Current Controversies in Experimental Philosophy

Edouard Machery, Elizabeth O'Neill

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781136335709
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filosofía
• Subtopic: Historia y teoría filosóficas

Experimental philosophy is one of the most active and exciting areas in philosophy today. In Current Controversies in Experimental Philosophy, Elizabeth O'Neill and Edouard Machery have brought together twelve leading philosophers to debate four topics central to recent research in experimental philosophy. The result is an important and enticing contribution to contemporary philosophy which thoroughly reframes traditional philosophical questions in light of experimental philosophers' use of empirical research methods, and brings to light the lively debates within experimental philosophers' intellectual community. Two papers are dedicated to the following four topics:

• Language (Edouard Machery & Genoveva Martí)
• Consciousness (Brian Fiala, Adam Arico, and Shaun Nichols & Justin Sytsma)
• Free Will and Responsibility (Joshua Knobe & Eddy Nahmias and Morgan Thompson)
• Epistemology and the Reliability of Intuitions (Kenneth Boyd and Jennifer Nagel & Joshua Alexander and Jonathan Weinberg).

Preliminary descriptions of each chapter, annotated bibliographies for each controversy, and a supplemental guide to further controversies in experimental philosophy (with bibliographies) help provide clearer and richer views of these live controversies for all readers.

Part I
Language

Chapter 1
What Is the Significance of the Demographic Variation in Semantic Intuitions?

EDOUARD MACHERY

Abstract

In this article, I review the empirical evidence for the claim that judgments about the reference of proper names in actual and possible cases vary across cultures. I then respond to two objections by Max Deutsch and by Genoveva Martí, who have both argued that this variation has no significant implications for theorizing about reference.

How do proper names refer to their bearers? What makes it the case that “Barack H. Obama” refers to the 44th president of the United States of America? Philosophers of language have offered two fundamentally different kinds of answer to such questions. According to descriptivist theories of reference (Jackson, 1998; McGinn, 2012; Searle, 1958), a proper name refers to whatever satisfies the description associated with this proper name. So, “Paris” refers to the capital of France because the capital of France is the only city that satisfies the description associated with the proper name “Paris.” This basic insight of descriptivist theories of reference can naturally be declined in various ways, depending on what one takes the descriptions associated with proper names to be, on whose descriptions count for securing reference, and so on. But all descriptivist theories of reference stand in sharp contrast to the causal-historical theories of reference (Devitt, 1981; Kripke, 1972/1980). According to these latter theories, a proper name refers to its bearer because of a particular causal chain linking the proper name to its bearer. So, “Paris” refers to the capital of France because the capital of France is causally connected (in the right way) to current uses of “Paris.”

Which of these two approaches of reference is right? Before being in a position to answer this question, however, another issue must be addressed: How does one know which of these approaches to the reference of proper names is correct? That is, what kind of evidence or what type of consideration would favor one approach over the other? Surprisingly, for a long time, philosophers have ignored, or perhaps not addressed explicitly, this question in semantic epistemology. Recently, however, an intense debate, fuelled by findings in experimental philosophy (Beebe & Undercoffer, 2013a, 2013b; Genone & Lombrozo, 2012; Grau & Pury, in press; Lam, 2010; Machery, 2012a; Machery et al., 2010; Machery, Mallon, Nichols, & Stich, 2004; Machery, Olivola, & de Blanc, 2009; Sytsma & Livengood, 2011; Sytsma, Livengood, Sato, & Oguchi, 2012) has been raging about the methods used to identify the correct theory of reference (Andow, in press; Cohnitz & Haukioja, 2013; Deutsch, 2009, 2010; Devitt, 2011, 2012a, 2012b; Ichikawa, Maitra, & Weatherson, 2012; Jackman, 2009; Ludwig, 2007; Machery, 2012b; Machery, Mallon, Nichols, & Stich, 2013; Machery & Stich, 2012; Mallon, Machery, Nichols, & Stich, 2009; Martí, 2009, 2012, this volume; Maynes, in press; Maynes & Gross, 2013; Ostertag, 2013; Reimer, 2009; for review, see Genone, 2012). In previous work, I have argued that when theorizing about the reference of proper names, philosophers of language typically appeal to their judgments about what proper names refer to in actual and possible situations (a method called “the method of cases”) and that evidence about various forms of demographic variation in this type of judgment (which are often, but somewhat misleadingly, called “intuitions”) raise a challenge for this method. The goal of this chapter is to defend this argument against two criticisms: First, the claim that, appearances notwithstanding, philosophers of language do not rely on judgments about reference (Deutsch, 2009, 2010); second, the claim that to determine the referential properties of proper names (and probably other kinds of word), speakers’ use of these words, not their judgments about reference, should be examined (Devitt, 2012a; Martí, 2009, 2012, this volume).

