Experimental Philosophy for Beginners | A Gentle Introduction to Methods and Tools

This graduate textbook provides a basic introduction to experimental philosophy (x-phi). In nine chapters, different methods and tools used in X-Phi are explained, spanning quantitative vignette studies, interactive experiments, corpus analysis, psycholinguistic experiments as well as qualitative interview studies. Each chapter introduces a specific experimental method by means of a case study in an easily accessible way and covers the whole research process from the development of a research question to the interpretation of the data.

Stephan Kornmesser is a research associate at the University of Oldenburg’s Department of Philosophy. His main areas of interest are philosophy of science, philosophy of language, and experimental philosophy. He is currently working on his research project “The Diversity of Scientific Concepts” (funded by the German Research Foundation). Recently, he co-edited “The Compact Compendium of Experimental Philosophy” (de Gruyter 2023) and is co-author of “Wissenschaftstheorie. Eine Einführung” (Metzler 2020) and co-editor of “Die multiparadigmatische Struktur der Wissenschaften“ (Springer VS 2014).

Alexander Max Bauer is a research associate at the University of Oldenburg’s Department of Philosophy, working primarily in experimental philosophy, where he is concerned with questions of distributive justice, causation, and speech act theory. Recently, he co-edited “The Compact Compendium of Experimental Philosophy” (de Gruyter 2023), “Empirical Research and Normative Theory” (de Gruyter 2020), and “Philosophie zwischen Sein und Sollen” (de Gruyter 2019). Moreover, he is co-editor of the “Oldenburger Jahrbuch für Philosophie” (University of Oldenburg Press 2017ff.).

Mark Alfano works in philosophy (epistemology, moral psychology), social science (personality and social psychology), and philosophy of technology (epistemology and ethics of algorithms, natural language processing and generation). He also brings digital humanities methods to bear on both contemporary problems and the history of philosophy (especially Nietzsche).

Aurélien Allard is a philosopher of science and experimental philosopher, currently a post-doc at the École Normale Supérieure Paris. His two main areas of interest are theories of justice and the replicability crisis in social and biomedical sciences. After a Ph.D. on the idea of deservingness at the Université Paris 8, he conducted several post-docs at the University of California, Davis, the University of Geneva, and Sorbonne Université. He has recently published on the importance of basic needs and equality for perceptions of social justice, on the development of open science practices in psychology, and on the possibility of using nudges to promote scientific integrity.

Lucien Baumgartner is a Ph.D. candidate in the Eccellenza-Team of Kevin Reuter at the University of Zurich. He works primarily in philosophy of language and philosophy of mind, on projects both empirical and theoretical in nature. His research focuses on normative expressions in natural language, such as thick and thin terms, dual character terms, and normative generics. Lucien has extensive expertise in data science, especially with text data. He also works on integrating Natural Language Processing (NLP) methods into the field of experimental philosophy. In his most recent research, Lucien has been studying the ways in which Large Language Models (LLMs) can be leveraged to investigate philosophical concept classes.

Florian Cova is an assistant professor at the University of Geneva’s Department of Philosophy and the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences. He also teaches philosophy at secondary school level. Cova works at the intersection of philosophy and cognitive science, on topics as varied as moral psychology, action theory, free will, aesthetics and the meaning of life. With Sébastien Réhault, he has co-edited “Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Aesthetics” (Bloomsbury 2018).

Paul Engelhardt is an associate professor in the School of Psychology at the University of East Anglia. He completed a B.Sc. degree at the University of Nebraska Omaha (in psychology), as well as M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at Michigan State University (in cognitive psychology, with a post-graduate specialization in Cognitive Science). Paul trained initially as a psycholinguist with primary expertise in eye tracking, and while at Michigan State studied post-graduate level linguistics. He has also conducted psychological research on a wide range of applied topics related to neurodevelopmental disorders. Paul also teaches and has extensive training in statistical analyses, with a particular focus on individual differences and latent variable modelling. Over the course of his career, he has published approximately 50 research articles and book chapters. He began collaborating with Eugen Fischer almost a decade ago, and within that collaboration has published extensively in Experimental Philosophy, mainly focusing on philosophy of perception.

Eugen Fischer is reader in philosophy at the University of East Anglia. He has held a Heisenberg Research Readership, fellowships at the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study, Collegium Budapest, and the University of Pittsburgh, and grants from funders including the British Academy, the German Research Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, and the Fritz Thyssen Foundation. He is the author of “Philosophical Delusion and its Therapy” (Routledge 2011) and co-edited “Experimental Philosophy, Rationalism, and Naturalism – Rethinking Philosophical Method” (Routledge 2015) and “Methodological Advances in Experimental Philosophy” (Bloomsbury 2019). Through interdisciplinary collaborations, he pioneered the use of psycholinguistic methods in experimental philosophy, for purposes including argument analysis, conceptual engineering, and ordinary language philosophy (published in Cognition, Mind & Language, and Synthese).

Henrike Meyer is a seeker of knowledge and an advocate for education. Her master’s thesis at the University of Oldenburg was focused on experimental philosophy, specifically exploring Austin’s speech act theory. Here, she also dedicated herself to assisting fellow philosophy students as a tutor. Transitioning from academia to the classroom, Meyer found fulfillment as a high school teacher in Berlin, where she endeavored to ignite her students’ passion for philosophy and ethics. Presently, Meyer serves in the EdTech industry, striving to digitize and enhance education for future generations.

Kevin Reuter is an SNSF Eccellenza Professor at the University of Zurich’s Department of Philosophy. He received a Master’s degree in physics from the Technical University of Munich and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Birkbeck, University of London, in 2012. Following his Ph.D., Kevin undertook postdoctoral fellowships in Bochum and Bern before joining the University of Zurich. There, his research explores the complex nature of dual character concepts and thick concepts, among others. His work spans a broad array of subjects within the philosophy of mind, language, and cognitive sciences, including the examination of the nature of pain and emotions, causation, truth, and conspiracy theories.

Justin Sytsma is an associate professor in the philosophy programme at the Victoria University of Wellington in Aotearoa New Zealand. He earned his Ph.D. in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Pittsburgh. Justin’s research focuses on issues related to philosophy of psychology, philosophy of mind, and philosophical methodology. As a practitioner of experimental philosophy, his research into these areas often involves the use of empirical methods.

Kyle Thompson is a philosopher whose research focuses on the intersections between philosophy and psychology. Whether he is writing on experimental philosophy or artificial intelligence, Thompson wants to better understand the human condition and live more fully within it. He is currently a visiting assistant professor at Harvey Mudd College, where he teaches classes on free will, experimental philosophy, artificial intelligence, and academic writing. He earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from Claremont Graduate University after receiving a B.A. in psychology from Pepperdine University. He currently lives in Claremont, California, with his amazing wife, the literal two best dogs, and three uniquely mischievous cats. Thompson’s relationship with x-phi is complicated: he is convinced and skeptical of its value.

Marc Wyszynski is a psychologist and multidisciplinary researcher at the intersection of psychology, computer science, and political science. His academic journey traversed from political science at the University of Hannover to professional public decision-making at the University of Bremen, culminating in a Ph.D. in psychology from Jacobs University (recently rebranded as Constructor University). In his current role at the University of Bremen’s Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Wyszynski explores human behavior and decision-making in digital environments. By synthesizing theories and research methodologies from psychology and computer science, he conducts research contributing to our understanding of human-AI interactions and decision-making processes in digital contexts.