ABSTRACT Folk psychology, or the everyday practice of interpreting each other’s behavior in terms of mental states, is a common feature of many social communities. The existence of such practices in which people ascribe for example beliefs, desires and intentions to each other, raises important philosophical questions. For example, what is the purpose of ascribing mental states to another person or to oneself? And: do folk psychological practices in different social communities have any necessary features in common? Even though recent work in experimental philosophy provides valuable information on differences between folk psychological practices, we will show that the methods of experimental philosophy are not fully suited to answer such questions. Instead, we will argue that to understand the aims of folk psychology and to map out similarities and differences between various practices, we need what Gilbert Ryle called thick descriptions of the particularities of folk psychological practices found in different communities. More specifically, in order to develop such thick descriptions, philosophical research on folk psychology should engage more seriously with the discipline of anthropology, which employs methods specifically geared toward generating thick descriptions of “ordinary life” in various social practices.

Thucydides’ rendition of the Melian Dialogue is one of the most famous parts of his History of the Peloponnesian War, and possibly the most famous debate in international relations theory to this day. It has been retold, described, interpreted, analyzed and criticized in a vast number of works on international relations and ethics. The goal of this paper is to present and interpret the Melian Dialogue from a new, so far underexplored perspective, and view it as a thought experiment. In order to achieve this goal, the paper first provides a short discussion of several types and functions of thought experiments in philosophy and elsewhere. Second, the paper presents a short version of the Melian Dialogue. Third, the paper gives an interpretation of the Melian Dialogue as a thought experiment, argues that reading it as a thought experiment is possible, and attempts to pinpoint exactly what kind of thought experiment Thucydides conducted in terms of its function and logical structure.

Abstract Several studies in experimental philosophy and semantics have shown that a substantial number of English speakers consider a statement true even if it does not align with the facts, as long as it is justified from the speaker's perspective. These findings challenge the prevailing view among philosophers that truth in the empirical domain is uniformly based on a statement's correspondence to reality. In this study, we explore how perspective-taking influences truth assessments by showing that this influence depends on how the critical question assessing the statement’s truth is phrased. Our results show that when the question targets only the proposition, e.g., “Is it true that [the uttered proposition]?”), participants typically apply a correspondence view of truth—consistent with philosophical convention. But when the question also highlights the speaker (e.g., “Is [the speaker]’s answer true?”), many participants shift toward judging the statement from the speaker’s perspective. We discuss four possible explanations for this behavior and examine the implications of the findings for other philosophical discussions concerning truth and lying, the theory of reference, and norms of assertion.

Abstract I argue for a radical publicity of normative theorizing. Such radical publicity derives from the fact that it is not chiefly the normative principles that should enjoy some stable public acceptance, but the key concepts themselves such as ‘democracy’ and ‘discrimination’. These ‘thick concepts’ contain both descriptive and normative content and are up for grabs in normative theorizing to an extent that has not been appreciated thus far by philosophers and theorists. My argument focuses on the case of normative theorizing about discrimination, and I review some pertinent recent examples of experimental philosophy that indicate what radical publicity might require and also sketch some further suggestions for meeting the requirements of radical publicity going forward.

William Herschel's defense of speculative inquiry.

Abstract Can philosophy's a priori methods deliver knowledge about how we make sense of the world? This challenge is historical, though it has its contemporary counterparts in the growing number of philosophers now practising ‘experimental philosophy’. An early iteration of this debate came about when Cavell was challenged by his colleagues to defend the methods of ordinary language philosophy. In recent articles, Hansen and Sandis have been explicit in their attempts to reconnect with Cavell and his interlocutors. Both think Cavell might have an answer for his critics but disagree over what that answer is. I argue that Cavell does indeed have an answer, but neither Sandis nor Hansen fully capture it. While Hansen suggests that Cavell's best defence of his methods is to focus his project on how we should make sense (not how we, in fact, do), I suggest it is the potential for conceptual divergence that is crucial to recognising why philosophy survives the empiricist critique. It is through the work of philosophy that we establish who ‘we’ are and how we make sense. I finish by showing how this conception of philosophy can explain a weakness in Williamson's argument from disagreement against the epistemological conception of analyticity.

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the question of the nature and extent of the impact that the new experimental natural philosophy that emerged in the second half of the seventeenth century had on the discipline of logic or the art of thinking. It does so through the examination of the writings of three logicians whose works appeared in the first half of the eighteenth century, namely, Jean-Pierre de Crousaz, Isaac Watts, and William Duncan. Through an examination of references to experimental philosophy in their logic texts, with a special focus on their sections on method, the paper argues that experimental philosophy did, indeed, have an impact; an impact that increases in importance over time. Experimental philosophy was not simply used for illustrative purposes but was integrated into their accounts of induction and the methods of analysis and synthesis. The logics under consideration show the legacy of developments within late scholastic logic, the importance of the theory of principles, and the influence of leading philosophers such as Descartes, Pascal, and Locke.

