Experimental Philosophy* Page 1 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 University	Press	Scholarship	Online Oxford	Scholarship	Online Oxford	Studies	in	Experimental	Philosophy:	Volume	1 Joshua	Knobe,	Tania	Lombrozo,	and	Shaun	Nichols Print	publication	date:	2014 Print	ISBN-13:	9780198718765 Published	to	Oxford	Scholarship	Online:	January	2015 DOI:	10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198718765.001.0001 Experimental	Philosophy* 1935–1965 Taylor	Murphy DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198718765.003.0013 Abstract	and	Keywords In	the	heyday	of	linguistic	philosophy	an	experimental	philosophy	movement	was	born, and	this	chapter	tells	its	story,	both	in	its	historical	and	philosophical	context	and	as	it	is connected	to	controversies	about	experimental	philosophy	today.	From	its	humble beginnings	at	the	Vienna	Circle,	the	movement	matured	into	a	vibrant	research	program at	Oslo,	and	sought	adventure	at	Berkeley	thereafter.	The	harsh	and	uncharitable reaction	it	met	is	surprising	but	understandable	in	light	of	disciplinary	tensions	and	the legacy	of	antipsychologism-sentiments	and	arguments	which	have	reemerged	today, albeit	in	modified	form.	Yet	the	research	at	Oslo	remained	unperturbed	and	it	flourished in	both	its	theory	and	its	applications,	which	spanned	the	philosophical	domain.	The Berkeley	years	were	short	but	intense,	as	exemplified	by	their	engagement	with ordinary-language	philosophy,	J.L.	Austin,	and	the	theory	of	communicative	significance. Experimental Philosophy* Page 2 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 Keywords: empirical	semantics,	psychologism,	intuition,	methodology,	interpretation,	Arne	Naess,	Herman Tennessen Introduction In	the	heydays	of	linguistic	philosophy,	a	group	of	Norwegian	philosophers	saw	that philosophers	often	relied	on	intuitions	when	speaking	about	the	conceptual	commitments and	linguistic	uses	of	ordinary	people,	despite	enduring	disagreement	on	the	matter. Then	there	was	the	critical	insight:	"When	philosophers	offer	conflicting	answers	to questions	that	have	empirical	components,	empirical	research	is	needed"	(Naess,	1953a, p.	vii).	Calling	themselves	empirical	semanticists,	this	group	stood	opposed	to	the	"antiempirically	oriented	armchair	philosopher"	and	pointed	"to	the	possibility	of	an 'experimental	philosophy'"	(Tennessen,	1964,	p.	290;	Naess,	1938a,	p.	161).	They	argued that	it	is	"hardly	sufficient	that	a	single	person	registers	his	own	reactions	to	this	or	that sentence,	or	makes	pronouncements	based	on	intuitions,	or	undertakes	scattered observations	of	others'	usage"	(Gullvåg,	1955,	p.	343).	And	so	off	they	went,	testing	the claims	made	by	philosophers	(p.326) and	investigating	how	concepts	are	understood, defined,	and	used	by	ordinary	people. Empirical	semantics	is	deeply	similar	to	today's	experimental	philosophy;	it	was	linguistic philosophy's	experimental	philosophy.	Although	the	empirical	semantics	movement	is	not historically	continuous	with	today's	experimental	philosophy	movement,	empirical semanticists	engaged	with	much	the	same	subject	matter,	had	similar	motivations	and aims,	and	encountered	characteristic	problems	and	objections	at	the	interface	between analytic	philosophy	and	experimental	psychology.	This	chapter	spells	out	these connections	and	situates	empirical	semantics	within	the	context	of	experimental philosophy	and	analytic	philosophy. Arne	Naess	led	the	empirical	semantics	movement.	The	most	renowned	Norwegian philosopher	today,	Naess	was	honoured	with	a	state	funeral	and	is	well	remembered both	for	pioneering	the	ecological	movement	and	for	his	activism	in	the	international	peace movement	(Stadler,	2009).	