Experimental philosophy is a new movement that seeks to return the discipline of philosophy to a focus on questions about how people actually think and feel. Departing from a long-standing tradition, experimental philosophers go out and conduct systematic experiments to reach a better understanding of people's ordinary intuitions about philosophically significant questions. Although the movement is only a few years old, it has already sparked an explosion of new research, challenging a number of cherished assumptions in both philosophy and cognitive science.
The present volume provides an introduction to the major themes of work in experimental philosophy, bringing together some of the most influential articles in the field along with a collection of new papers that explore the theoretical significance of this new research.
1: An Experimental Philosophy Manifesto, Joshua Knobe and Shaun Nichols
2: Normativity and Epistemic Institutions, Jonathan Weinberg, Shaun Nichols and Stephen Stich
3: Semantics, Cross-Cultural Style, Edouard Macher, Ron Mallon, Shaun Nichols, and Stephen Stich
4: Identification, Situational Constraint, and Social Cognition: Studies in the Attribution of Moral Responsibility, Rob Woolfolk, John Doris, and John Darley
5: Is Incompatibilism Intuitive?, Eddy Nahmias, Stephen Morris, Thomas Nadelhoffer, and Jason Turner
6: Moral Responsibility and Determinism: The Cognitive Science of Folk Intuitions, Shaun Nichols and Joshua Knobe
7: The Concept of Intentional Action: A Case Study in the Uses of Folk Psychology, Joshua Knobe
8: Bad Acts, Blameworthy Agents, and Inentional actions: Some Problems for Juror Impartiality, Thomas Nadelhoffer
9: Intentional Action: Two-and-a-Half Folk Concepts?, Fiery Cushman and Alfred Mele
10: Empirical Philosophy and Experimental Philosophy, Jesse Prinz
11: Abstract + Concrete = Paradox, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
12: How Are Experiments Relevant to Intuitions?, Ernest Sosa
Joshua Knobe is assistant professor in the philosophy department at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. He has published widely in both psychology (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Psychological Science) and philosophy (Nous, Analysis).
Shaun Nichols is in the Philosophy Department and Cognitive Science Program at the University of Arizona. He is the author of Sentimental Rules (OUP) and co-author (with Stephen Stich) of Mindreading.
"an admirable introduction to the experimental philosophy movement"
– Richard Holton, Times Literary Supplement
"This book is the first to package what is exciting and new about this movement; it collects the most important papers by the leading experimental philosophers [...] As such it is essential reading [...] This is an exciting read-it's not often that something so radical and new comes along in philosophy."
– Finn Spicer The Philosophers' Magazine