Theories of reference have been central to analytic philosophy, and two views, the descriptivist view of reference and the causal-historical view of reference, have dominated the field. In this research tradition, theories of reference are assessed by consulting one’s intuitions about the reference of terms in hypothetical situations. However, recent work in cultural psychology (e.g., Nisbett et al. 2001) has shown systematic cognitive differences between East Asians and Westerners, and some work indicates that this extends to intuitions about philosophical cases (...) (Weinberg et al. 2001). In light of these findings on cultural differences, two experiments were conducted which explored intuitions about reference in Westerners and East Asians. Both experiments indicate that, for certain central cases, Westerners are more likely than East Asians to report intuitions that are consistent with the causal-historical view. These results constitute prima facie evidence that semantic intuitions vary from culture to culture, and the paper argues that this fact raises questions about the nature of the philosophical enterprise of developing a theory of reference. (shrink)

<P>Experimental philosophy is one of the most active and exciting areas in philosophy today. In <EM>Current Controversies in Experimental Philosophy</EM>, Elizabeth O’Neill and Edouard Machery have brought together twelve leading philosophers to debate four topics central to recent research in experimental philosophy. The result is an important and enticing contribution to contemporary philosophy which thoroughly reframes traditional philosophical questions in light of experimental philosophers’ use of empirical research methods, and brings to light the lively debates within experimental philosophers’ intellectual community. (...) Two papers are dedicated to the following four topics:</P> <P></P> <UL> <LI>Language (Edouard Machery & Genoveva Martí)</LI> <LI>Consciousness (Brian Fala, Adam Arico, and Shaun Nicols & Justin Sytsma)</LI> <LI>Free Will and Responsibility (Joshua Knobe & Eddy Nahmias and Morgan Thompson)</LI> <LI>Epistemology and the Reliability of Intuitions (Kenneth Boyd and Jennifer Nagel & Joshua Alexander and Jonathan Weinberg).</LI></UL> <P></P> <P>Preliminary descriptions of each chapter, annotated bibliographies for each controversy, and a supplemental guide to further controversies in experimental philosophy (with bibliographies) help provide clearer and richer views of these live controversies for all readers.</P> <P></P> <P> </P>. (shrink)

Reverse inference is the most commonly used inferential strategy for bringing images of brain activation to bear on psychological hypotheses, but its inductive validity has recently been questioned. In this article, I show that, when it is analyzed in likelihoodist terms, reverse inference does not suffer from the problems highlighted in the recent literature, and I defend the appropriateness of treating reverse inference in these terms. 1 Introduction2 Reverse Inference3 Reverse Inference Defended3.1 Typical reverse inferences are fallacious3.2 No quick and (...) easy fix3.3 A likelihoodist defense of reverse inference3.4 An example4 Appropriateness of the Likelihoodist Approach4.1 Likelihoodist reverse inference is not applicable4.2 Cognitive neuroscientists are not interested in comparative conclusions4.3 Reverse inference and negative hypotheses4.4 Likelihoodist reverse inference may confuse cognitive neuroscientists4.5 Bayesian reverse inferences should be preferred to likelihoodist reverse inferences5 Conclusion. (shrink)

Recent experimental fi ndings by Knobe and others ( Knobe, 2003; Nadelhoffer, 2006b; Nichols and Ulatowski, 2007 ) have been at the center of a controversy about the nature of the folk concept of intentional action. I argue that the signifi cance of these fi ndings has been overstated. My discussion is two-pronged. First, I contend that barring a consensual theory of conceptual competence, the signifi cance of these experimental fi ndings for the nature of the concept of intentional action (...) cannot be determined. Unfortunately, the lack of progress in the philosophy of concepts casts doubt on whether such a consensual theory will be found. Second, I propose a new, defl ationary interpretation of these experimental fi ndings, ‘ the trade-off hypothesis ’ , and I present several new experimental fi ndings that support this interpretation. (shrink)

In Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds, Edouard Machery argues that resolving many traditional and contemporary philosophical issues is beyond our epistemic reach and that philosophy should re-orient itself toward more humble, but ultimately more important intellectual endeavors, such as the analysis of concepts.