Naess	is	also	credited	with	bringing	social	science	methods into	Norway,	and	empirical	semantics	is	considered	an	intellectual	forerunner	to sociolinguistics	and	corpus	linguistics	(Chapman,	2008,	2011;	Thue,	2009).	Along	with Naess,	the	central	empirical	semanticists	were	Herman	Tennessen,	a	psychologist	with interests	in	logical	analysis;	Ingemund	Gullvåg,	a	logician;	and	Harald	Ofstad,	a	legal scholar	turned	moral	philosopher	(Ofstad,	1951,	pp.	42–3;	Tennessen,	1962). This	chapter	is	organized	into	three	sections,	roughly	corresponding	to	three	periods	of empirical	semantics	research.	I	begin	with	the	original	inspiration	for	empirical	semantics (around	1935–38),	and	survey	its	reception	over	the	years.	It	grew	from	Naess's	own interests	and	his	encounters	with	those	he	met	in	Vienna.	Naess	had	an	ongoing	interest in	behavioural	psychology	and	the	concept	of	truth,	and	gained	further	motivation	to study	the	notion	of	truth	experimentally	in	conversation	with	Tarski	and	others	at	the Vienna	Circle.	The	overarching	factor	was	the	apparent	reliance	on	intuition	when assessing	the	way	that	terms	are	defined,	conceived,	and	used	by	ordinary	people. Naess's	work	over	the	years	was	met	with	resistance,	largely	due	to	antipsychologistic Experimental Philosophy* Page 3 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 (or	antinaturalistic)	sentiments	and	arguments	that	became	central	to	analytic	philosophy when	it	parted	ways	with	experimental	psychology	around	the	turn	of	the	century. Empirical	semanticists	pointed	to	the	(p.327) broadly	empirical	traditional	conception	of philosophy	that	existed	prior	to	the	rise	of	analytic	philosophy.	While	the	distinction between	analytic	conceptual	analysis	and	synthetic	sciences	such	as	psychology	was sensible,	it	was	often	used	to	depreciate	empirical	research	on	traditional	philosophical topics.	My	account	of	what	transpired	in	Vienna	and	Naess's	intellectual	development	at this	stage	is	drawn	largely	from	his	recollections,	which	were	penned	after	World	War	II. In	the	next	section	of	the	chapter	I	survey	the	work	done	by	empirical	semanticists	in Oslo	(around	1939–56).	I	sketch	some	basic	ideas	and	methods	and	place	this	work	in	its social	and	political	context.	Despite	the	emphasis	in	sociopolitical	topics,	there	was	a vibrant	research	program	on	topics	in	analytic	philosophy.	The	experimental	studies	here focused	on	understanding	how	people	conceive	of	truth,	democracy,	synonymy, consciousness,	and	"testability"	among	physicists,	to	name	just	a	few.	I	concentrate	on one	study	of	typological	concepts	for	illustration,	and	note	some	contrasts	with experimental	philosophy.	Perhaps	most	striking	is	that	there	was	no	attempt	to	access analyticities	or	conceptual	truths	from	the	experimental	data-it	was	regular	science	and not,	as	it	were,	prior	to	it.	However,	it	also	embodied	a	unique	analytical	and	philosophical approach	of	its	own.	For	my	sources	here,	I	began	with	Tennessen's	course	textbooks and	accounts	by	the	empirical	semanticists	about	their	own	research,	as	well	as	some archival	material	that	includes	original	studies	and	data	(as	cited	below).	For	the illustration	on	typological	concepts,	I	partially	translated	some	of	Tennessen's	work	from Norwegian	and	used	Tennessen's	English	summary	(now	available	online). Lastly,	I	turn	to	the	period	of	work	that	followed	at	Berkeley	(around	1957–61).	Whereas the	work	in	Oslo	consisted	in	efforts	to	understand	how	people	think	about	specific	topics, at	Berkeley	the	focus	turned	toward	explanation	of	certain	patterns	of	intuitive	judgments about	language	found	in	analytic	philosophy.	