直覺的直覺

哲學家做實驗的時代要回來了?

一個新的潮流: X-phil (experimental philosophy) 正在非主流哲學世界燃燒中。

回顧哲學與科學尚未分流的一百年前，所謂的愛好智慧者就是以多重管道了解這個世界，這其中當然包括實驗方法。然而隨著不同的科學領域各自因方法學的專業化和知識的累積而專精，哲學似乎也找到自己的角落，從事armchair上邏輯推演與概念分析的工作。

這是哲學家唯一的樣貌嗎?

今天我們可以看到Alva Noe與科學家共同發表paper, Metzinger與科學家合作離體實驗, Ned Block引用大量的科學資料，但是自己在做實驗的哲學家有多少?

直覺？
對直覺感冒的人有福了...X-phil其中一部分的人在問「直覺」是否真的是「直覺」，真的就是街頭上的人未受理論污染的想法（layman on the street)：

Under the x-phi banner it’s possible to distinguish three types of activity. The first uses new brain-scanning technology, for which philosophers teaming up with neuroscientists, like Katja Wiech, to look for patterns of neuronal activity when subjects are presented with philosophical problems. In the second type, philosophers devise questionnaires to discover people’s intuitions and go out in the street with the trusty clipboard. In the third, they conduct field experiments, observing how people behave in particular situations, often without their knowledge. All three aim to test the philosophers’ assumption that they know from introspection what people are likely to say or believe. The traditional philosophical assertion, “we have strong intuitions that…” or “we can all agree that…” now have to be tested against the evidence. The idea of who “we” are is being challenged, for instance by surveys suggesting broad cultural differences about intuitions. The philosopher in his Oxford study may not share intuitions with the shopper down the road in Queen’s Street, whose intuitions, in turn, may differ from those in Queen’s Road, Hong Kong. Such research raises big issues about our moral education. （http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10638）

上面引述的這篇文章將重點放在討論X-phil做的兩種實驗：問卷來探索一般人的直覺，以及腦造影技術來探討人在面對不同狀況時的機制與反應。

Raymond Geuss on Real Politics 在最近一個podcast談得就是一些政治哲學家把一些自己文化與社會的accidental properties當作law like properties建立理想社會與政治理想的model是錯誤的。

有個X-phil的blog

我之後再把自己的感想post上來...先share這個資訊。