New Directions in Metaphilosophy

There has been increasing interest in metaphilosophical questions over the past two decades. Whether philosophy makes progress has been widely debated (e.g. Williamson 2006, Dietrich 2011, Chalmers 2015, Stoljar 2017, Beebee 2018). Experimental philosophy and its scope have been examined (e.g. Sosa 2007, Kamber 2011, Kriegel 2017). The role of the principle of simplicity in philosophy has been contested (e.g. Sober 2002, Willard 2014, Brenner 2017). The evidential function of intuitions has been reassessed (e.g. Silva 2013, Buckwalter 2014, Chudnoff 2014). New methods (e.g. digital philosophy of science) have been developed (Pence and Ramsey 2018). This conference aims to explore and examine new approaches, new theories, and new problems in metaphilosophy.

The questions to be addressed include (but are not limited to):

What is the principle of simplicity? Is simplicity a virtue of philosophical hypotheses?

What is the role of thought experiment in philosophy?

What is the role of intuition in philosophy?

What are the prospects of experimental philosophy?

What is the difference between philosophy and science?

Does philosophy progress? What is the nature of philosophical progress?

The conference is planned to be an in-person event at the University of Kent, but it might be converted to a virtual event if travel and gathering are still difficult by then.  

*Selected papers from the conference will be considered for publication in a special issue of Metaphilosophy.