As	destiny	would	have	it,	there	was	a	clash	of sorts	between	empirical	semanticists	and	ordinary-language	philosophers,	though	this clash	was	also	quite	constructive.	Although	logical	analysis	could	be	distinguished	from empirical	semantics,	ordinary-language	philosophy	certainly	appeared	to	be	about	the same	subject	matter:	ordinary	language.	Some	of	this	work	is	obscure	because	it suddenly	stopped	around	1960,	and	much	of	it	was	done	in	connection	with	J.L.	Austin (who	died	in	February	1960).	This	section	(p.328) draws	heavily	on	archival	material from	this	period,	including	seminar	notes	written	at	Berkeley,	and	drafts	of	work	(some	of which	were	not	published).	Again,	much	of	this	work	is	now	online	or	available	on	request. Experimental	Philosophy	at	the	Vienna	Circle Much	happened	in	this	period,	so	a	brief	timeline	of	Naess's	activities	is	in	order	(see Stadler,	2009).	Naess	spent	his	student	years	in	Paris	studying	philosophy,	psychology, mathematics,	and	astronomy.	In	1933	he	completed	two	Master's	theses,	one	on	truth and	one	on	behavioral	psychology.	This	work	included	some	quantitative	analysis	of	the usage	of	evidential	expressions	in	science,	such	as	"show,"	"prove,"	and	"demonstrate" (Naess,	1933;	cf.	Overton,	2013).	When	Naess	arrived	in	Vienna	in	1934,	he	was	invited Experimental Philosophy* Page 4 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 to	participate	in	Moritz	Schlick's	Vienna	Circle	seminars.	Here	he	continued	to	develop his	interests	in	close	conversation	with	Rudolf	Carnap,	Charles	Morris,	Otto	Neurath, and	Alfred	Tarski,	among	others.	Naess	wrote	his	dissertation	on	the	empirical	study	of scientific	behaviour	and	presented	this	to	the	Vienna	Circle	in	March	1936.	Naess	was also	inspired	to	conduct	experiments	on	the	concept	of	truth,	and	presented	some results	at	the	Third	International	Congress	for	the	Unity	of	Science	(July	1937,	Paris).	In parallel	he	did	research	with	the	Viennese	psychologist	Egon	Brunswick-also	a participant	at	the	Vienna	Circle.	Naess	was	to	continue	this	research	in	exile	in	1938–39	at Berkeley,	where	he	worked	in	Edward	C.	Tolman's	psychology	laboratory. According	to	Naess,	one	central	idea	of	his	was	influenced	by	how	the	Vienna	Circle seminars	were	structured.	Participants	worked	toward	gaining	agreement	on	precise formulations	of	their	philosophical	positions,	revising	their	formulations	when	there	were diverging	interpretations.	As	he	later	recalled	it,	this	process	led	him	to	think	that	"we were	not	quite	clear	in	our	heads-that	we	in	a	sense	were	only	vaguely	aware	of	what we	might	be	talking	about"	(Naess,	1993,	p.	263).	"Their	quest	for	clarity	and	cordial cooperation	in	pursuit	of	knowledge	led	me	to	appreciate	that	'What	do	I	mean?'	is	an open	question"	(Naess,	2005a,	p.	lxiii	f).	Naess	observed	considerable	shallowness	of semantic	intention	and	that	there	were	often	surprisingly	diverse	interpretations	for	each other's	formulations.	This	led	him	to	argue	extensively	against	the	(p.329) assumption that	propositions	were	precisely	grasped	in	actual	thinking	and	understanding	in	his dissertation,	Cognition	and	Scientific	Behaviour	(1936). According	to	Naess,	Vienna	Circle	participants	often	appealed	to	the	ordinary,	commonsense	meanings	and	uses	of	words.	He	recalls	finding	it	perplexing	how	"the	logical empiricists	[could]	boast	about	a	scientific	attitude	when	they	relied	so	much	on	intuition when	speaking	about	the	use	of	words"	(2005b,	p.	199).	