Here is how this chapter proceeds: In Section 1, I review the argument put forward in my previous work. In Section 2, I address the objection that philosophers of language do not appeal to judgments about reference when they theorize about reference and that, as a consequence, demographic variation in judgments about the reference of proper names is irrelevant. In Section 3, I address the objection that use, but not judgments about reference, should be examined to determine the referential properties of proper names.

1. Against the Method of Cases

1.1 The Method of Cases

The method of cases is straightforward. Theories of reference entail that some proper names (e.g., “Barack H. Obama”) refer to particular individuals in actual or merely possible situations (or “cases”). These theories are supported if we judge that these names do refer to these individuals, and they are undermined if we judge that they do not refer to them. Our judgments about the reference of proper names in actual and possible situations play this evidential role because they are taken to be true. So, if we judge that a proper name does not refer to an individual in a merely possible situation, then in this situation, this proper name does not refer to this individual. Naturally, judgments about reference only provide defeasible support or evidence against theories of reference.

The method of cases is well illustrated by Kripke’s (1972/1980) original defense of the causal-historical theory. In Naming and Necessity, Kripke considers a counterfactual case in which a proper name, “Gödel,” is associated with a description, “the man who proved the incompleteness of arithmetic,” that is false of the original bearer of the name but true of someone else, originally called “Schmidt.” Because descriptivist theories of reference hold that a name refers to the individual that best satisfies the description competent speakers associate with it, descriptivist theories entail that “Gödel” refers to the man originally called “Schmidt.” In contrast, causal-historical theories of reference hold that “Gödel” continues to refer to its original bearer because he is the person causally-historically linked with contemporary uses of the name. To provide evidence discriminating these two competing kinds of theory, Kripke asks who an ordinary man would be referring to in this situation:

Suppose that Gödel was not in fact the author of [Gödel’s] theorem. A man called “Schmidt,” whose body was found in Vienna under mysterious circumstances many years ago, actually did the work in question. His friend Gödel somehow got hold of the manuscript and it was thereafter attributed to Gödel. On the [descriptivist] view … when our ordinary man uses the name “Gödel,” he really means to refer to Schmidt, because Schmidt is the unique person satisfying the description “the man who discovered the incompleteness of arithmetic.” So, since the man who discovered the incompleteness of arithmetic is in fact Schmidt, we, when we talk about “Gödel,” are in fact always referring to Schmidt. But it seems we are not. We simply are not. (1972/1980, pp. 83–84)

Taken at face value, this passage provides a striking illustration of the use of the method of cases in debates about reference: Implications of theories of reference for particular cases are examined; judgments about these cases are made; these judgments are taken to bear on the truth of the theories because they are taken to be true.

1.2 Demographic Variation in Intuitions

A decade ago, Ron Mallon, Shaun Nichols, Steve Stich, and I decided to examine whether judgments about the reference of proper names vary across cultures. Influenced by psychologist Richard Nisbett’s (2003) then ground-breaking cross-cultural research in psychology, according to which East Asians (primarily Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans) and Westerners (primarily Americans) tend to have different cognitive styles, we hypothesized that judgments about reference may vary across cultures (Machery et al., 2004). Specifically, we hypothesized that East Asians may be more likely to make descriptivist judgments (i.e., judgments consistent with descriptivist theories of reference) than Westerners.