Abstract A brief introduction to this special issue on theme of experimental philosophy of religion—the project of taking the tools and resources of the human sciences and bringing them to bear on important issues within philosophy of religion, toward philosophical ends.

This study proposes a theoretical account of the evolution of the extended mind hypothesis by using experimental philosophy (x-phi) in the study of the concept of intrinsic content. Building on Clark's (1998) argument on behalf of extended cognition and Adams and Aizawa's (2001) neural-centric process argument, it considers how cognitive boundary judgments relying on intuition can illuminate the use of external devices, such as notebooks or mobile phones, in mental processes. The study concludes that x-phi's methods, which explore folk intuitions, offer a practical means of figuring out whether intrinsic content is contained in the brain or distributed across external systems. By considering factors like socioeconomic status that may affect intuitions, it highlights x-phi's ability to provide empirical insights to discussions in philosophy of mind (Knobe & Nichols, 2008). Drawing on inter-disciplinary methods across several disciplines (Yüksel, 2021), this research links philosophy and cognitive science and offers an addition to debates around 4E cognition (embodied, embedded, extended, enactive). The proposed method is aimed at making the theoretical and intuitive components of extended mind theory more transparent and providing a gateway towards future empirical investigations.

Reimagining the Philosophy of Experimentation in Chemistry Education: Embracing AI as a Tool for Scientific Inquiry

ABSTRACT This study investigates the influence of evaluative judgments, specifically regarding an individual’s moral character, on judgments of health and disease. Though it might seem that judgments of health and disease should be impervious to evaluative judgments, two hypotheses suggest that health and disease judgments could be influenced by evaluative judgments: the “naturalization hypothesis” which centers on our inclination to assign blame, and the “pathologization hypothesis,” rooted in the belief of a just world. These hypotheses lead to opposing predictions about how someone with a perceived negative moral character could have their condition categorized. Employing a fictional vignette and the methodologies of experimental philosophy, our research provides evidence in favor of the “pathologization hypothesis.” While this phenomenon likely carries real-world implications, especially in healthcare, it also has potential for offering insights into the dynamics of medicalization and stigma.

In this article, I sketch out the contours of a political philosophy of experimentation. Drawing on the work of Joseph Rouse, Hans Radder, Gilbert Hottois, and Jerome Ravetz, I argue that such a political philosophy of experimentation already exists, but has often been rendered invisible. Mainstream Anglophone philosophy of science often focuses on epistemological questions, typically at the expense of political questions about science. I argue that such a politicization of philosophy of science can be linked to the topic of experimentation, which transforms epistemological questions about representations of the world into political questions about interventions in the world. In the first section of the article, I examine the work of a number of political philosophers of experimentation in order to make explicit what I mean by a “political” philosophy of experimentation. In the second section of the article, I present a systematized argument why a philosophy of experimentation should be political. Finally, in the last section, I map out more explicitly the set of questions that are central to such a political philosophy of experimentation, in particular questions about what I call the politics of interaction, referring to how science and society should interact; the politics of organization, referring to how science should be organized; and the philosopher as political activist, referring to the question of whether philosophers should also act on their theories.

The article explores the problem of the cognitive value of thought experiments (TEs) and fictions. Specifically, it deals with the claim that fictions have cognitive value in virtue of being (elaborate) thought experiments. First, a short overview of the cognitive value of TEs is presented, followed by the recent findings from experimental philosophy, which cast doubt on the value of TEs. This is followed by an examination and rejection of the claim that fictions are TEs (as presented by Elgin) for two reasons. First, the analogy between scientific and thought experiments and fictions ultimately fails, as fictions contain the very variables that must be absent for performing successful scientific and thought experiments; second, because of this and based on the research in experimental philosophy, fictions should bias the reader to a greater degree than TE— this is shown to be collaborated by text comprehension research. This claim is further substantiated by analysing two examples of fictions, Le Guin’s The Matter of Seggri and her satirical piece A Modest Proposal: Vegempathy. Finally, a more modest claim is considered, namely that fictions contain TEs, which must be properly extrapolated and analysed, yet this leads to issues that are similar to the value of TEs debate. The article thus concludes that using TEs is not advisable for securing the cognitive value of fiction.