He	was	confident	that	empirical methods	could	be	of	use	here,	as	well	as	for	studying	language	more	generally: I	believed	that	one	could	purge	logical	empiricism	of	its	antiempirical	tendencies	by a	program	for	purely	empirical	studies	of	linguistic	usage.	Precisely	such	research, without	further	intentions,	seemed	to	me	necessary	(1)	to	counterbalance	a	form of	"logical	analysis"	that	strictly	speaking	was	not	logical,	and	(2)	to	create	the preconditions	for	the	construction	of	a	system	of	exact	concepts	intended	to	cover all	empirical	fields	of	importance	in	the	philosophical	discussion. (Naess,	2005b,	p.	203) In	the	Vienna	Circle,	Naess	and	Tarski	discussed	Tarski's	recent	work	on	the	concept	of truth	in	formalized	languages.	One	of	Tarski's	desiderata	linked	his	account	to	the ordinary	concept	of	truth-his	"material	adequacy"	condition.	As	Linsky	put	it: The	requirement	of	material	adequacy	is	simply	the	requirement	that	the	definition, once	achieved,	shall	correspond	more	or	less	closely	with	that	concept	of	truth which	all	of	us	have	in	mind	before	we	ever	undertake	the	task	of	explication. Experimental Philosophy* Page 5 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 (Linsky,	1952,	p.	1) Tarski	believed	that	his	account	(roughly	of	the	form,	"p"	is	true	iff	p)	does	indeed	"do justice	to	our	intuitions"	about	truth	and	conforms	with	"common-sense	usage,"	thereby fulfilling	his	material	adequacy	criterion	(Tarski,	1944).	Naess	doubted	that	this	was	really the	common-sense	notion	of	truth,	as	would	be	revealed	by	systematic	questioning	of non-philosophers.	However,	Naess	also	had	a	larger	concern,	for	the	Vienna	Circle participants	were	not	alone	in	their	habit	of	referencing	the	views	of	non-philosophers	as decisive	in	rejecting	another's	formulation	or	position. (p.330) Naess's	extensive	investigations	were	published	in	his	book	"Truth"	as Conceived	by	Those	who	are	Not	Professional	Philosophers	and	in	Theoria	(Naess, 1938a,	1938b).	Here	Naess	reports	on	the	extent	to	which	philosophers	take	"a standpoint	to	what	the	non-philosophers	mean,	stating	that	the	theories	of	truth	adhered to	by	their	opponents	contradict	the	basic	structure	of	truth	revealed	among	the	nonphilosophers"	(Naess,	1938a,	p.	165).	He	concluded	that	no	agreement	was	coming	any time	soon	from	the	armchair: Under	no	conditions	can	we	attribute	any	value	to	statements	on	these	matters deduced	from	general	philosophical	views	or	from	"intuition."	If	one	wishes	to know	something	about	the	matter,	the	traditional	methods	of	attack	must	be radically	and	definitely	abandoned. (Naess,	1938a,	p.	93) In	his	effort	to	settle	things,	Naess	interrogated	and	surveyed	ordinary	people;	he	asked them	to	explicitly	state	what	they	think	truth	is,	to	state	what	is	common	to	all	that	is	true, to	make	synonymity	judgments,	to	evaluate	others'	definitions;	and	he	tried	a	variety	of other	techniques	(see	Appiah,	2008;	Chapman,	2008,	2011;	Stadler,	2009).	Naess	also investigated	other	factors	such	as	age,	gender,	suggestibility,	and	education.1 Naess	identified	some	thirty-seven	truth	theories,	including	those	centering	on	what	is provable,	what	is	arrived	at	from	one's	senses,	what	is	learned,	what	serves	life,	what cannot	become	otherwise,	what	agrees	with	all	the	evidence,	and	what	is	agreed	upon	by consensus.	He	took	this	to	show	that	there	was	just	no	thing	that	deserved	to	be	called the	common-sense	theory	or	pre-philosophic	conception	of	truth;	so	much,	then,	for	the material	adequacy	condition:2 (p.331) It	is	therefore	nonsensical	to	speak	of	the	common	sense	view	of	the truth-notion.	