The Relevance of Experimental Epistemology to Traditional Epistemology

Experimental epistemology is the use of the experimental methods of the cognitive sciences to shed light on debates within epistemology, the philosophical study of knowledge and rationally justified belief. A variety of misconceptions about this experimental approach conspire to make it far more controversial than it should be. For example, no experimental philosopher has ever claimed that experimentation should completely replace philosophical theorizing. Yet experimental philosophers are continually faced with the following challenge by their would-be critics: “If we surveyed everyone and discovered that they believe that skepticism is false (or that it’s rational to believe in God, that we have free will, etc.), how is this fact supposed to put an end to the centuries-old philosophical debate?” The simple answer is “It is not.” The empirical data gathered by experimental philosophers is supposed to inform rather than replace philosophical debate. Experimental philosophers also do not claim that their methods and results will necessarily be relevant to every area of philosophy. Yet it is common for critics to try to think of areas of philosophical debate where experimentation would not seem to be relevant and present them as evidence for the lack of worth of experimental philosophy. However, consider the fact that no philosopher would dream of offering the following argument: “Insights from modal logic are not relevant to every area of philosophy; therefore, modal logic has no value and should not be practiced.” It turns out that the experiments being performed by experimental philosophers can shed light on surprisingly wide swaths of philosophical debate, but there is no claim that they must somehow be relevant to every dispute. What follows is an overview of the main areas of epistemological debate to which experimental philosophers have been contributing and the larger, philosophical challenges these contributions have raised.