A new perspective concerning experiments on semantic intuitions

Abstract

Abstract:In two fascinating articles, Machery, Mallon, Nichols, and Stich [2004, forthcoming] use experimental methods to raise a specter of doubt about reliance on intuitions in developing theories of reference which are then deployed in philosophical arguments outside the philosophy of language. Machery et al. ran a cross-cultural survey asking Western and East Asian participants about a famous case from the philosophical literature on reference (Kripke's Gödel example). They interpret their results as indicating that there is significant variation in participants' intuitions about semantic reference for that case. We argue that this interpretation is mistaken. We detail a type of ambiguity found in Machery et al.'s probe but not yet noted in the response literature. We argue that this epistemic ambiguity could have affected their results. We do not stop there, however: Rather than rest content with a possibility claim, we ran four studies to test the impact of this ambiguity on participants' responses. We found that this accounts for much of the variation in Machery et al.'s original experiment. We conclude that in the light of our new data, their argument is no longer convincing. Keywords:Reference; Semantic Intuitions; Experimental Philosophy; Machery, Mallon, Nichols, and Stich; Kripke; Gödel In two provocative articles, Edouard Machery, Ron Mallon, Shaun Nichols, and Stephen Stich [2004, forthcoming] have argued that there is a problem with the standard methodology for work on reference in modern analytic philosophy. They argue that this methodology attempts to construct theories consistent with our intuitions about prominent fictional and non-fictional cases [2004: B3]. Philosophical method presupposes that intuitions for such cases are sufficiently uniform across the relevant populations of people.2 Call this presupposition the uniformity conjecture. The uniformity conjecture is a testable, empirical claim (once sufficiently specified).However, philosophers have offered no empirical evidence that the conjecture is true.

Concept possession, experimental semantics, and hybrid theories of reference

“…Some (Deutsch, 2009;Ludwig, 2007) have argued that the experiments don't distinguish between semantic reference (what a name refers to) and speaker's reference (what the speaker refers to by using the name). 21 Sytsma and Livengood (2011) have argued that the wording of the reference questions posed by Machery et al does not distinguish between the epistemic perspective of the narrator or reader (who knows that the descriptive information associated with the name is false) and the perspective of the character described in the probe. 22 Still others (Martí, 2009) have claimed that the experiments should test linguistic intuitions (intuitions about how a term should be used) rather than meta-linguistic intuitions (about what a term refers to), and proposed that experiments should test participants' beliefs about what a term refers to by asking factual questions about the referent of a term rather than questions about what a hypothetical person is referring to.…”

“…Along with many of the other authors mentioned above, we believe that future empirical studies need to avoid ambiguities that might lead participants to different interpretations of stimulus questions about reference, and some work has already been done in this regard (Machery, Olivola, & De Blanc, 2009;Sytsma & Livengood, 2011). Furthermore, we propose that along with posing factual questions about the reference of terms discussed in a vignette, experiments could be designed to teach participants novel concepts or names and track their patterns of use of these terms across a variety of conditions.…”

Quantitative methods in philosophy of language

“…Participants were then asked to indicate the referent of the name “Gödel.” What they found is that judgments about reference are not stable across cultures: East Asians are significantly more likely than Americans to say in response to the thought experiment that “Gödel” does not refer to the person who usually goes by that name. Although this claim has not gone unchallenged (Deutsch, ; Martí, ; Sytsma & Livengood, ), subsequent studies have for the most part replicated their initial results (Machery, Olivola, & De Blanc, ; Machery, Sytsma, & Deutsch, ).…”

In Defense of a Broad Conception of Experimental Philosophy

“…Similarly, there have been numerous criticisms of the work of Machery et al. () showing cross‐cultural variation in judgments of reference (e.g., Deutsch ; Ludwig ; Marti ; Sytsma and Livengood ), but the majority of these criticisms have been aimed at the actual cognitive science. Many other examples of objections that are claimed to be about experimental philosophy are actually objections to the specific cognitive science (e.g., DeRose ; Talbot ).…”