as the very latest original article in Erkenntnis, the publication-draft PDF is, for the moment, available for free download (without login) on the journal's website:
http://link.springer.com/journal/10670
Posted by: Geoff Holtzman | 06/17/2014 at 10:30 AM