Philosophy 5800 - Experimental Philosophy, Fall 2009

Instructor: Brian Talbot
Office Hours: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays 11 - 12:30, and by appointment
Office Location: HLMS 269A

Readings:

Day 1 - August 24: Introduction
No reading.

Day 2 - August 31 (Your concerns about intuitions)
No reading.

If you're curious about why intuitions can't be due solely to conscious reasoning/thought, here's an excerpt from an article I wrote that explains why. (This is non-mandatory reading).

Day 3 - (date TBA)
Mandatory: Weinberg, Nichols, Stich, "Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions"
Non-mandatory but interesting (you can skim this one and get the main idea): Swain, Alexander, Weinberg, "The Instability of Philosophical Intuitions"

Day 4 - September 14
Mandatory: Knobe - Intentional Action and Side Effects in Ordinary Language, 2003, Analysis
Mandatory: Knobe - Intentional Action in Folk Psychology, 2003, Philosophical Psychology

Day 5 - September 21
Mandatory: Nahmias, Morris, Nadelhoffer, Turner, "Is Incompatibilism Intuitive?"

Non-mandatory stuff on the concept of intention:
If you only read one, I'd read the one by Machery.
Adams & Steadman, "Intentional Action in Ordinary Language"
Knobe, "Intention, Intentional Action, and Moral Considerations" [a reply to Adams & Steadman]
Machery, "The Folk Concept of Intentional Action"

Day 6 - September 28
Mandatory: Greene, "The Secret Joke of Kant's Soul"

Day 7 - October 5
Mandatory:Lopez, T., Zamzow, J., Gill, M. and Nichols, S. Side Constraints and the Structure of Commonsense Ethics, forthcoming in Philosophical Perspectives.
Non-mandatory (this is the one on intuitions about desert): Frieman, C. and Nichols, S. Is Desert in the Details? forthcoming in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.

Day 8 - October 12
Mandatory: Sytsma & Machery, "Two Conceptions of Subjective Experience" (longish, so start early)

Day 9 - October 19
Bernstein, "Experimental philosophy meets experimental design"

Day 10 - October 26
No reading. Instead, we will discuss your short papers. Come prepared to explain the topic you want to address in your short paper and at least sketch (but hopefully more) your proposed experiment.

Day 11 - November 2
A bunch of excerpts from stuff I wrote.

Day 12 - November 9
Kaupinnen, "The Rise and Fall of Experimental Philosophy"

Day 13 - November 16
Alexander, Mallon, Weinberg, "Accentuate the Negative"

Day 14 - November 30
Ludwig, Epistemology of Thought Experiments


Non-mandatory stuff to look at if you want to do me a favor:
"Psychology and the Use of Intuitions in Philosophy," - these are the proofs of my forthcoming paper; the paper starts on page 13 of the document. Red cross-outs indicate where I've made changes (replacing one word for another, etc). If you see any grammar/spelling/philosophy mistakes, I'd love to hear about them.
Comments on 'Side Constraints' - these are the comments I wrote up last weekend on Lopez, et als' paper, if you're interested (they are very similar to what we went over in class).

Click here for the short paper assignment (at the bottom of the handout)