Experimental Philosophy

Can We Have Free Will and Lack It Too?

This summer I read Shaun Nichols's excellent new book, Bound: Essays on Free Will & Responsibility (2015, OUP). It includes systematic discussion of the relevant experimental philosophy, as well other empirical research, and how this relates to the problem of free will and related topics (including responsibility and punishment).

I wrote a short (400-word) book note on Bound for the AJP (draft here), which prompted my further thinking and motivated a blog post. You can read a more detailed and comprehensive summary by Manuel Vargas in NDPR that raises some nice worries for Shaun. Here I'd like to summarize just one key component of Bound and raise a distinct worry for it (despite agreeing with many other claims made in the book).

This key component is Nichols's discretionary view. It states roughly that, assuming our actions probably are determined by the past and laws of nature, there are contexts in which it's true that we have free will but also contexts in which it's false. Can we really have our cake and lack it too?

 

Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Language

The latest installment in The Advances in Experimental Philosophy series is now in print. The topic is: Experimental Philosophy of Language. Here is the abstract:

Should philosophy of language use experimental methods, or can it be pursued in the armchair? Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Language represents a balanced variety of positions on this extensively discussed question. In the first collection of its kind, leading experts in the field present a number of different perspectives on the relevance of experimental methods in philosophy of language, ranging from complete dismissals of traditional methods to defences of armchair approaches. As well as exploring possible novel experimental techniques, Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Language evaluates the philosophical relevance of existing experimental results and presents new data from new experimental studies. For scholars looking to stay ahead of the latest developments and trends in the philosophy of language, this important contribution to the field brings the reader up-to-date. 

And here is the table of contents:

1. Introduction, Jussi Haukioja (Norwegian University of Science And Technology, Trondheim, Norway)
2. Kripke's Gödel Case, Max Deutsch (The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)
3. Testing Theories of Reference, Michael Devitt (City University of New York, USA)
4. A Rylean Argument against Reference, Edouard Machery (University of Pittsburgh, USA)
5. The Metaphilosophy of Language, Daniel Cohnitz (Tartu University, Estonia)
6. Experimental Semantics: The Case of Natural Kind Terms, Sören Häggqvist & Åsa Wikforss (Stockholm University, Sweden)
7. Ambiguity and Referential Machinery, Ángel Pinillos (Arizona State University, USA)
8. General Terms, Hybrid Theories and Ambiguity: A Discussion of Some Experimental Results, Genoveva Marti (University of Western Ontario, Canada)
9. Testing Transparent Ascriptions: A Plea for an Experimental Approach, Mark Phelan (Lawrence University, USA)
Index 

For those working in the philosophy of language, this should be a must read!

An Anti-Manifesto

I am pleased to announce that a new volume on experimental philosophy by Jonathan Livengood and myself will be released by Broadview Press at the end of August. In the first part of The Theory and Practice of Experimental Philosophy we provide an introduction to the topic, adopting a broad conception of what counts as work in experimental philosophy (it ain’t just about intuitions); we then motivate the practice and defend it against prominent criticisms. In the second part of the volume, we provide a practical guide to doing experimental philosophy, discussing how to design, implement, and analyze empirical studies.

A pre-print of the introduction to the volume—“An Anti-Manifesto”—is available online here.

Call for Proposals: Advances in Experimental Philosophy Book Series

Call for Proposals

On behalf of the editorial board for the Advances in Experimental Philosophy book series, published by Bloomsbury (formerly Continuum), I am pleased to announce a call for proposals for new volumes.

Published volumes in the series include:

Advances in Experimental Moral Psychology, edited by Hagop Sarkissian and Jennifer Cole Wright

Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Mind, edited by Justin Sytsma

Advances in Experimental Epistemology, edited by James R. Beebe

Forthcoming volumes include:

Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Language, edited by Jussi Haukioja

Advances in Experimental Philosophy and Philosophical Methodology, edited by Jennifer Nado

Advances in Religion, Cognitive Science, and Experimental Philosophy, edited by Helen de Cruz and Ryan Nichols

The editorial board has received and is currently reviewing proposals for new volumes on experimental philosophy and metaphysics, the philosophy of art, and the philosophy of science. 

We would be pleased to receive proposals for collections of original essays on experimental philosophy and the emotions, formal philosophy, cross-cultural differences in intuitions, and other topics. We also welcome single-authored texts on various topics in experimental philosophy. 

Proposals will be reviewed by the series editorial board: James R. Beebe (Philosophy, Univ. at Buffalo, series editor), Joshua Knobe (Philosophy and Cognitive Science, Yale Univ.), Edouard Machery (Philosophy, Univ. of Pittsburgh), Thomas Nadelhoffer (Philosophy, College of Charleston), Eddy Nahmias (Philosophy, Georgia State Univ.), Jennifer Cole Wright (Psychology, College of Charleston), Joshua Alexander (Philosophy, Siena College).