In several disciplines within science—evolutionary biology, molecular biology, astrobiology, synthetic biology, artificial life—and outside science—primarily ethics—efforts to define life have recently multiplied. However, no consensus has emerged. In this article, I argue that this is no accident. I propose a dilemma showing that the project of defining life is either impossible or pointless. The notion of life at stake in this project is either the folk concept of life or a scientific concept. In the former case, empirical evidence shows that (...) life cannot be defined. In the latter case, I argue that, although defining life may be possible, it is pointless. I conclude that scientists, philosophers, and ethicists should discard the project of defining life. (shrink)

I am grateful for Joshua Alexander and Jonathan Weinberg’s, Avner Baz’s and Max Deutsch’s insightful comments on Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds. I have lea.

Over recent years, the psychology of concepts has been rejuvenated by new work on prototypes, inventive ideas on causal cognition, the development of neo-empiricist theories of concepts, and the inputs of the budding neuropsychology of concepts. But our empirical knowledge about concepts has yet to be organized in a coherent framework. -/- In Doing without Concepts, Edouard Machery argues that the dominant psychological theories of concepts fail to provide such a framework and that drastic conceptual changes are required to make (...) sense of the research on concepts in psychology and neuropsychology. Machery shows that the class of concepts divides into several distinct kinds that have little in common with one another and that for this very reason, it is a mistake to attempt to encompass all known phenomena within a single theory of concepts. In brief, concepts are not a natural kind. Machery concludes that the theoretical notion of concept should be eliminated from the theoretical apparatus of contemporary psychology and should be replaced with theoretical notions that are more appropriate for fulfilling psychologists' goals. The notion of concept has encouraged psychologists to believe that a single theory of concepts could be developed, leading to useless theoretical controversies between the dominant paradigms of concepts. Keeping this notion would slow down, and maybe prevent, the development of a more adequate classification and would overshadow the theoretical and empirical issues that are raised by this more adequate classification. Anyone interested in cognitive science's emerging view of the mind will find Machery's provocative ideas of interest. (shrink)

Machery et al. (2004) reported some preliminary evidence that intuitions about reference vary within and across cultures, and they argued that if real, such variation would have significant philosophical implications (see also Mallon et al. 2009). In a recent article, Genoveva Martı´ (2009) argues that the type of intuitions examined by Machery and colleagues (‘metalin- 10 guistic intuitions’) is evidentially irrelevant for identifying the correct theory of reference, and she concludes that the variation in the relevant intuitions about reference within (...) and across cultures has not been established. (shrink)

: While thought experiments play an important role in contemporary analytic philosophy, much remains unclear about thought experiments. In particular, it is still unclear whether the judgments elicited by thought experiments can provide evidence for the premises of philosophical arguments. This article argues that, if an influential and promising view about the nature of the judgments elicited by thought experiments is correct, then many thought experiments in philosophy fail to provide any evidence for the premises of philosophical arguments.

This article critically examines the contemporary resurgence of empiricism (or “neo-empiricism”) in philosophy, psychology, neuropsychology, and artificial intelligence. This resurgence is an important and positive development. It is the first time that this centuries-old empiricist approach to cognition is precisely formulated in the context of cognitive science and neuroscience. Moreover, neo-empiricists have made several findings that challenge amodal theories of concepts and higher cognition. It is argued, however, that the theoretical foundations of and the empirical evidence for neo-empiricism are not (...) as strong as is usually claimed by its proponents. The empirical evidence for and against neo-empiricism is discussed in detail. (shrink)

The defining insight of evolutionary psychology consists of bringing considerations drawn from evolutionary biology to bear on the study of human psychology. So characterized, evolutionary psychology encompasses a large range of views about the nature and evolution of human psychology as well as diverging opinions about the proper method for studying them.¹ In this article, I propose to clarify and evaluate various aspects of evolutionary psychologists’ methodology, with a special focus on their heuristics of discovery—i.e., their methods for developing plausible (...) hypotheses—and their strategies of confirmation—i.e., their methods for providing empirical support for these hypotheses.² I will also evaluate several well-known objections raised against evolutionary psychology. Note that because views about psychology and evolution differ among evolutionary psychologists, I do not pretend to cover every method used in evolutionary psychology.³. (shrink)

In this article, I focus on two claims made by Appiah in Experiments in Ethics: Doris’s and Harman’s criticism of virtue ethics fails, and moral psychology can be used to identify erroneous moral intuitions. I argue that both claims are erroneous.