Equally	nonsensical	it	is	to	speak	of	the	view	of	the	man	in	the	street, of	the	uneducated,	of	the	prephilosophic	mind	etc.	No	philosopher	speaks	of	the philosophic	view	of	the	truth-notion...this	would	not,	however,	be	any	more ridiculous	than	to	speak	of	the	common	sense	view. (Naess,	1938a,	p.	85) Instead	of	research	on	the	ordinary	conception	of	truth,	Naess	proposed	some Experimental Philosophy* Page 6 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 alternative	projects:	the	development	and	acceptance	of	scientific	hypotheses,	the function	of	maxims	and	statements	in	ideological	currents,	formalization	of	evidential expressions	in	science,	and	conceptual	clarification	when	it	is	useful	to	do	so.	As	Naess later	summarized	his	conclusions: In	"Truth"	as	Conceived	by	Those	who	are	Not	Professional	Philosophers,	I	tried to	show	the	inadequacy	of	intuitive	methods	employed	by	philosophers	for	the purpose	of	determining	how	"true"	and	related	terms	are	conceived,	defined	and used	by	ordinary	people.	The	exclusive	use	of	intuitive	methods	for	these purposes	tends	to	result	in	an	underestimation	of	the	diverse	trends	of	reflection among	those	who	are	not	learned...Dialogues	with	those	who	are	philosophically uneducated	convinced	me	that	acceptance	of	intuitions	reported	by	the philosophically	sophisticated	about	the	verbal	and	conceptual	habits	of	others	leads to	confusion	and	error. (Naess,	1953a,	p.	vii) It	is	worth	highlighting	the	use	of	"intuition"	by	Naess	here,	as	it	differs	from	some current	ways	of	using	the	term.	Now,	it	was	not	uncommon	to	treat	conformity	with ordinary	usage	and	"our	intuitions"	as	decisive.	Naess	was	certainly	not	the	only	one	to notice	this,	nor	was	he	alone	in	surveying	such	appeals	and	proposing	empirical investigations.	Richard	Rudner	(an	American	philosopher	at	Washington	University	in	St. Louis)	did	so	as	well.	Rudner	surveyed	a	number	of	philosophers-Carnap,	Goodman, Moore,	Hempel-and	asked	how	the	intuitions	that	they	appeal	to	could	be	justified, weighed	against	each	other,	and	systematized	(Rudner,	1950). There	is	an	important	difference	here	between	appealing	to	intuitions	as	such	and	treating them	as	evidence	of	the	correctness	of	one's	analysis,	(p.332) versus	a	method	of reflecting	from	the	armchair	on	what	others	would	ordinarily	say	or	think.	Rudner	(and Goodman)	may	have	been	concerned	with	the	former,	but	Naess	only	had	the	latter	use in	mind.	Naess	did	not	view	common-sense	usage	or	shared	intuitions	as	having	any distinctive,	epistemically	significant	role	in	philosophical	analysis;	instead	he	worried	that the	reliance	on	intuitions	in	making	these	claims	was	a	source	of	fruitless	controversy.	As he	put	it: It	is	not	necessary	to	depart	from	philosophical	pastures	in	order	to	see	the	need for	trying	out	empirical	procedures	to	discover	the	linguistic	uses	and	conceptual commitments	of	the	man	on	the	street...[For	example,	see	the	disagreement	in] articles	in	recent	volumes	of	the	periodicals	Mind,	Analysis	and	Philosophical Review.	I	do	not	contend	that	these	philosophers	in	all	cases	should	have investigated	conventional	usage	by	other	means	than	intuition.	I	merely	suggest that	empirical	procedures	should	be	applied	to	empirical	questions.	When philosophers	offer	conflicting	answers	to	questions	that	have	empirical	components, empirical	research	is	needed...If	intuitions	are	used,	procedures	should	be devised	by	which	intuitive	results	of	different,	presumably	competent	people	can be	compared.	