Proposal forms can be downloaded here.  Details about potential volumes can be found here. Completed proposal forms and other inquiries should be sent to series editor James R. Beebe at jbeebe2@buffalo.edu.

Blackwell Companion to Experimental Philosophy

I am happy to announce a forthcoming new volume from the Blackwell Companions to Philosophy Series: A Companion to Experimental Philosophy. It is edited by Justin Sytsma and myself and features over forty chapters from leading philosophers, psychologists and cognitive scientists from several countries across three continents. These chapters detail the application of empirical methods to philosophical questions across major sub-disciplines including the philosophy of action, moral and political philosophy, philosophy of mind, epistemology, philosophy of language, metaphysics, logic, and metaphilosophy.

The general introduction to the volume is available online here, offering a summary of the goals of the volume and a brief introduction to experimental philosophy for a general audience. The table of contents and list of contributors can be found below:

The Moral Brain (MIT Press)

MIT Press has just published what appears to be an excellent volume entitled The Moral Brain: A Multidisciplinary Perspective (edited by Jean Decety and Thalia Wheatley). Given the topics covered (and the all star cast of contributors), the volume ought to be on the reading list of the people who visit this blog! Here is the official description:  

Over the past decade, an explosion of empirical research in a variety of fields has allowed us to understand human moral sensibility as a sophisticated integration of cognitive, emotional, and motivational mechanisms shaped through evolution, development, and culture. Evolutionary biologists have shown that moral cognition evolved to aid cooperation; developmental psychologists have demonstrated that the elements that underpin morality are in place much earlier than we thought; and social neuroscientists have begun to map brain circuits implicated in moral decision making. This volume offers an overview of current research on the moral brain, examining the topic from disciplinary perspectives that range from anthropology and neurophilosophy to justice and law.

The contributors address the evolution of morality, considering precursors of human morality in other species as well as uniquely human adaptations. They examine motivations for morality, exploring the roles of passion, extreme sacrifice, and cooperation. They go on to consider the development of morality, from infancy to adolescence; findings on neurobiological mechanisms of moral cognition; psychopathic immorality; and the implications for justice and law of a more biological understanding of morality. These new findings may challenge our intuitions about society and justice, but they may also lead to more a humane and flexible legal system.

Contributors
Scott Atran, Abigail A. Baird, Nicolas Baumard, Sarah Brosnan, Jason M. Cowell, Molly J. Crockett, Ricardo de Oliveira-Souza, Andrew W. Delton, Mark R. Dadds, Jean Decety, Jeremy Ginges, Andrea L. Glenn, Joshua D. Greene, J. Kiley Hamlin, David J. Hawes, Jillian Jordan, Max M. Krasnow, Ayelet Lahat, Jorge Moll, Caroline Moul, Alexander Peysakhovich, Laurent Prétôt, Jesse Prinz, David G. Rand, Rheanna J. Remmel, Emma Roellke, Regina A. Rini, Joshua Rottman, Mark Sheskin, Thalia Wheatley, Liane Young, Roland Zahn.

Hopefully, this volume will stimulate more interesting discussions concerning the nature and limits of moral psychology!

X-Phi, Rationalism, and Naturalism

Routledge is publishing a new volume edited by Eugen Fischer and John Collins entitled, Experimental Philosophy, Rationalism, and Naturalism: Rethinking Philosophical Method. The list of contributors is top notch, so interested parties should check it out when it comes out in a few months.  Here is the description:

Experimental philosophy is one of the most exciting and controversial philosophical movements today. This book explores how it is reshaping thought about philosophical method. Experimental philosophy imports experimental methods and findings from psychology into philosophy. These fresh resources can be used to develop and defend both armchair methods and naturalist approaches, on an empirical basis. This outstanding collection brings together leading proponents of this new meta-philosophical naturalism, from within and beyond experimental philosophy. They explore how the empirical study of philosophically relevant intuition and cognition transforms traditional philosophical approaches and facilitates fresh ones.

Part One examines important uses of traditional "armchair" methods which are not threatened by experimental work and develops empirically informed accounts of such methods that can potentially stand up to experimental scrutiny. Part Two analyses different uses and rationales of experimental methods in several areas of philosophy and addresses the key methodological challenges to experimental philosophy: Do its experiments target the intuitions that matter in philosophy? And how can they support conclusions about the rights and wrongs of philosophical views?

Essential reading for students of experimental philosophy and metaphilosophy, Experimental Philosophy, Rationalism, and Naturalism will also interest students and researchers in related areas such as epistemology and the philosophies of language, perception, mind and action, science and psychology.

Hopefully, once the book is available, it leads to some interesting discussions here on the blog!

