scholarly journals Experimental philosophy and the method of cases

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joachim Horvath ◽  
Steffen Koch
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Method Of Cases

scholarly journals Are thought experiments “disturbing”? The case of armchair physics

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Schindler ◽  
Pierre Saint-Germier
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Method Of Cases

Proponents of the “negative program” in experimental philosophy have argued that judgements in philosophical cases, also known as case judgements, are unreliable and that the method of cases should be either strongly constrained or even given up. Here we put one of the main proponent’s account of why philosophical cases may cause the unreliability of case judgements to the test. We conducted our test with thought experiments from physics, which exhibit the exact same supposedly “disturbing characteristics” of philosophical cases.

Methodological Confusion in Armchair and Experimental Philosophy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avner Baz
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Lottery Paradox ◽  
The Lottery Paradox ◽  
Method Of Cases

The chapter closely examines John Hawthorne’s introduction of the “lottery paradox” in Knowledge and Lotteries (2004) and Joshua Knobe and Sean Nichols’ “Experimental Philosophy Manifesto” (2008), together with other related works of experimental philosophers, with the aim of illustrating the deep confusion about the method of cases on the part of both its armchair practitioners and their experimental critics/reformers. The examination of these texts also serves to raise some of the main issues that will be discussed in subsequent chapters.

Eight Defenses of the Method of Cases

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edouard Machery
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Method Of Cases

Chapter 5 examines eight different ways of defending the method of cases against Unreliability, Dogmatism, and Parochialism, and finds them wanting. It defends the experimental bona fides of experimental philosophy, provides evidence that reflective judgments do not differ from the judgments reported by experimental philosophers, shows that philosophers are not expert judgers, explains why their findings generalize beyond the cases that have been examined, argues that the lesson to be drawn from experimental philosophy can’t just be that judgments are fallible, explains why the prospects for a reform of the method of cases are dim, makes the point that Unreliability, Dogmatism, and Parochialism do not rest on a mischaracterization of the use of cases in philosophy, and defuses the threat that if sound these three arguments would justify an unacceptable general skepticism about judgment.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avner Baz
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Philosophical Practice ◽  
Philosophical Significance ◽  
Present Book ◽  
Method Of Cases

There is little question that experimental philosophy constitutes one of the most significant developments in analytic philosophy in the last couple of decades. What is less clear is what its philosophical significance is, or has been. Whereas its proponents tend to present it as a way of moving forward in philosophy, I would argue that its singular contribution thus far has been that of pressing analytic philosophers to reflect on their favored method of inquiry, thereby helping to bring out fundamental problems with that method. More specifically, the present book argues that the new experimental movement and the responses to it by traditional, “armchair” philosophers have helped to make clear that what is known in contemporary analytic philosophy as “the method of cases”—that is, the widespread philosophical practice of theorizing on the basis of the “application” of terms to “cases”—rests on substantive and challengeable assumptions about language.

Shifting Concepts

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Central Area ◽  
Linguistic Meaning ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Important Work ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Semantic Properties ◽  
Conceptual Variation

Concepts stand at the centre of human cognition. We use concepts in categorizing objects and events in the world, in reasoning and action, and in social interaction. It is therefore not surprising that the study of concepts constitutes a central area of research in philosophy and psychology. Since the 1970s, psychologists have carried out intriguing experiments testing the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning, and have found a great deal of variation in categorization behaviour across individuals and cultures. During the same period, philosophers of language and mind did important work on the semantic properties of concepts, and on how concepts are related to linguistic meaning and linguistic communication. An important motivation behind this was the idea that concepts must be shared, across individuals and cultures. However, there was little interaction between these two research programs until recently. With the dawn of experimental philosophy, the proposal that the experimental data from psychology lacks relevance to semantics is increasingly difficult to defend. Moreover, in the last decade, philosophers have approached questions about the tension between conceptual variation and shared concepts in communication from a new perspective: that of ameliorating concepts for theoretical or for social and political purposes. The volume brings together leading psychologists and philosophers working on concepts who come from these different research traditions.

Acquiring “Knowledge”—An Alternative Model

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avner Baz
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Alternative Model ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
First Language ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Empirical Science ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Method Of Cases ◽  
Striking Fact

The chapter argues that empirical studies of first-language acquisition lend support to the Wittgensteinian-Merleau-Pontian conception of language as against the prevailing conception that underwrites the method of cases in either its armchair or experimental version. It offers a non-representationalist model, inspired by the work of Michael Tomasello, for the acquisition of “knowledge,” with the aim of showing that we could fully account for the acquisition of this and other philosophically troublesome words without positing independently existing “items” to which these words refer. The chapter also aims at bringing out and underscoring the striking fact that, whereas many in contemporary analytic philosophy regard and present themselves as open and attentive to empirical science, they have often relied on a conception of language that has been supported by no empirical evidence.

Internal Difficulties in Defending the Method of Cases, and the Claim of Continuity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avner Baz
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Diversity ◽  
Method Of Cases

The chapter examines Timothy Williamson’s and Herman Cappelen’s attempts to defend the method of cases in its traditional, “armchair” form, against the “cognitive diversity” and “calibration” objections. The aim of the chapter is to continue the work of Chapter One of exposing the internal difficulties that have presented themselves for those wishing to defend the method, and to begin to work toward establishing the book’s basic contention that the method of cases rests on substantive and (therefore) challengeable presuppositions about language. More specifically, the chapter argues that Williamson’s and Cappelen’s defense of the method rests entirely on the claim of continuity between our employment of words outside philosophy and what we do with them when we ask the theorist’s questions and give our answers to them.

Modal Ignorance and the Limits of Philosophy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edouard Machery
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Conceptions ◽  
Theoretical Virtues ◽  
Method Of Cases

Chapter 6 examines the implications of Unreliability, Dogmatism, and Parochialism for modally immodest philosophizing (that is, philosophizing that requires knowledge of metaphysical necessities): Modally immodest issues should be dismissed and philosophy reoriented. Alternatives to the method of cases are critically examined: We cannot gain the required modal knowledge by relying on intuition, by analyzing the meaning of philosophically significant words, and by appealing to alleged theoretical virtues like simplicity, generality, and elegance to choose between philosophical views. Alternative conceptions of philosophy are too deflationary to be satisfying, particularly because there is much philosophizing left once philosophy is reoriented.

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