If	the	intuitive	results	seem	to	conflict	or	are	difficult	to	delimit	and Experimental Philosophy* Page 7 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 express,	one	should	look	for	methods	by	which	to	avoid	at	least	some	of	the intuitive	components	of	the	procedure. ...The	kind	of	activity	today	referred	to	by	names	such	as	"logical	analysis"	and "conceptual	clarification"	is	only	partly	deductive	and	axiomatical	in	character.	Much of	it	seems	to	me	to	rest	on	intuitions	about	one's	own	and	others'	uses	of	terms and	to	contain	recommendations	or	preferences	in	matters	of	terminology.	The intuitional	approach	is	excellent	so	long	as	the	agreement	in	results	is	of	the intersubjective,	intercultural	kind	that	characterizes	some	of	the	results	in	the formal	or	factual	sciences.	Such	agreements,	however,	have	not	been	obtained. (Naess,	1953a,	pp.	vii–x) The	role	of	agreement	with	ordinary	usage	and	our	intuitions	does	not	appear	to	amount to	anything	more	than	Aristotle's	use	of	endoxa	as	reasonable	starting	points	in	dialectical arguments	(Hintikka,	1999).	Naess	did	not	regard	intuitions	and	ordinary	usage	as anything	more	than	conventional	points	of	departure	for	one's	explications,	construction of	axiomatical	systems,	or	other	theorizing.3 (p.333) Reception	of	empirical	semantics	in	analytic	philosophy Reviews	of	Naess's	work	were	strikingly	hostile,	particularly	at	first.	Briefly:	J.	Moore criticized	Naess	for	not	having	"formulated	his	conclusions	in	any	systematic	fashion," adding	that	"there	are	fewer	misprints	than	are	usually	found	in	works	of	this	character" (Moore,	1939).	Malisoff	began	his	review	by	stating	that	"this	may	be	described	as	a psychological	study"	(Malisoff,	1939).	Nagel	predicted	that	Naess	"will	no	doubt	remain an	outcast	from	the	philosophic	community	and	will	have	to	find	what	solace	he	can	in being	a	'mere'	scientist"	(Nagel,	1939).	Later	reviews	of	his	work	barely	differ	in	what they	consider	important	to	mention.	Strawson	also	complained	about	Naess's	writing aptitude	and	was	concerned	that	his	(not	inaccurate)	summary	was	"parodying	the author"	(Strawson,	1954).	Hutten	wrote	that	it	is	a	"social	and	psychological	study	about how	people	use	words;	it	hardly	touches	upon	the	logical	or	philosophic	issues	involved" (Hutten,	1953).	Chisholm	stressed	that	although	it	is	important	for	linguistics	it	does	not have	any	clear	relevance	to	philosophical	questions	(Chisholm,	1953).	These	reviews	are short	and	do	not	engage	much	with	the	work. To	put	these	statements	in	context,	consider	the	period	of	1880–1920	as	the	time	of	an academic	"power	struggle"	between	philosophers	and	experimental	psychologists (Kusch,	1995,	2011).	While	the	turn	of	the	century	is	remembered	as	a	point	of departure	between	philosophy	and	experimental	psychology,	it	was	also,	as	Sober	put	it, "a	time	of	exile:	while	the	psychologists	were	leaving,	philosophers	were	slamming	the door	behind	them"	(Sober,	1978,	p.	165).	The	rise	and	expansion	of	experimental psychology	took	place	in	philosophy	departments	and	presented	the	vision	of	a	new academic	role	that	is	part	philosopher	and	part	experimental	scientist.	This	motivated many	philosophers	to	argue	for	a	strict	separation	between	pure	philosophy	and experimental	psychology,	in	a	process	of	"role	purification"	(Kusch,	1995).	Carnap's	vision is	emblematic:	"Now	we	shall	eliminate	the	psychological	questions	also,	not	from	the Experimental Philosophy* Page 8 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 region	of	knowledge,	but	from	philosophy.	Then,	finally,	philosophy	will	be	reduced	to logic	alone	(in	a	wide	sense	of	this	word)"	(Carnap,	1935,	p.	33).	