To test this hypothesis, we presented participants in Hong Kong and in the United States with cases closely inspired by Kripke’s (1972/1980) Gödel case (quoted earlier), such as the following case (for further detail, see Machery et al., 2004):

Suppose that John has learned in college that Gödel is the man who proved an important mathematical theorem, called the incompleteness of arithmetic. John is quite good at mathematics and he can give an accurate statement of the incompleteness theorem, which he attributes to Gödel as the discoverer. But this is the only thing that he has heard about Gödel. Now suppose that Gödel was not the author of this theorem. A man called “Schmidt,” whose body was found in Vienna under mysterious circumstances many years ago, actually did the work in question. His friend Gödel somehow got hold of the manuscript and claimed credit for the work, which was thereafter attributed to Gödel. Thus, he has been known as the man who proved the incompleteness of arithmetic. Most people who have heard the name “Gödel” are like John; the claim that Gödel discovered the incompleteness theorem is the only thing they have ever heard about Gödel. When John uses the name “Gödel,” is he talking about:

• (A) the person who really discovered the incompleteness of arithmetic? or
• (B) the person who got hold of the manuscript and claimed credit for the work?

Another case, the Tsu Ch’ung Chih case, had the same structure, but used names of Chinese individuals. (I collectively call these cases “Gödel-style cases.”)

As we had predicted, we found that East Asians were more likely to make descriptivist judgments about the Gödel and the Tsu Ch’ung Chih cases than were Americans. In fact, most Americans made causal-historical judgments, whereas most East Asians made descriptivist judgments. We also found a substantial amount of within-culture variation.

Follow-up studies have provided further empirical support for the hypothesis that judgments about the reference of proper names vary across cultures. Beebe and Undercoffer (2013a) have independently replicated our original finding and have shown that it is robust: It is still found when the formulation of the vignettes and of the questions about reference is varied. They have also provided some suggestive evidence that East Asians are more likely to make descriptivist judgments about reference in Jonah cases (i.e., cases in which a proper name is associated with an entirely false description and in which people are asked whether the proper name refers to anything or fails to refer). Sytsma and colleagues (2012) have shown that, just like Chinese, Japanese tend to make descriptivist judgments about the reference of proper names in Gödel-style cases, suggesting that the cultural hypothesis put forward in Machery et al. (2004) may well be correct. Machery and colleagues (2009) have shown that in Gödel-style cases judgments about the reference of proper names and judgments about the truth-value of sentences involving these names are in sync with one another: In a given culture, when people tend to report, say, descriptivist judgments about the reference of “Gödel” in the Gödel case, they tend to judge that a sentence such as “Gödel was a great mathematician” uttered in this case would be true. Machery et al. (2010) have shown that Chinese participants make similar judgments when Gödel-style cases are presented in English (as was originally done in Machery et al., 2004) and in Chinese. Machery, Sytsma, and Deutsch (in press) have shown that people are genuinely reporting their judgments about the semantic reference of proper names in Gödel-style cases (roughly, what a proper name refers to according to the language to which it belongs) and not about the speaker’s reference of these names (roughly, what the speaker intends to refer to with a proper name in a given occasion). Finally, Machery (2012a) has provided some tentative evidence that, among experts, judgments about the reference of proper names is influenced by experts’ disciplinary background.

1.3 Philosophical Implications

This expanding body of empirical evidence has various philosophical implications (for discussion, Machery, 2011; Machery et al., 2013; Mallon et al., 2009), but in this chapter, I only focus on their implications for the methodology of semantic theorizing about reference.

If judgments about reference really vary, philosophers of language interested in the reference of proper names need to accommodate such variation. One option would be to maintain that names refer in the same way in all languages and thus infer that variable judgments are not reliable guides to the semantic properties of names. Philosophers of language who adopt this view would reject the method of cases, and they in turn owe an account of how the correct theory of reference is to be determined.

Alternatively, philosophers of language interested in reference could maintain that judgments about reference are reliable guides to the semantic properties of names and go on to infer that names refer differently in different cultures. If they endorse this second option, philosophers of language would need to examine the judgments of ordinary competent speakers empirically, which would lead to a sea change in their methods and might compel them to devise new theories of reference (Machery & Stich, 2012).

A third option would be to insist that some sources of judgments, but not others, are reliable guides to the semantic properties of names. For example, they could suggest that academic philosophers, or linguistic experts, or Westerners, or members of some other special cultural group, make reliable judgments about reference while others do not. The burden for this line of argument is justifying the claim that the favored group of people or of judgments is privileged. Again, arguably, this option would require empirical validation of the reliability of these judgments, and it would re...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction: Experimental Philosophy: What Is It Good For?
• Part I Language
• Part II Consciousness
• Part III Free Will and Responsibility
• Part IV Epistemology and the Reliability of Intuitions
• Supplemental Guide to Further Controversies
• Contributors
• Index