Experimental philosophy: An interdisciplinary field that uses the collection of empirical data to shed light on philosophical issues.
Joined March 2009
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The journal Cognition – arguably the top journal in cognitive science – has published *ninety-nine* experimental philosophy papers
Clearly, experimental philosophy is now very well integrated into the broader field of cognitive science
Jun 12
Ever wondered which journals have published the most x-phi over the last 25 years? Wonder no more! @rodrigodiazxphi and Max Bauer have scraped a bunch of PhilPapers data to find out the answer. See link 👇for our full blogpost xphi.net/2026/06/12/what-jou…
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People sometimes agree to seemingly teleological sentences like:
"The sun produces light so that plants can photosynthesize"
Does this mean that people literally think the sun produces light for that purpose? New paper in Cognition suggests the answer is No
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Experimental Philosophy retweeted
Jun 8
Is happiness a morally charged concept? Ceteris paribus, is the saint happier than the sinner? Diverging from the great work by @phillipsjs and @xphilosopher, @DanHaybron and I find that morality plays no role in the concept of happiness. OA in AJP: h1.nu/1r82v
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Sex differences in Knobe Effect: slightly stronger among women, more likely to attribute intentionality in harm scenario & less in help scenario; assign more blame in harm scenario across the board, regardless of whether they judged the action intentional.
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.…
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What do people ordinarily mean by "beautiful"?
New experimental philosophy studies
suggest that "beautiful" differs in some pretty fundamental ways from, say, "pretty"
For example, people think you can say "true beauty" but not "true prettiness"
academic.oup.com/bjaesthetic…
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Core finding of this paper:
People think it makes sense to say that even though something clearly isn't beautiful in a superficial sense, there is some deeper sense in which it is truly beautiful
But people think that would not make sense for a word like "pretty"
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In my opinion, this is getting at something fundamental about our whole way of understanding what it means to be beautiful
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Apr 27
The Moral Standing of Created Agents: Bad Is More Owned Than Good - Emily E. Stonehouse, Ori Friedman, 2026 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.…
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Why it’s so hard to agree on what counts as true psyche.co/ideas/why-its-so-h… New research has mapped people’s contrasting conceptions of the truth. No wonder so many arguments feel irresolvable
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Apr 22
Introducing - Where should I publish my x-phi? A new community resource for experimental philosophers, integrating info and metrics for choosing x-phi friendly journals. We'd love more community input and feedback. Check it out! xphi.net/2026/04/22/where-sh…
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New theory of trust in institutions from Sanga and Givati
The theory suggests a new way to understand the ups and downs we see in trust in academic disciplines (how much people trust psychology, philosophy, etc.)
Thread
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.…
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But then, once there is a lot of trust in the discipline, people will have an incentive to take advantage of that trust:
They will capitalize on it to advance other agendas that don’t have to with finding the correct answer… which then leads to decreased trust
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The result is an equilibrium. The trust you build in the discipline through your careful research is actually part of what creates the incentive to make wild claims with no good evidence, which in turn creates decreased trust
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Apr 21
People's philosophical intuitions often clash. Is this due to conflicts between underlying beliefs? Three studies validate a new belief inventory and show laypeople collectively and individually hold conflicting beliefs about vision: link.springer.com/article/10…
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How do people decide whether it’s wrong to harm a pig? A chimp? A baby?
In the West, these judgments are based more on *experience* (being able to feel) than on *agency* (being able to think and act)
Study from @bxjaeger finds that same pattern across other cultures
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Here is the paper and the pattern of judgments for the individual targets
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.…
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Why we love sad music? You probably don’t want a stranger telling you how lonely they are... so why do you want a stranger *singing* about how lonely they are?
Cognitive scientist/opera singer Tara Venkatesan on experimental results about this puzzle psyche.co/ideas/if-we-avoid-…
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Interview with philosopher/psychologist Felipe De Brigard. Discusses his work, but also more personal aspects of his life
Quotation here is about what it was like growing up during a very violent period in the history of Colombia
whatisitliketobeaphilosopher…
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