We have recently presented evidence for cross-cultural variation in semantic intuitions and explored the implications of such variation for philosophical arguments that appeal to some theory of reference as a premise. Devitt (2011) and Ichikawa and colleagues (forthcoming) offer critical discussions of the experiment and the conclusions that can be drawn from it. In this response, we reiterate and clarify what we are really arguing for, and we show that most of Devitt’s and Ichikawa and colleagues’ criticisms fail to address (...) our concerns. (shrink)

In “Concepts Are Not a Natural Kind” (2005), I argued that the notion of concept in psychology and in neuropsychology fails to pick out a natural kind. Piccinini and Scott (2006, in this issue) have criticized the argument I used to support this conclusion. They also proposed two alternative arguments for a similar conclusion. In this reply, I rebut Piccinini and Scott’s main objection against the argument proposed in “Concepts Are Not a Natural Kind.” Moreover, I show that the two (...) alternative arguments de- veloped by Piccinini and Scott are not promising for supporting the conclusion that concepts are not a natural kind. (shrink)

Ce texte a déjà paru dans Tracés. Revue de Sciences humaines, n° 4, 2003. Nous remercions Édouard Gardella de nous avoir autorisé à le reproduire ici. Pour un cheminement vers la notion de « self » (Goffman) Là où l'âme prétend s'unifier, là où le Moi s'invente une identité ou une cohérence, le généalogiste part à la recherche du commencement – des commencements innombrables […]. Suivre la filière complexe de la provenance, […] c'est découvrir qu'à la racine de ce (...) que nous connaissons et de ce que nous sommes, (...) - Sociologie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Quartz (2002) argues that some recent findings about the evolution of the brain (Finlay & Darlington, 1995) are inconsistent with evolutionary psychologists’ massive modularity hypothesis. In substance, Quartz contends that since the volume of the neocortex evolved in a concerted manner, natural selection did not act on neocortical systems independently of each other, which is a necessary condition for the massive modularity of our cognition to be true. I argue however that Quartz’s argument fails to undermine the massive modularity hypothesis.

Although cognitive scientists have learned a lot about concepts, their findings have yet to be organized in a coherent theoretical framework. In addition, after twenty years of controversy, there is little sign that philosophers and psychologists are converging toward an agreement about the very nature of concepts. Doing without Concepts (Machery 2009) attempts to remedy this state of affairs. In this article, I review the main points and arguments developed at greater length in Doing without Concepts.

The disagreement between philosophers about the scientific worth of the evolutionary behavioral sciences (evolutionary psychology, human behavioral ecology, etc.) is in part due to the fact that critics and advocates of these sciences characterize them very differently. In this article, by analyzing quantitatively the citations made in the articles published in Evolution & Human Behavior between January 2000 and December 2002, we provide some evidence that undermines the characterization of the evolutionary behavioral sciences put forward by their critics.

Contemporary research on racial categorization is mostly encompassed by two research traditions—social constructionism and the cognitive-cum-evolutionary approach. Although both literatures have some plausible empirical evidence and some theoretical insights to contribute to a full understanding of racial categorization, there has been little contact between their proponents. In order to foster such contacts, we critically review both traditions, focusing particularly on the recent evolutionary/cognitive explanations of racial categorization. On the basis of this critical survey, we put forward a list of eleven (...) requirements that a satisfactory theory of racial categorization should satisfy. We conclude that despite some decisive progress, we are still far from having a complete theory of why humans classify people on the basis of skin color, body appearance or hair style. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Joshua Knobe (2019) offers a startling account of the metaphilosophical implications of findings in experimental philosophy. We argue that Knobe’s account is seriously mistaken, and that it is based on a radically misleading portrait of recent work in experimental philosophy and cultural psychology.

