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Discussion of Experimental Jurisprudence at the New York Times "Room for Debate"

By Lawrence Solum

Here.  Most readers of LTB have at least a passing acquaintance with "Experimental Philosophy" or "x-phi" and the glimmerings of experimental jurisprudence (x-jur?) that are beginning to emerge.  This is an excellent introduction, with contributions by Joshua Knobe, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Ernest Sosa, Timothy Williamson, Brian Leiter, & Tim Maudlin.  Here is a taste, from Knobe:

I think that what we are seeing now, with the surge of interest in experimental philosophy, is best understood as a return to a more traditional understanding of what philosophy is all about. It seems misleading to describe this new movement in terms of philosophers taking ideas from psychology. Rather, what we see is a growing willingness to just ignore the whole distinction between philosophy and psychology. So these days, there is a band of young philosophers going out and conducting their own studies, collaborating with psychologists, publishing in psychology journals. (Many people in the field don?t even know which researchers are officially supposed to count as philosophers and which as psychologists.)

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on August 20, 2010 (boomark / email).