Is it possible to change belief in free will with a quick manipulation? Answer seems to be: There is only an effect if you measure free will belief *immediately* after the manipulation… no effect if you measure free will belief even *a few minutes later* www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

You roll a fair die, hoping to get a 6. If you are successful, did you *intentionally* roll a 6? In a new paper, I explain why people hesitate to call lucky outcomes intentional:🧵 direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...

Philosophers of Bluesky, help! 🙏 Can you spare a few minutes to share your intuitions, and pass this along to colleagues who might not have seen it yet? #philsky moralsciencelab.com/intuitions/

Experimental Philosophy@xphilosopher.bsky.social · 3w ago

Philosophers, we need your help We are running a study on philosophers’ intuitions about thought experiments moralsciencelab.com/intuitions/ Only takes a few minutes!

Philosophers, we need your help We are running a study on philosophers’ intuitions about thought experiments moralsciencelab.com/intuitions/ Only takes a few minutes!

Confs: 6th European Experimental Philosophy Conference & Satellite Workshop on Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Linguistic Justice

Confs: 6th European Experimental Philosophy Conference & Satellite Workshop on Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Linguistic Justice

The 6th European Experimental Philosophy Conference will take place at the University of Cagliari from September 8th to 11th, 2026. It will consist of the Linguistic Justice Society Satellite Workshop “Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Linguistic Justice” on September 8th, followed by the main Conference on September 9th–11th. The event is generously supported by Gian Pietro Storari Funds, Dipartimento di Pedagogia, Psicologia, Filosofia, Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Fondazione di Sard

dlvr.it

Now out in Noûs: A communication-first account of explanation, with Jacqueline Harding (jacquelineharding.github.io) and Thomas Icard (stanford.edu/~icard/). Paper: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2505.03732

Suppose you are caught doing something bad, and you say: "Deep down in my truest self, I always knew it was wrong" Studies show that if you can get people to believe this, they will blame you less ... But why? Wouldn't it make sense for them to blame you MORE?

Getting Out of Blame: Excuses, Forgiveness, and the Deep Self

We often feel that what we have done is somehow not in keeping with who we are. This tension, or incongruity, between the person we take ourselves to be and what that person has done seems to matter ...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

My teenage daughter just interviewed cognitive scientist Phil Corlett (@philcorlett.bsky.social) www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe6r...

Philip Corlett on delusion formation, brain maps, and research disputes (advice for high schoolers!)

YouTube video by Medical Milliandra

youtube.com

This paper is so beautiful There's a complex debate on this topic that pits @tadegquillien.bsky.social's causal model theory vs. Carlotta Pavese, Paul Henne & Bob Beddor's know-how theory vs. @orifriedman.bsky.social's probability-based theory .... and the papers on all sides are just so, so good

Open Mind@openmindjournal.bsky.social · 4w ago

Luck and Intentional Action: A Causal Account

The orthodoxy in philosophy is that there’s no knowledge in “fake barn” cases But in a study of philosophers, the majority say that there *is* knowledge in fake barn cases How is it even possible for philosophical orthodoxy to come apart like this from what philosophers actually believe?

🔍 Postdoc opening on my ERC project ROBOCRIM Looking for someone with experience in experimental philosophy / experimental jurisprudence to study criminal law in the age of robots. 3 years, full-time, ~€3,585–4,375/month gross. 30 June 2026 📩 Link: praca.bip.uj.edu.pl/stanowiska-b...

Another installment in linguist @glasslelia.bsky.social’s beautiful series of papers on linguistic differences between good and bad This one’s about why “The dishes are clean” means that all the dishes are clean but “The dishes are dirty” doesn’t mean that all the dishes are dirty

After a long time, the work with @nathansen.bsky.social on the ordinary conception of the word 'racist' is officially alive on the internet! Get that beautifully typeset and carefully copyedited pdf—all 44 pages of gloriousness—at Ergo for FREEEEEEEEE! journals.publishing.umich.edu/ergo/article...

Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕@liao.shen-yi.org · last yr.

Time to tap that self-promotion sign. When we asked people what % of people can be reasonably called 'racist', the mean is ~30 on a 0-100 scale, with wide variation. Ordinary people don't seem to use 'racist' in a way that implies racists are vanishingly rare. philpapers.org/rec/HANMCI

The journal Cognition – arguably the top journal in cognitive science – has published *ninety-nine* experimental philosophy papers Clearly, experimental philosophy is now very well integrated into the broader field of cognitive science

@joannad-c.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Ever wondered which journals have published the most experimental philosophy over the last 25 years? Following the 'where to publish' guide, @rodrigodiazxphi.bsky.social and Max Bauer scraped PhilPapers to give an answer. Click to see which 25 journals publish the most x-phi! Link to our blogpost👇

my new paper with @amenimeh.bsky.social

Free will in the eyes of Muslims and Christians

Abstract. The tension between human free will, on the one hand, and divine foreknowledge and sovereignty, on the other, has been addressed differently in d

academic.oup.com

People sometimes agree to seemingly teleological sentences like: "The sun produces light so that plants can photosynthesize" Does this mean that people literally think the sun produces light for that purpose? New paper in Cognition suggests the answer is No www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Sex differences in Knobe Effect: slightly stronger among women, more likely to attribute intentionality in harm scenario & less in help scenario; assign more blame in harm scenario across the board, regardless of whether they judged the action intentional.

