Demographic Differences in Philosophical Intuition: a Reply to Joshua Knobe

Stich, Stephen; Machery, Édouard

doi:10.1007/s13164-021-00609-7

Cited by 23 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…However, this research did find support for the first three hypotheses, suggesting that even philosophers' reflectiveness can be a robust predictor of their philosophical views related to the existence of god, the reality of scientific theories, and the referents of words even after controlling for factors that better explained variance in other philosophical tendencies. Overall, these data provide further empirical justification of philosophers "preoccupation with reflection" (Doris, 2015 Chapter 2) and its role in philosophical thinking (Byrd, 2021) even if there is more to philosophical tendencies than just reflective reasoning (Kneer et al, 2022;Knobe, 2021;Stich & Machery, 2022).…”

Section: Intuition-belief Alignmentmentioning

confidence: 74%

“…Moreover, the correlations between reflection and philosophical tendencies have varied between WEIRD and non-WEIRD societies Gervais et al, 2018). These results raise questions about cross-cultural differences in philosophical thinking (Stich & Machery, 2022; see however Knobe, 2022) such as whether correlations between reflection and philosophical tendencies will vary by culture-and not just in macrocultural comparisons such as between WEIRD and non-WEIRD nations, but in more micro-cultural comparisons such as between populations that differ along one of the WEIRD dimensions, such as education (Tobia et al, 2013).…”

Section: Culturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…So even if the metaphilosophical hypothesis is consistent with the data presented in this paper, additional hypotheses might fruitfully supplement it. One such supplemental hypothesis is a demographic difference hypothesis (Henrich et al, 2010;Kitayama et al, 2019;Stich & Machery, 2022).…”

Section: Reflection and Demographic Defaultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Great Minds Do Not Think Alike: Philosophers’ Views Predicted by Reflection, Education, Personality, And Other Demographic Differences

Byrd¹

2022

Preprint

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Prior research found correlations between reflection test performance and philosophical tendencies among laypeople. In two large studies (total N = 1299)—one pre-registered—many of these correlations were replicated in a sample that included both laypeople and philosophers. For example, reflection test performance predicted preferring atheism over theism and instrumental harm over harm avoidance on the trolley problem. However, most reflection-philosophy correlations were undetected when controlling for other factors such as numeracy, preferences for open-minded thinking, personality, philosophical training, age, and gender. Nonetheless, some correlations between reflection and philosophical views survived this multivariate analysis and were only partially confounded with either education or self-reported reasoning preferences. Unreflective thinking still predicted believing in God whereas reflective thinking still predicted believing that (a) proper names like ‘Santa’ do not necessarily refer to entities that actually exist and (b) science does reveal the fundamental nature of the world. So some robust relationships between reflection and philosophical tendencies were detected even among philosophers, and yet there was clearly more to the link between reflection and philosophy. To this end, demographic and metaphilosophical hypotheses are considered.

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Section: Intuition-belief Alignmentmentioning

confidence: 74%

Section: Culturementioning

confidence: 99%

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Great Minds Do Not Think Alike: Philosophers’ Views Predicted by Reflection, Education, Personality, And Other Demographic Differences

Byrd¹

2022

Preprint

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“…Machery goes on to conclude that, "variation and instability (due to presentation variables such as different framings or different orders of presentation) are thus both substantial and widespread, " (ibid). According to a separate analysis of these differences, more than 90 studies to date involving over 75,000 participants in experimental cognitive science have reported demographic variation in judgments to philosophical cases (Stich & Machery, 2022). While there is currently some debate regarding the frequency or strength to which philosophical intuitions vary by demographic groups (Knobe, 2019), the possibility that demographic or presentation effects impact judgments when using the method of cases cannot be ignored.…”

Section: Sample Sizementioning

confidence: 99%

The replication crisis and philosophy

Buckwalter

2022

PhiMiSci

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The replication crisis is perceived by many as one of the most significant threats to the reliability of research. Though reporting of the crisis has emphasized social science, all signs indicate that it extends to many other fields. This paper investigates the possibility that the crisis and related challenges to conducting research also extend to philosophy. According to one possibility, philosophy inherits a crisis similar to the one in science because philosophers rely on unreplicated or unreplicable findings from science when conducting philosophical research. According to another possibility, the crisis likely extends to philosophy because philosophers engage in similar research practices and face similar structural issues when conducting research that have been implicated by the crisis in science. Proposals for improving philosophical research are offered in light of these possibilities.

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“…For example, I won't discuss whether there is a "male/female brain" (Joel et al, 2015), nor whether cross-cultural diversity is an obstacle to psychological generalization (Henrich et al, 2010(Henrich et al, , 2022. I will also put aside questions about the extent of (particularly cross-cultural) variability in philosophical intuitions (Knobe, 2019;Stich & Machery, 2022), as the validity of armchair methods in philosophy is not my focus.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive Variation: The Philosophical Landscape

Ward

2022

Philosophy Compass

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We do not all make choices, reason, interpret our experience, or respond to our environment in the same way. A recent surge of scientific interest has thrust these individual differences into the spotlight: researchers in cognitive psychology and neuroscience are now devoting increasing attention to cognitive variation. The philosophical dimensions of this research, however, have yet to be systematically explored. Here I make an initial foray by considering how cognitive variation is characterized. I present a central dilemma facing descriptions of individual differences, discuss several distinctions used to categorize variation, and show that these distinctions require further elaboration. Finally, by canvassing several philosophical topics for which the characterization of cognitive variation may have significant implications, I argue that philosophers should take note of how and why our minds differ.

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Demographic Differences in Philosophical Intuition: a Reply to Joshua Knobe

Cited by 23 publications

References 19 publications

Great Minds Do Not Think Alike: Philosophers’ Views Predicted by Reflection, Education, Personality, And Other Demographic Differences

Great Minds Do Not Think Alike: Philosophers’ Views Predicted by Reflection, Education, Personality, And Other Demographic Differences

The replication crisis and philosophy

Cognitive Variation: The Philosophical Landscape

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