Here are two quotes from the first few pages in the new reader Experimental Philosophy edited by Joshua Knobe and Shaun Nichols.
Of course, the most salient difference is just the fact that experimental philosophers conduct experiments and conceptual analysts do not. Thus, the conceptual analyst might write, “In this case, one would surely say…,” while the experimental philosopher would write, “In this case, 79% of subjects said…” (page 4)
But just after that we get…
Not only does it seem to us that empirical considerations can be relevant here; it seems to us just obvious that empirical considerations are relevant. Surely, the degree to which an intuition is warranted depends in part on the process that generated it, and surely the best way to figure out which processes generate which intuitions is to go out and gather empirical data. How else is one supposed to proceed? (page8)
I’m not trying to engage in Gotcha! Philosophy. But the passages taken together are, at least, initially puzzling. I just wanted to point the apparent discrepancy between the two passages.
Some experimental philosophers have been trumpeting an end to our naive reliance on intuitions without some empirical verification that the sources of those intuitions are not suspect.
If the first passage above is supposed to be a claim to this effect – namely that experimental philosophy has a core methodological commitment to not to rely on intuitions without some empirical confirmation of their reliabillity, then there is an odd discrepancy between the two passages. This core commitment seems to involve accepting something like the following two principles.
- Intuitions that come from sources S are unreliable and cannot yield knowledge because they are unreliable.
- Intuitions that have not been empirically confirmed to not come from sources S cannot yield knowledge.
(Let S be whatever sources the experimental philosophers take to be suspect)
These commitments seem to me to be largely supported by some kind of intuition. Intuitions that I assume experimental philosophers have not empirically confirmed the reliability of (but please let me know if I’m wrong on this).
And it looks like a defense of some version of these two principles that appeals solely to intuition is exactly what is going on in the second passage. We get several appeals to intuitions without any of the empirical confirmations that seem to be touted in the first passage as an important difference between experimental philosophy and arm chair philosophy.
Maybe I’m being a bit uncharitable here. If I am, please set me straight.
Reference
Knobe, Joshua, and Shaun Nichols. Experimental Philosophy. Oxford University Press, USA, 2008.
Perhaps I’m just not well-versed enough in X-Phil, but (assuming that the passages you’ve given are verbatim) it looks like what they wrote in the second passage–“…it seem to us that empirical considerations can be relevant here; it seems to us just obvious that empirical considerations are relevant…–is nothing more than a seeming that appears obviously true to the authors. Correct me if I’m mistaken, but I’ve always thought that when we refer to intuitions, we’re referring to “some seeming, S, such that S appears to us to be, on the face of it, obviously true.”
But if that’s the case, then I agree with you completely. If you’re being uncharitable, someone needs to straighten two people out now.
Sounds right to me…
I think there are a couple of charitable ways to take the passage. First, one might point out that they do not say that we should not use intuitions unless the reliability of the source of those intuitions has empirical supported. They say only that an experimental philosopher will conduct experiments whereas a conceptual philosopher will not. They also say that the best way to determine which processes generate which intuitions is to go out and gather empirical date. This is consistent with the claim that an experimental philosopher may also rely on intuitions and that, although it may not be ideal, the reliability of those intuitions may lack empirical support.
But, suppose that they do accept the core commitment that you’ve suggested they may be touting. One might take this passage as an ad hominem. Perhaps they are trying to elicit in you whatever it is that you take to be an intuition in support of their position. They might then say that insofar as you believe that intuitions are a decent source of justification, you should accept their position.
Finally, perhaps they think they do have the empirical support for the reliability of the intuitions that generate their beliefs. They are just not presenting that empirical support in the first few pages of their new reader.
Hi Joshua,
I think I like your first interpretation best.
Regarding the second interpretation, I suspect they do think their position is rational, and I suspect that they are offering what they think is a good motivation for their position (even for them).
Regarding the third interpretation, that’s certainly a possibility – I would have liked to see (even perhaps in a footnote where to go in the reader to find it).
Back the first interpretation – this is what I thought they might have in mind – but then it’s interesting to note that experimental philosophy isn’t the radical shake-up movement that some of the really enthusiastic experimentalists trumpet. In fact, it’s something I’d probably be on board with.
A similar issue came up here. Eric Schwitzgebel indicates how he thinks X-philosophers should handle it.
Thanks John,
That post was very informative. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it looks like Schwitzgebel would go with Joshua’s first interpretation of the the first passage above.
I am not quite sure I am seeing the puzzle here.
Philosophers, as conceptual analyst, many times make claims about what some given person would surely say about a given scenario. However, experimental philosophers see these type of claims as being empirically testable claims (which they clearly are). As an empirical claim, the experimentalist simply prefers to test these claims rather than simply stipulate that the claims are true.
Experimental philosophers are generally also interested in exploring what sorts of mechanisms produce some given intuition and what sorts of individual difference factors, if any, may be able to systematically account for intuition variations.
Identifying the mechanisms, traits, and processes involved in intuition production and intuition variation seem to have obvious potential benefits for identifying the reliability of certain intuitions (via the reliability of the mechanisms).
But at no point are experimental philosophers (or at least the most of experimental philosophers) advocating for the abandonment of conceptual analysis. Generally, they are only advocating the use of experimental methods to compliment conceptual analysis.
I think more directly to your claimed principles that the experimentalist is committed to, I think it may be more accurate (though far from perfectly so) to restate them as follows:
1. Intuitions that come from sources S are unreliable and tend not to reliably yield knowledge because they are unreliable.
2. Intuitions that have been empirically confirmed to come from sources S should be suspect.
(Let S be whatever sources the experimental philosophers take to be suspect)
Jason,
Regarding:
“But at no point are experimental philosophers (or at least the most of experimental philosophers) advocating for the abandonment of conceptual analysis. Generally, they are only advocating the use of experimental methods to compliment conceptual analysis.”
Where do you think someone like Stich fits into this? He strikes me as one of the philosophers that’s really spear-heading this movement, and much of what he writes doesn’t seem to have the conciliatory, harmonious compromise you suggest.
For example, here is a link to a paper on his website – it’s the most recent paper a back and forth between him and Sosa
http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~stich/Publications/Papers/REPLY%20%20to%20%20SOSA%20-%20web.doc
That said – Stich is not Knobe or Nichols – so it’s not fair to pin his views on them.
Depends on what you mean by “conceptual analysis”. Both Stich and Nichols think that _something_ that might plausibly have that name is ok, if it is just a chapter in empirical psychology, that is, a chapter on how people (maybe different people in different ways) happen to go about categorizing the world. But that’s going to look very different from any traditional philosophical conception of “conceptual analysis”. You don’t learn anything at all with any modal, metaphysical, and/or normative force from such investigations, for example.