tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35201438.post5556045197057924952..comments2023-06-26T01:40:41.928-07:00Comments on Weitermachen!: What's so great about experimental philosophy?Matthew J. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00730262274655726070noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35201438.post-10632436121740084242008-02-04T23:53:00.000-08:002008-02-04T23:53:00.000-08:00I too am pretty keen to figure out the whole EP ph...I too am pretty keen to figure out the whole EP phenomenon. I’ll start responding to Mike with a quote I found today while reading A.J. Ayer’s “Fatalism”. He says, “If it came to the point where we had the means of knowing what was going on in a person’s brain and could use this as a basis for predicting what he would do, and if this knowledge extended to our own future conduct, it is unlikely that our present view of life would remain the same.” Given that Ayer was, if I have my history correct, strongly influenced by the positivists, this statement does not seem too surprising. On the other hand, he was writing at a time (1963) when intuitions were a powerful tool, particularly in the free will and responsibility literature of which the essay was a part. It is my observation that the more radical claims by EPers to be turning philosophy on its head tend to ignore statements like these, which (I think) are far from anomalous. And obviously, as Mike said, the cooperation of science and philosophy dates much further back than this. I imagine, however, that many of us can think of plenty of examples of what EPers are rebelling against and to which we might say “Good riddance.” All in all, I’m a bit put off by the bombast, but excited by the possibility of having new philosophical tools and of thinking of new uses for the old tools. In answer to the question, I don’t think EP is the revolution people sometimes try to make it seem. In many cases, we’re still working with intuitions; we’re just evaluating them by a different metric and/or theorizing about whose intuitions are worth taking seriously. <BR/><BR/>What does experimental philosophy pick out? I think Mike gave a sample that includes almost all of what I’ve encountered. I have a few thoughts about some of EPs interesting features, however. (I’ll restrict my comments to the “polling philosophy” of Knobe, Nichols, Doris, etc, but I’ll go out on a limb and say that some of what I see them as doing may apply to neurophilosophers, too.) <BR/><BR/>What I take to be an important and invigorating aspect of EP is that, by addressing the use of intuitions in philosophizing, it brings into stark relief the possibility of altering the notions we employ when we talking about, for example, moral responsibility. By questioning the strength or generalizability of academic intuitions about notion X, or by presenting intuitions about X that conflict or sync with traditional intuitions, one makes the decision to retain or not retain the traditional notion a clear choice on the part of the philosopher. Instead of concluding with, “…and that’s not what we mean by ‘moral responsibility’, therefore S’s theory can’t be right,” one must address oneself to the question of whether conflicting intuitions, or data that show intuitions to be variant to the point of inconsistency (even within populations), indicate different worthwhile ways of approaching problems of free will, responsibility, etc. In short, it makes the task of justifying our understanding of our traditional philosophical notions a more pressing and concrete task, which is a good thing. <BR/><BR/>Of course, as the Ayer quote above shows, this is neither a new phenomenon nor a new desire. I take it Strawson was trying to do something like this in “Freedom and Resentment”. Could we say the same thing about some of J.J.C. Smart’s articles? Couldn’t you even say something of the sort was on the minds of people like Marx who wanted to use economic theory to invigorate tired idealisms? I’m getting out of my element, but my point is that movements like EP motivate revisionist thinking about philosophical notions in a way that is beneficial to the discipline. And, as with any endeavor of this sort, there will be attempts all along the spectrum from radical to conservative. <BR/><BR/>The potential for EP to help reevaluate and possibly revise philosophical notions is, for me, the most interesting “application” of EP. I think that this side of the EP agenda is probably necessary for the literal application of experimental philosophy’s “findings”, whatever those turn out to be. Issues like neurolaw are exciting, but they seem like the sort of issue that demands philosophical tools appropriate to the technology. This does not mean that philosophical tools and notions must change, only that they should probably be tested against the kinds of debates that will inevitably arise with issues like neurolaw etc. Hegel’s description of how different moments of consciousness require different theoretical tools is a good analogy I think. <BR/><BR/>I recall reading some excerpts from the President’s Council on Bioethics as an undergrad (2005 I think) and thinking that the positions expressed there were often very poorly thought out. Now, I don’t want to say that what I read was entirely representative. I know that the assignment was chosen by my professor, in part, to show a wide range of perspectives on, in this case, human cloning. But the point is that how we think about potential applications of scientific advances should be guided by philosophical discussion of the notions used to adjudicate such debates. And EP seems, in some quarters, to be a forum for this sort of discussion in a way that mainstream analytic philosophy might not be. (Of course, I may just be overestimating the input philosophers are likely to have in these debates in the first place.)Perhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04110547058423307591noreply@blogger.com