Books of Interest

As some readers may remember, I used to have a pretty extensive list of books of interst for experimental philosophers in the sidebar.  But when I migrated the blog to the new domain, I never went back and added many books. Given how many books have been published recently by the x-phi community (and its critics!), I thought I should work on once again building up the list.  So, please take a look at the books in the sidebar and let me know what you think I should add. As things stand, the list is pretty lopsided in its coverage--with a fous on books in moral psychology (which is unsurprising given my own interests). So, I hope those who work in other areas will make some suggestions. The only caveat is that the books need to be either overtly empirically informed or experimental in nature!  Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

Moral Psychology (Vol. 4): Free Will and Moral Responsibility

MIT Press has just released the latest volume in Walter Sinnott-Armstrong's Moral Psychology series (see here).  The focus of this volume is free will and moral responsibility. The chapters are based on a workshop Walter hosted a few years ago at Duke about the relevance (or lack thereof) of recent developments in psychology and neuroscience to the free will debate. Here are some details:

Overview

Traditional philosophers approached the issues of free will and moral responsibility through conceptual analysis that seldom incorporated findings from empirical science. In recent decades, however, striking developments in psychology and neuroscience have captured the attention of many moral philosophers. This volume of Moral Psychology offers essays, commentaries, and replies by leading philosophers and scientists who explain and use empirical findings from psychology and neuroscience to illuminate old and new problems regarding free will and moral responsibility.

The contributors—who include such prominent scholars as Patricia Churchland, Daniel Dennett, and Michael Gazzaniga—consider issues raised by determinism, compatibilism, and libertarianism; epiphenomenalism, bypassing, and naturalism; naturalism; and rationality and situationism. These writings show that although science does not settle the issues of free will and moral responsibility, it has enlivened the field by asking novel, profound, and important questions.

Contributors
Roy F. Baumeister, Tim Bayne, Gunnar Bjornsson, C. Daryl Cameron, Hanah A. Chapman, William A. Cunningham, Patricia S. Churchland, Christopher G. Coutlee, Daniel C. Dennett, Ellen E. Furlong, Michael S. Gazzaniga, Patrick Haggard, Brian Hare, Lasana T. Harris, John-Dylan Haynes, Richard Holton, Scott A. Huettel, Robert Kane, Victoria K. Lee, Neil Levy, Alfred R. Mele, Christian Miller, Erman Misirlisoy, P. Read Montague, Thomas Nadelhoffer, Eddy Nahmias, William T. Newsome, B. Keith Payne, Derk Pereboom, Adina L. Roskies, Laurie R. Santos, Timothy Schroeder, Michael N. Shadlen, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Chandra Sripada, Christopher L. Suhler, Manuel Vargas, Gideon Yaffe.

First German Volume on Experimental Philosophy

On behalf of my co-editors Thomas Grundmann and Jens Kipper, I am happy to announce "Die Experimentelle Philosophie in der Diskussion", the first German volume on experimental philosophy, to be published this June with the renowned publisher Suhrkamp (among others, the publisher of Herman Hesse, Theodor W. Adorno, and Jürgen Habermas). It is maybe only the second edited non-English volume on x-phi (after this volume in French), and it also contains the first German translations of a number of seminal papers from and about experimental philosophy. In addition to that, there are invited contributions by a number of leading German philosophers, as well as two double-blind reviewed papers that were selected on the basis of a Call for Papers (the contributions by Daniel Dohrn and Eugen Fischer). For those of you who are able to read German, here is the projected table of contents:

 

Thomas Grundmann, Joachim Horvath und Jens Kipper: Die Experimentelle Philosophie in der Diskussion – eine Einleitung

 

I. Schlüsseltexte

1. Jonathan Weinberg, Shaun Nichols und Stephen Stich: Normativität und epistemische Intuitionen

2. Joshua Knobe: Absichtliches Handeln und Nebeneffekte in der Alltagssprache

3. Shaun Nichols und Joshua Knobe: Moralische Verantwortung und Determinismus: Die Kognitionswissenschaft der Alltagsintuitionen

4. Ernest Sosa: Experimentelle Philosophie und philosophische Intuition

5. Joshua Alexander und Jonathan Weinberg: Analytische Erkenntnistheorie und experimentelle Philosophie

 

II. Originalbeiträge

6. Elke Brendel: Wissen, epistemische Intuitionen und experimentelle Philosophie

7. Daniel Dohrn: Empirie, Expertise, Analyse – Der Fall Gettier

8. Daniel Cohnitz: Experimentelle Sprachphilosophie 

9. Ralf Stoecker: Handlungen, Absichten und der Nebeneffekt-Effekt

10. Thomas Metzinger und Jennifer Windt: Die phänomenale Signatur des Wissens: Experimentelle Philosophie des Geistes mit oder ohne Intuitionen?

11. Eugen Fischer: Paradox-Psychologie: Kognitive Epistemologie und philosophische Problemauflösung