Scientists may sometimes generalize from their samples to broader populations when they have not yet sufficiently supported this generalization. Do such hasty generalizations also occur in experimental philosophy? To check, we analyzed 171 experimental philosophy studies published between 2017 and 2023. We found that most studies tested only Western populations but generalized beyond them without justification. There was also no evidence that studies with broader conclusions had larger, more diverse samples, but they nonetheless had higher citation impact. Our analyses reveal (...) important methodological limitations of many experimental philosophy studies and suggest that philosophical training may not protect against hasty generalizations. (shrink)

Generic stereotypes are generically formulated generalizations that express a stereotype, like “Mexican immigrants are rapists” and “Muslims are terrorists.” Stereotypes like these are offensive and should not be asserted by anyone. Yet when someone does assert a sentence like this in a conversation, it is surprisingly difficult to successfully rebut it. The meaning of generic sentences is such that they can be true in several different ways. As a result, a speaker who is challenged after asserting a generic stereotype can (...) often simply dismiss the objection and maintain that the stereotype is true in a way that is compatible with the challenger’s objection. In this paper, a semantic theory for generics is presented that accounts for this type of defensive shifting in upholding generic stereotypes. This theory is then used to develop two strategies to object more efficiently. The first strategy is to immediately deny that either of the two possible ways in which a generic can be true obtains. The second strategy is to deny the satisfaction of an additional condition that is necessary for a generic sentence to be true. (shrink)

Some generic generalizations have both a descriptive and a normative reading. The generic sentence “Philosophers care about the truth”, for instance, can be read as describing what philosophers in fact care about, but can also be read as prescribing philosophers to care about the truth. On Leslie’s account, this generic sentence has two readings due to the polysemy of the kind term “philosopher”. In this paper, I first argue against this polysemy account of descriptive/normative generics. In response, a contextualist semantic (...) theory for generic sentences is introduced. Based on this theory, I argue that descriptive/normative generics are contextually underspecified. (shrink)

Several philosophers have recently tried to define natural kinds in epistemic terms only. Given the persistent problems with finding a successful metaphysical theory, these philosophers argue that we would do better to describe natural kinds solely in terms of their epistemic usefulness, such as their role in supporting inductive inferences. In this paper, I argue against these epistemology-only theories of natural kinds and in favor of, at least partly, metaphysical theories. I do so in three steps. In the first section (...) of the paper, I propose two desiderata for a theory of natural kinds. In the second section, I discuss one example of a ‘general’ epistemology-only theory, proposed by Marc Ereshefsky and Thomas Reydon, and argue that theories like theirs fail to provide adequate criteria of natural kinds. In the third section, I focus on one example of a ‘specific’ epistemology-only theory, proposed by P. D. Magnus, and use it to show why such theories cannot justify the claim that the proposed epistemic criteria account for the naturalness of kinds. (shrink)

Scientists often communicate using generic generalizations, which are unquantified generalizations such as ‘Americans overestimate social class mobility’ or ‘sound waves carry gravitational mass’. In this paper, I explain the role of such generic generalizations in science, based on a novel theory about their characteristic meaning. According to this theory, a scientific generalization of the form ‘Ks are F’ says that F is one property based on which category K qualifies as a scientific kind. Because what it takes to qualify as (...) a scientific kind varies depending on the discipline, what a generic sentence entails also varies. Based on this semantic theory, I discuss the benefits and drawbacks of using generic language in science. (shrink)

The current metaphysical race debate is very much focused on the realism question whether races exist. In this paper I argue against the importance of this question. Philosophers, biologists and anthropologists expect that answering this question will tell them something substantive about the metaphysics of racial classifications, and will help them to decide whether it is justified to use racial categories in scientific research and public policy. I argue that there are two reasons why these expectations are not fulfilled. First (...) of all, the realism question about race leads to a very broad philosophical debate about the semantics of general terms and the criteria for real kinds, rather than to a debate about the metaphysics of racial categories specifically. Secondly, there is a type of race realism that is so toothless that it is almost completely uninformative about the metaphysics of race. In response to these worries, I argue that the metaphysical race debate should rather be focused on the question in what way and to what extent ‘racial’ distinctions can ground the epistemic practices of various scientific disciplines. I spell out what I mean by this and go on to demonstrate that trying to answer this question leads to a more fruitful metaphysical debate. (shrink)

One primary goal for metaphysical theories of natural kinds is to account for their epistemic fruitfulness. According to cluster theories of natural kinds, this epistemic fruitfulness is grounded in the regular and stable co- occurrence of a broad set of properties. In this paper, I defend the view that such a cluster theory is insufficient to adequately account for the epistemic fruitfulness of kinds. I argue that cluster theories can indeed account for the projectibility of natural kinds, but not for (...) several other epistemic operations that natural kinds support. Natural kinds also play a role in scientific explanations and categorizations. A theory of natural kinds can only account for these additional kind-based epistemic practices if it also analyzes their causal structure. (shrink)

