From experimental philosophy to philosophical practice, via feminist epistemology: the use of subjects’ intuitions in empirical research and philosophical counseling

Abstract

The article examines, at preliminary (yet pioneering) level(s), the relationship between experimental philosophy, feminist epistemology and (at a subsidiary, incipient, level) philosophical practice. We opted for a broad approach of the basic premise of experimental philosophy – that even the intuitions of those who are not philosophers can be particularly useful in addressing philosophical issues – and that feminist epistemology is a tool compatible with the former in exploring ways to integrate these methodologies optimally into theorizing. As illustrations and instantiations of this new philosophical perspective based on empirical research we used an the results of an innovative sociological study of perceptions and intuitions of subjects regarding a specific socio-cultural reality and its compatibility with various approaches from the field of philosophical practice.