Quantifying the Knobe effect: population-level patterns and heterogeneity analyses

An influential survey by Joshua Knobe (2003) indicates that the cognitive process ascribing intentionality to an agent is mediated by the perceived moral worth of the action. To assess the external...

tandfonline.com

True beauty vs true prettiness Research by Doran suggests words like ‘beautiful’ have a dual character—descriptive *and* normative—while ‘pretty’ does not (no need to be beautiful to have a beautiful soul; no ‘pretty soul’): buff.ly/7wtzXLl HT @xphilosopher.bsky.social

1. New paper with @cjmott.bsky.social now published in JEP: Applied! Pretty version here: psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-.... Full text here: columbiasamclab.weebly.com/uploads/5/9/.... More info in thread below. #PsychSciSky #SocialPsyc #CogPsyc

New experimental philosophy from @ryandoran.bsky.social on the concept of the beautiful Argues that the concept BEAUTIFUL is different in some fundamental respects from concepts like PRETTY For example, participants think you can say "true beauty" but not "true prettiness"

True Beauty

Abstract. What is the nature of the concept beauty? Does it differ fundamentally from nearby concepts such as prettiness? It is argued here that beauty, bu

academic.oup.com

The 6th European Experimental Philosophy Conference will be this time in Cagliari, Italy... and I have been told the call for papers is still open! sites.unica.it/6euroxphi/

Introducing - Where should I publish my x-phi? A new community resource for experimental philosophers, integrating info and metrics for choosing x-phi friendly journals. We'd love more community input and feedback. Check it out! xphi.net/2026/04/22/w... @philmoralpsych.bsky.social

New experimental philosophy paper by Eugen Fischer on the ordinary understanding of perception Philosophers have long debated two opposing views: direct realism and indirect realism. Which do people think is right? The key result: Many people endorse BOTH link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Direct or indirect realism? Assessing conflicting folk conceptions of vision - Synthese

Synthese - Longstanding philosophical debates about the nature of perception revolve around a clash between Direct Realist and Indirect Realist conceptions of vision. These deny and affirm,...

link.springer.com

How do people decide whether it’s wrong to harm a pig? A chimp? A baby? In the West, these judgments are based more on *experience* (being able to feel) than on *agency* (being able to think and act) New study finds that same pattern across other cultures journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Why do people love sad music? You probably wouldn't want a stranger to tell you how their life is falling apart... so why do you want a stranger to *sing* about how their life is falling apart? Cognitive scientist/opera singer Tara Venkatesan on recent experimental results about this puzzle

Psyche Magazine@psyche.co · 4mo ago

Why do we like sad art? From ancient tragedies to Sad Girl playlists, humans have been drawn to negative feelings in art for millennia. Combining her two areas of expertise, the cognitive scientist and operatic soprano Tara Venkatesan decided to find out why

Interview with philosopher/psychologist @felipedebrigard.bsky.social. Discusses his work, but also more personal aspects of his life Quotation here is about what it was like growing up during a very violent period in the history of Colombia www.whatisitliketobeaphilosopher.com#/felipe-de-b...

must read about experimental philosophy

Experimental Philosophy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

[Editor’s Note: The following new entry by Justin Sytsma, Kevin Reuter, and Pascale Willemsen replaces the former entry on this topic by the previous author.]

plato.stanford.edu

People sometimes say that an outcome was caused by two things. We might say Amy got sick because (a) There was cilantro in the soup *and* (b) Amy is allergic to cilantro Beautiful new theory of causal selection from @tadegquillien.bsky.social that explains why we sometimes select two causes

Plural Causes

Abstract. Causal selection is the process underlying our intuition that an outcome happened because of a given event, or that an event is the cause of an outcome. When a forest catches fire after a li...

direct.mit.edu

The *majority* of philosophy papers now cite at least some empirical data. Papers that do purely a priori philosophy are in a minority

Michael Prinzing @mprinzing.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Philosophy was mostly "armchair" in the mid-20th century—but it's not anymore! Philosophers have increasingly cited empirical sources and discussed empirical data and evidence. In fact, as of the 2020s, non-empirical philosophy has become the minority.

Very happy to invite you to the second online-talk in our series. This thursday, Josh Knobe and Ivar Hannikainen, 4pm, everyone welcome. Join Zoom Meeting uzh.zoom.us/j/6806768837... Meeting ID: 680 676 8837 Passcode: xphi123