Various authors have recently expressed doubts about the public relevance of philosophy. These doubts target both academic philosophy in general and particular subfields of philosophy. This paper investigates whether these doubts are justified through two tests in which the lack of public relevance of a philosophical paper is operationalized as the degree to which that paper is isolated. Both tests suggest that academic philosophy in general is more isolated from the broader public than it should be, and confirm the hypothesis (...) that some subfields of philosophy are more isolated than others. We argue that this lack of public relevance is caused by the incentive structure of academic philosophy and discuss a range of individual-level and incentive-level solutions. (shrink)

Ideological diversity has been on the research agenda in the social sciences for a couple of years. Yet in philosophy, the topic has not attracted much interest. This article tries to start filling this gap. We discuss a number of possible causes for the underrepresentation of right-wing and conservative philosophers in the academic profession. We also argue why this should be an important concern, not only morally, but also and primarily epistemically. Lastly, we explore whether the situation in philosophy is (...) more problematic than the situation in other fields, and what kind of ideological diversity would be desirable for academic philosophy. (shrink)

The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders was published in 2013. This manual classifies all known mental disorders and provides operationalized criteria for their diagnosis. The goal of this manual is to facilitate communication, treatment and research with reliable and valid diagnoses. This article will provide a study of what this diagnostic validity actually entails. Firstly, it will include a discussion of the different conceptions of validity that have appeared in the literature so far. To (...) decide between these different conceptions, diagnostic validity will be defined as ”picking out a natural kind’. Secondly, two different accounts of natural and psychiatric kinds are examined, namely, essentialism and pragmatism. Both of these will be rejected in favor of conceiving natural kinds as causal-epistemic kinds. Thirdly, it is argued that the multidimensional complexity of psychiatric disorders does not exclude the possibility of psychiatric kinds being natural kinds. However, pragmatic considerations in classifying disorders have meant that the DSM most likely does not distinguish causal-epistemic kinds very well. I argue that the need to have a single classification both for clinicians and researchers and the priority given to reliability rather than validity has ultimately compromised the diagnostic validity of the DSM. (shrink)

This paper is a review of how biological as well as other scientific theories, concepts and findings have been used to answer philosophical questions regarding the nature of male homosexuality. We argue that while these sciences are certainly relevant for present philosophical debates, few of the different philosophical issues surrounding male homosexuality can be settled by science alone. In the first section, we introduce a number of various essentialist and constructivist views on (male) homosexuality. The second section focuses on the (...) innateness debate over homosexuality. In the last section, we assess the typically constructivist critiques of biological research into homosexuality. (shrink)

Commentary on Lesly Newson and Peter Richerson, Moral Beliefs about Homosexuality: Testing a Cultural Evolutionary Hypothesis.

Both lay people and scientists organize the world around them by categorizing particular things as belonging to kinds. Scientists speak and theorize about various kinds of things, like hydrogen, gold, and water; electron and neutron; Canis lupus and Felis catus; igneous rock, sedimentary rock, and metamorphic rock; schizophrenia, psychopathy, and autism; Caucasian, African, and Amerindian. Given this variety of scientific kind categories, one fundamental question for philosophers of science is whether any of these kinds really are natural kinds, and if (...) so, what it is that constitutes their naturalness.nbsp;is to say, when we classify particular things as belonging to the same kind, is it ever the case that they really or naturally belong to the same kind? Do we ever carve the world at its joints, so to speak? Or, are there rather just many different ways in which we, humans, decide to classify particulars into kinds, each possible classification as conventional as any other? In this dissertation, a realist account of natural kinds is defended, according to which some kind classifications are more natural than others. It is argued that the naturalness of scientific kinds can be accounted for by the Causal Unification Theory. According to this view, the naturalness of a kind category lies in the contribution this category makes to our epistemic practices, as a result of accommodating these practices to a causally unified group of properties. Because the properties of natural kind-members are causally unified, they ground multiple causally sustained generalizations. Thus, natural kinds are the metaphysical grounds of systematic scientific research by allowing for multiple inductive generalizations and predictions, and for unified explanations. This view is developed in response to the historically most important theories about natural kinds and several more recent ones. The Causal Unification Theory of natural kinds is then put to work to elucidate the naturalness of two controversial humannbsp;classifications, namely the biological classification of human races and the social psychological classification of homophobes. The current metaphysical race debate is criticized for being too dependent on broad philosophical issues, and it is shown that asking about the naturalness of races, rather than about their existence, allows for a more nuanced debate that is to a larger extent dependent on empirical results. The example of homophobia is discussed in relation to the worry that the normative dimension of many human kinds diminishes the extent to which they can be considered natural kinds. It is argued that we should not be too pessimistic, but that there is indeed reason for concern. To illustrate this, a case is made that the measurement of homophobia is inflated as a result of the normative dimension of this kind. (shrink)