Academic Activities

9th Annual Workshop of the Experimental Philosophy Group UK
We are open!
Reproducibility and Replicability in Psychology and Experimental Philosophy

Lara Kirfel and I are excited to announce the 9th Meeting of the Experimental Philosophy Group UK — “We Are Open! Reproducibility and Replicability in Psychology and Experimental Philosophy” from 14th – 16th of June 2018 at University College London.

The main aim of the workshop is to bring together psychologists, philosophers and cognitive scientists who aim to increase the openness, integrity, and reproducibility of their research. We are delighted to have a fantastic line up of speakers, including

Book Symposium
Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds. 18 December 2017

In his latest book “Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds“, Edouard Machery presents a controversial reassessment of philosophy’s aims and method. He critically reflects on what questions philosophers can and should answer, and he concludes that philosophers need to move away from many of the unpromising questions they have concerned themselves with. Machery further presents the first synthesis of experimental philosophy and its philosophical significance.

The book is a must-read for all philosophers! For more information about the book, see James Andow‘s review.

In the symposium three speakers presented their objections, worries, and still open questions.

One-Day Workshop
The Experimental Philosophy of Morality and Causation
Perspectives from Philosophy, Psychology, and the Law. 13 June 2017

For this workshop, I invited nine researchers working in experimental philosophy to present their latest research. Edouard Machery gave a keynote lecture in which presented new experimental evidence that laypeople across a variety of countries, languages, and cultural backgrounds reject the principle of moral luck. Neele Engelmann (Göttingen) and Lara Kirfel (UCL) are both PhD students in psychology, focusing on causation and norms. Joachim Horvath’s (Cologne and RUB) work addresses questions such as what we can learn from philosophical thought experiments and whether philosophers are better intuiters. He was just awarded an Emmy-Noether Research Group and will start his work in Bochum in January 2018. Karolina Prochownik (Krakow and RUB) and Stefan Magen (RUB) are experimental philosophers with a special focus on legal matters. Alex Wiegmann is a psychologist and has worked on moral cognition and also the folk concept of lying. Albert Newen and myself are philosophers with a special interest in the attribution of moral responsibility.

Methods Workshop of the Experimental Philosophy Group Germany and One-Day Conference on Experimental Moral Psychology. 18 – 20 November 2016

Research in Experimental Philosophy has developed massively during the last 10-15 years. New experimental tools are now available, and new methods are applied to investigate philosophical problems. This workshop aimed to acquaint philosophers at all levels interested in experimental philosophy with the state-of-the-art in experimental philosophy. For this purpose, two leading experts in these fields – Jesse Prinz and Justin Sytsma  – headed this workshop on methods and new directions in experimental philosophy.

Overall, over 80 researchers of various career stages and academic background attended the methods workshop and the conference. Both events attracted people from all over the world, including the United States and Canada, South-America, Europe, and Asia.

First Bi-Annual Workshop of the Experimental Philosophy Group Germany
Investigating the Nature and our Understanding of Causality, Morality, Language, Mind, and Asthetics. 26 – 28 November 2015

In November 2015, Albert Newen, Kevin Reuter, and I founded the Experimental Philosophy Group Germany. We invited Elke Brendel (Bonn), Joshua Knobe (Yale), Edouard Machery (Pittsburgh), and Aaron Meskin as keynote speakers. In their talks, they addressed questions about the nature and relevance of experimental philosophy, people’s understanding of causation and normality, what people consider aesthetically pleasing, and also presented intercultural perspectives on those and related issues.

We further invited nine speakers whose research nicely demonstrates the variety of experimental-philosophical research. Eight researchers were selected to present their research on the basis of an anonymous review process. 30 researchers presented a poster with their original research.

Overall, almost 80 researchers of various career stages and academic background attended the event. The workshop attracted people from all over the world, including the United States and Canada, South-America, Europe, and Asia.

Society for Women in Philosophy Germany

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European Society for Philosophy and Psychology

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