Experimental Philosophy and its Critics

Experimental philosophy is one of the most recent and controversial developments in philosophy. Its basic idea is rather simple: to test philosophical thought experiments and philosophers " intuitions about them with scientific methods, mostly taken from psychology and the social sciences. The ensuing experimental results, such as the cultural relativity of certain philosophical intuitions, has engaged “ and at times infuriated “ many more traditionally minded "armchair" philosophers since then. In this volume, the metaphilosophical reflection on experimental philosophy is brought yet another step forward by engaging some of its most renowned proponents and critics in a lively and controversial debate. In addition to that, the volume also contains original experimental research on personal identity and philosophical temperament, as well as state-of-the-art essays on central metaphilosophical issues, like thought experiments, the nature of intuitions, or the status of philosophical expertise. The 13 articles in this volume are reprinted from two special issues of Philosophical Psychology (23.3 and 23.4, 2010) that originally appeared under the title Experimental Philosophy and Its Critics, Parts 1 and 2, and that are partly based on contributions to the workshop "Armchair in Flames? “ Experimental Philosophy and Its Critics" at the University of Cologne (Germany) in September 2008. This book was originally published as a special issue of Philosophical Psychology.