Under Which King, Bezonian? Experimental Philosophy Versus Thought-Experiment
Under Which King, Bezonian? Experimental Philosophy Versus Thought-Experiment

Summary/Abstract: In this essay I present a critical review of the current debate between partisans of two, on the face of it sharply conflicting present-day movements of thought. On the one hand are ranged the thought-experimentalists, or those who uphold some version of the ‹armchair› philosopher’s traditional appeal to truths of reason or a priori grounds of knowledge. On the other are found their more empirically-minded opponents who urge that we abandon such delusory ideas and instead practise a very different form of ‹experimental philosophy›. This latter is conceived very much on the model of the social sciences and involves a survey of opinion on various topics conducted across a sample group of respondents including, though by no means restricted to, the community of expert or specialist philosophers.

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