Empirical Evidence and Philosophy

Many philosophers think that philosophy shouldn't merely rely on a priori reasoning, but should somehow take evidence from experience, including experimental evidence form sciences, into account. That seems to be a reasonable methodological principle, at least if we accept the existence of something like a mind-independent reality. However, the way philosophers consider empirical evidence to constrain philosophical tenets vary very much among different approaches. On the one hand, "classical" empiricists tend to be constructionist (and more broadly anti-realist) with respect to the ontological import of the theoretical aspects of accepted theories, while rationalists have a overall realist approach to theoretical tenets. On the other hand, the new trend of "experimental philosophy" aims at dismissing a priori reasoning of any sort as valuable in assessing philosophical theses, by arguing that we should test philosophers' intuitions as hypotheses about the behavior of ordinary people, while philosophers who oppose that trend tend to grant to the intuitions of the "experts" a special status--even if they do not share overall confidence into a priori theorizing. How should we appraise the relevance of empirical evidence for philosophical discussion? When is a priori reasoning legitimate? Can we regard empirical evidence about intuitions a different status from empirical constraints from hard sciences in general? The workshop aims at promoting a discussion about those and related topics.

Organized by:

Labont -- Laboratory for Ontology, University of Turin, Italy http://labont.it

Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade, Serbia