logo
episode-header-image
Jun 2013
58m 29s

Episode 25: Burning Armchairs (with Josh...

Tamler Sommers & David Pizarro
About this episode

Josh Knobe, the Michael Corleone of experimental philosophy, joins us to talk about taking philosophy into the lab and the streets.   We discuss how people moralize everyday concepts like intention, causation, and innateness.  Dave wonders if X-phi people are just doing social psychology, and Tamler tries his best to get Josh mad with his critique of Josh's experimental work on free will.  He might have succeeded but that argument had to be cut a little short this time.  We'll have to have Josh back for the rematch! 

Links

Experimental philosophy Anthem [youtube.com]

Experimental Philosophy [fun 3 minute overview, youtube.com] 

The Experimental Philosophy webpage. 

Josh Knobe's webpage 

Person as Scientist, Person as Moralist by Joshua Knobe

Philosophy meets the real world  [slate.com] 

In Memoriam: The X-Phi Debate by Tamler Sommers [Philosophers Magazine] 

Experimental Philosophy and Free Will: An Intervention by Tamler Sommers

Experimental Philosophy [wikipedia.org] 

Using the Knobe effect as an implicit measure of homophobia:  Inbar, Y., Pizarro, D.A., Knobe, J., & Bloom, P. (2009). Disgust sensitivity predicts intuitive disapproval of gaysEmotion, 9, 435-439.
 

 

 

Special Guest: Joshua Knobe.

Support Very Bad Wizards

Up next
Nov 11
Episode 320: Forgive Me (Kafka's "A Hunger Artist")
David and Tamler return to one of their favorites, Frans Kafka, this time on his beautiful and distressing short story "The Hunger Artist," a story that brims with metaphorical possibilities but also implores us to accept it on its own mysterious terms. Plus gooning. The Goon Squ ... Show More
1h 29m
Oct 28
Episode 319: The Shadow of the Object (Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia")
David and Tamler transfer their libidinal energy to Freud's 1917 article "Mourning and Melancholia," in which he tries to understand what's going on with depression, attempts to distinguish it from normal grief, and arrives at some ideas that laid the groundwork for his later the ... Show More
1h 35m
Oct 14
Episode 318: A PTA Meeting
David and Tamler share some brief thoughts about Paul Thomas Anderson's latest masterpiece One Battle After Another before going deep on his most underrated movie Inherent Vice. We explore the many connections between the two movies - Pynchon adaptations, shadowy forces, snitches ... Show More
1h 48m
Recommended Episodes
Feb 2023
Ep. 310: Wittgenstein On World-Pictures (Part Two)
Concluding our discussion of On Certainty, with guest Chris Heath. We try one last time to get a handle on Wittgenstein's philosophy of science. How do people actually change their minds about fundamental beliefs? Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife ... Show More
44m 12s
Apr 2022
Very Bad Gurus with David Pizarro & Tamler Sommers
In the most ambitious crossover since the Fraggles met the Muppets, this week we have a special joint episode with moral psychologist David Pizzaro and famed philosopher and ghost detective, Tamler Sommers. Also known as the hosts of a small academic podcast Very Bad Wizards.Stea ... Show More
2h 15m
Nov 2021
Ep. 282: Alain Badiou: What Is Philosophy? (Part One)
On Conditions (1992), Ch. 1 "The (Re)turn of Philosophy Itself." Against post-structuralists who deny Truth, Badiou argues that truths are generated by the truth conditions (politics, art, love, and science/math) which philosophy then thinks into a unified vision. Part two of thi ... Show More
49m 41s
Aug 2021
Ep. 275: Hegel's Project in the "Phenomenology of Spirit" (Part One)
On G.W.F. Hegel's 1807 opus: A series of treatments of various theories in epistemology (among other things), seeing how they're internally incoherent, which then moves us to more sophisticated theories. Part two of this episode is only going to be available to you if you sign up ... Show More
1 h