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  1. Is Identity Essentialism a Fundamental Feature of Human Cognition?Edouard Machery, Christopher Y. Olivola, Hyundeuk Cheon, Irma T. Kurniawan, Carlos Mauro, Noel Struchiner & Harry Susianto - 2023 - Cognitive Science 47 (5):e13292.
    The present research examines whether identity essentialism, an important component of psychological essentialism, is a fundamental feature of human cognition. Across three studies (Ntotal = 1723), we report evidence that essentialist intuitions about the identity of kinds are culturally dependent, demographically variable, and easily malleable. The first study considered essentialist intuitions in 10 different countries spread across four continents. Participants were presented with two scenarios meant to elicit essentialist intuitions. Their answers suggest that essentialist intuitions vary dramatically across cultures. Furthermore, (...)
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  • Are Natural Kind Terms Ambiguous?Jussi Haukioja, Jeske Toorman, Giosuè Baggio & Jussi Jylkkä - 2023 - Cognitive Science 47 (9):e13335.
    Recent experimental studies have claimed to find evidence for the view that natural kind terms such as “water” are ambiguous: that they have two extensions, one determined by superficial properties, the other by underlying essence. In an online experiment, we presented to 600 participants scenarios describing discoveries of novel samples that differ in deep structure from samples of a familiar kind but are superficially identical, such as a water-like substance that is not composed of H2O. We used three different types (...)
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  • The Calibration Challenge to Philosophical Intuitions.Paul O. Irikefe - forthcoming - Synthese.
    To several critics of the philosophical method of cases—Robert Cummins, Jonathan Weinberg and his colleagues, and Avner Baz—the fact that philosophical intuitions cannot be calibrated means that we cannot rule out the skeptical hypothesis that the outcome of our theorizing based on these intuitions is deeply distorted by our cognitive artifacts. Moreover, they take this hypothesis to license the negative conclusion that we are unable to have much of the armchair knowledge we typically attribute to ourselves when philosophizing based on (...)
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  • Public Engagement in Shaping Bioethics Policy: Reasons for Skepticism.Rosamond Rhodes & Gary Ostertag - 2023 - American Journal of Bioethics 23 (7):68-72.
    Conley et al. (2023) analyze the attempts at public engagement (PE) by five governance groups. These projects were conducted by organizations that endorse both the goals and values of PE. The autho...
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  • From the epistemic perspectives in experimental semantics to the ambiguity of proper names: Is the inference warranted? A critical notice of Jincai Li's The referential mechanism of proper names.Nicolò D'Agruma - 2023 - Mind and Language 38 (4):1138-1146.
    In her engaging book, The referential mechanism of proper names, Li presents empirical studies involving American and Chinese laypeople. Li interprets her results as supporting an epistemic‐perspective reading of the variability in referential intuitions on proper names. Building upon this thesis, Li defends the ambiguity view, claiming that names are ambiguous between a descriptivist and a causal‐historical meaning. I argue that either Li's data do not enable a comparison of the two theories of reference, or support for the ambiguity view (...)
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  • How to Tame a Catoblepas.Jeske Toorman & Jussi Haukioja - forthcoming - Philosophical Psychology.
    Two recent experimental studies, by Shaun Nichols et al. and by Michael Devitt & Brian Porter claim to find evidence for the view that both causal-historical factors and descriptive factors play a role in determining the extensions of natural kind terms. Both studies use versions of a vignette featuring the fictional natural kind term “Catoblepas”. We conducted an experiment where we used vignettes and corresponding tasks that were otherwise fully analogous, but featured terms which are not natural kind terms. We (...)
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  • Against Arguments From Diagnostic Reasoning.Jeske Toorman - 2023 - Cognitive Science 47 (11):e13376.
    Recent work in cognitive psychology and experimental semantics indicates that people do not categorize natural kinds solely by virtue of their purported scientific essence. Two attempts have been made to explain away the data by appealing to the idea that participants in these studies are reasoning diagnostically. I will argue that an appeal to diagnostic reasoning will likely not help to explain away the data.
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  • Do the Gödel Vignettes Involve a New Descriptivist Meaning? A Critical Discussion of Devitt and Porot's Elicited Production Test on Proper Names.Nicolò D'Agruma - 2025 - Cognitive Science 49 (1):e70030.
    Proper names—expressions such as “Barack Obama” or “New York”—play a crucial role in the philosophical debate on reference, that is, the relation that allows words to stand for entities of the world. In an elicited production test, Devitt and Porot prompt participants to use proper names to compare the Descriptivist Theory and the Causal‐Historical Theory on proper names’ reference. According to the Descriptivist Theory, names refer to the entity that fulfills the description that speakers associate with them. In contrast, the (...)
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  • The Compact Compendium of Experimental Philosophy.Alexander Max Bauer & Stephan Kornmesser (eds.) - 2023 - Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter.
    The relatively new movement of Experimental Philosophy applies different systematic experimental methods to further illuminate classical philosophical issues. This book brings together experts from the field to give the reader a compact yet extensive overview, offering a ready at hand introduction to the state of the art.
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