Experimental Philosophy: The New New Philosophy

[robg]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/magazine/09wwln-idealab-t.html?ex=1354856400&en=42f8ef6876e20ada&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

[robg]

I noticed the same gig in Pittsburgh, but they seemed to have a division there between the xphi's and armchairs. It seemed weird to me that the xphi's could do science and still call themselves philosophers. Why not just call themselves scientists? That's the problem with philosophy these days, all the good questions have been taken. So they're stuck doing literary analyses.

[jraines → robg]

All the interesting questions left are epistemological ones about language games, so literary works are a sort of test data.

And, yes, there are lot of hacks writing badly about these questions, but in what fields are there not a preponderance of posers?

[mnemonicsloth]

[Philosophers assert that a certain idea is Obvious]: well, that may be so at Princeton or Rutgers. On the other side of the planet, it might seem [that it isn't]. What should philosophers make of that?

That their discipline is the impacted wisdom tooth of the modern academy.

[lg → mnemonicsloth]

Well the big push in xphi is coming from places like Rutgers, where guys like Stich, Maudlin, Goldman, just do very theoretical science.