We discuss the implications of the findings reported in the target article for moral theory, and argue that they represent a clear and genuine case of fundamental moral disagreement. As such, the findings support a moderate form of moral anti-realism – the position that, for some moral issues, there is no fact of the matter about what is right and wrong.

This chapter examines the folk concept of disease by assessing (1) whether disease judgments are influenced by whether a condition is typical, dysfunctional, and disvalued and (2) whether they are influenced by the causes and symptoms of a condition. Results tentatively suggest that the folk concept of disease is naturalistic (i.e., value judgments don’t seem to matter) and perhaps not essentially causal (symptoms are sufficient for a condition to be a disease) and that gender and disgust sensitivity influence disease judgment.

Une thèse dominante et assez peu discutée aujourd’hui veut que l’avènement de la science classique implique une distinction radicale entre « connaissance » et « interprétation ». L’âge classique serait celui où la connaissance, définie par son univocité, et l’interprétation, nécessairement plurielle et inadéquate, diffèrent, tant par leurs méthodes (quant elles en ont une) que par leurs objets. L’article veut mettre en lumière et en question les fondements de cette opposition, en examinant la continuité du thème de l’interpretatio naturae depuis (...) les premiers acteurs de la révolution copernicienne jusqu’à la naissance de l’« herméneutique » dans le cartésianisme hollandais des années 1650. (shrink)

La philosophie des Lumières, les droits de l'homme et le principe de laïcité qui s'en inspirent constituent le socle des institutions de la France, mais c'est la mort du Roi, symbolique de celle du Père et de Dieu, qui scelle le pacte républicain. Or, Dieu est une dimension incontournable de la conscience humaine. On ne peut le nier. On ne peut que l'intégrer. C'est pourquoi la souveraineté populaire de Jean-Jacques Rousseau ne sera que le visage inversé de l'absolutisme royal. Les (...) pays anglo-saxons ont préservé, grâce à la Réforme Protestante, une relation à la transcendance. Ce sont leurs principes auxquels aujourd'hui est confrontée la France à l'occasion de sa rencontre avec l'Europe, en même temps que dans sa relation aux Etats-Unis. La mort de Dieu, les Droits de l'Homme, tels que les ont définis les révolutionnaires de 1789, n'engendrent-ils pas un retour du refoulé qui serait à l'origine des totalitarismes? A travers une lecture de Rousseau, de Nietzsche, de Marx, de Foucault, Edouard VALDMAN met au jour avec acuité, en se référant à Arendt et Lévinas, la Blessure qui est à l'origine de la France contemporaine : son parricide. Il démontre que l'Europe ne pourra se réaliser que si elle est en mesure de s'élever au-dessus des Etats-Nations qui la composent, à travers un principe transcendant posant comme fondement de sa future Constitution celui de la pluralité humaine. " L'homme dépasse infiniment l'homme! " Pascal. (shrink)

Baumard and colleagues put forward a new hypothesis about the nature and evolution of fairness. In this commentary, we discuss the relation between morality and their views about fairness.

In this article, we present evidence that in four different cultural groups that speak quite different languages there are cases of justified true beliefs that are not judged to be cases of knowledge. We hypothesize that this intuitive judgment, which we call “the Gettier intuition,” may be a reflection of an underlying innate and universal core folk epistemology, and we highlight the philosophical significance of its universality.

Theories of reference have been central to analytic philosophy, and two views, the descriptivist view of reference and the causal-historical view of reference, have dominated the field. In this research tradition, theories of reference are assessed by consulting one's intuitions about the reference of terms in hypothetical situations. However, recent work in cultural psychology has shown systematic differences between East Asians and Westerners, and some work indicates that this extends to intuitions about philosophical cases. In light of these findings on (...) cultural differences, two experiments were conducted which explored intuitions about reference in Westerners and East Asians. Both experiments indicate that, for certain central cases, Westerners are more likely than East Asians to report intuitions that are consistent with the causal-historical view. These results constitute prima facie evidence that semantic intuitions vary from culture to culture, and that paper argues that this fact raises questions about the nature of the philosophical enterprise of developing a theory of reference. (shrink)

This article develops a new, general account of replication. I argue that a replication is an experiment that resamples the experimental components of an ori...