Abstract Using experimental philosophy methodologies, this paper explores standing to blame and praise, specifically within respect to health and health advice. Our primary aim is to contribute insights to the literature on standing, while also addressing work in medical ethics on the appropriate roles of doctors. Two main principles regarding standing emerge from these areas: the Differential Relationship Principle and the Hypocrisy Principle. To propel the debates and test these principles, we investigate whether standing judgments are affected by factors such as relationship (whether the person giving health advice is a friend or a doctor), advisor consistency (whether the advisor themselves follow the health advice they offer), and advisee consistency (whether the advice-recipient follows the advice). Moreover, we explore how participants perceive the degree of blame or praise individuals deserve for following health advice or for their health outcome. Our main findings indicate that, surprisingly, doctors are judged to have a higher standing compared to friends, and that hypocritical behavior does not significantly reduce the perceived standing of either doctors or friends. We conclude by discussing the significance of our findings and outlining potential directions for future research.

Abstract In this paper, I bring together several strands of criticism of experimental philosophy and draw out certain lessons for the nascent field of experimental philosophy of religion (XPoR). I argue that the negative/positive distinction conflates several underlying questions that conceptually come apart, thus undermining the framework such that XPoR need not try to accommodate the framework. I then argue that for certain topics of study in XPoR, the folk may actually be treated as a kind of ‘expert’ class, thus defending the utility of gauging folk beliefs on those issues. Lastly, I offer some reflections on the etic/emic distinction as it relates to the philosopher/folk divide with respect to topics in XPoR.

Experimental Philosophy and the Origins of Empiricism

We find evidence of belief in belief-intuitive preferences for religious belief over atheism, even among atheist participants-across eight comparatively secular countries. Religion is a cross-cultural human universal, yet explicit markers of religiosity have rapidly waned in large parts of the world in recent decades. We explored whether intuitive religious influence lingers, even among nonbelievers in largely secular societies. We adapted a classic experimental philosophy task to test for this intuitive belief in belief among people in eight comparatively nonreligious countries: Canada, China, Czechia, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam (total N = 3,804). Our analyses revealed strong evidence that 1) people intuitively favor religious belief over atheism and that 2) this pattern was not moderated by participants' own self-reported atheism. Indeed, 3) even atheists in relatively secular societies intuitively prefer belief to atheism. These inferences were robust across different analytic strategies and across other measures of individual differences in religiosity and religious instruction. Although explicit religious belief has rapidly declined in these countries, it is possible that belief in belief may still persist. These results speak to the complex psychological and cultural dynamics of secularization.

In this paper, I argue that Johann Christoph Sturm's eclectic scientific method reveals an unexpected indebtedness to Francis Bacon's thought. Sturm's reception of Bacon is particularly surprising given that the German academic context in the second half of the seventeenth century was still largely Aristotelian. Sturm is indebted to Bacon in the following respects: (1) the critique of the current state of knowledge, (2) eclecticism, (3) a fluid transition from natural history to natural philosophy, (4) the conception of science as hypothetical and dynamic and (5) experimental philosophy and the use of instruments. Given that Sturm mentions Francis Bacon in important places in his work, these respects should not easily be dismissed as commonplace. Bacon is one of Sturm's salient sources and they are both deeply concerned with a thoroughgoing reform of existing scientific practices.

Abstract The problem of evil is an ideal topic for experimental philosophy. Suffering – which is at the heart of most prominent formulations of the problem of evil – is a universal human experience and has been the topic of careful reflection for millennia. However, interpretations of suffering and how it bears on the existence of God are tremendously diverse and nuanced. Why does suffering push some people toward atheism while pushing others toward deeper faith? What cultural, psychological, or sociological differences account for this diversity of responses? And, importantly, what light might this diversity of responses shed on the problem of evil and how it has been formulated by philosophers in recent years? The aim of this article is to highlight how the tools and resources of experimental philosophy might be fruitfully applied to the problem of evil. In the first section, we review some recent work in this area and describe the current state of this emergent body of literature. In the second section, we review the broader and more recent theoretical developments on the problem of evil. In the final section, we outline some potential areas of future empirical research that we see as especially promising given those developments.

ABSTRACT Recent years have seen a rise in the engagement with empirical methods in philosophy. However, explicit discussion of the method and methodology behind such approaches is scarce, in particular for engagement with qualitative ethnographic styles of empirical research. This entry gathers debates from various philosophical subfields where ethnography has found a philosophical use. First, I introduce ethnography and highlight different versions through examples from phenomenology, political philosophy, ethics and philosophy of science. Then, I address three common challenges raised against the relevance and legitimacy of ethnographic philosophy, some specific to ethnography, others shared with experimental philosophy and integrated history and philosophy of science. The entry ends by suggesting some benefits of ethnographic philosophy, including a potential for genuine surprise, the opportunity to fine‐tune and enrichen concepts and a better grasp at philosophical significance in human lives. In addition, I note that ethnography encourages more thoroughgoing philosophical self‐reflection about contextual and situational features of philosophical theories and about the particularities of the philosophers developing them, introducing the idea of ‘naturalising the philosopher’.