Psychologism,	Carnap said,	consists	in	the	conflation	of	the	task	of	logical	analysis	with	the	empirical	questions	of psychology. (p.334) These	early	debates	were	couched	in	terms	of	"psychologism"	or "psychologicism,"	and	climaxed	in	a	controversial	petition	in	1913-one	that	was expressly	"directed	against	the	filling	of	chairs	of	philosophy	with	representatives	of experimental	psychology"	(quoted	in	Kusch,	1995,	p.	191).	The	outcome	of	these	debates was	a	much-emphasized	separation	of	"pure"	philosophy	from	experimental	psychology as	distinct	fields	of	study,	with	Frege	and	Husserl	receiving	credit	for	making	the	critical distinctions	(see	Kusch,	1995,	2011).	Frege	argued	for	a	sharp	distinction	between logic/mathematics	and	psychology:	mathematics	and	logic	are	neither	parts	of	psychology nor	are	their	objects	defined,	illuminated,	justified,	or	proven	true	through	psychology. One	must,	after	all,	distinguish	between	ideas	of	numbers	and	the	numbers	themselves. Frege	acknowledged	that	knowledge	of	vague	psychological	processes	may	be	of	some interest,	but	rejected	psychological	interpretations	of	the	analytic/synthetic	and	a	priori/a posteriori	distinctions;	the	difference	is	in	how	they	are	justified	or	proven	true.	In particular,	they	are	justified	without	reference	to	matters	of	fact,	psychological	or otherwise.	And	at	any	rate,	psychological	laws	do	not	evaluate	thinking	habits	for	their truth	or	falsehood-an	independent,	prior	criterion	is	needed	to	evaluate	them	and	to distinguish	between	being	true	and	merely	being	taken-as-true.	All	good	points	to	be sure,	but	this	conception	and	these	distinctions	became	central	to	philosophy,	properly conceived.4 Naess	recalls	that	his	work	was	met	with	hostility	and	that	he	was	often	accused	of psychologism.	At	the	Third	International	Congress	for	the	Unity	of	Science,	Carnap	even warned	Naess	not	to	present	on	his	experimental	studies	(Naess,	1981,	pp.	144–5).	The use	of	questionnaires	was	scorned	by	"genuine"	philosophers,	Naess	says,	so	much	so that	his	department	chair	at	Oslo	threatened	that	he	would	not	vote	for	Naess's	tenure	if he	published	his	study	on	truth	(Naess,	1983,	p.	311).	Naess	published	it	anyway	and	his chair	did	not	vote	for	his	tenure. Naess	credits	Morris's	distinction	between	"pragmatics"	and	"semantics"	with	providing an	easy	way	of	dodging	the	potential	relevance	of	his	(p.335) empirical	work	(Morris, 1935;	Naess,	1993).	Morris	introduced	the	trio	of	empirical,	pragmatic,	and	formal dimensions	of	meaning,	writing	that	"the	meaning	of	a	term	is	completely	specified	when	it is	known	what	objects	the	term	designates,	what	expectations	it	produces	in	the	persons for	whom	it	has	meaning,	and	what	its	connections	are	with	other	terms	in	the	language	of which	it	is	part"	(Morris,	1935,	p.	278).	The	formal	and	pragmatic	dimensions	of	meaning divided	along	the	same	lines	as	pure	philosophy	and	experimental	psychology;	whereas semantics	refers	to	the	logical	connections	among	terms	in	a	language	and	is	the	domain of	analyticity	and	the	a	priori,	pragmatics	is	an	empirical	psychology	of	language	which must	not	be	confused	with	philosophy.	Sellars's	manner	of	discussing	pragmatics	and	his concomitant	concern	with	what	counts	as	philosophy	provides	an	idea	of	how	many	would Experimental Philosophy* Page 9 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 have	approached	Naess's	work	in	what	might	be	called	"pragmatic	semantics"	(Apostel, 1953). It	is	hardly	necessary	to	point	out	that	the	additional	tools	for	which	we	are	looking are	not	to	be	found	in	the	development	which	has	come	to	be	known	as "pragmatics,"	for	this	is,	on	the	whole,	a	branch	of	empirical	science,	a	focusing	of psychology	and	sociology	on	the	phenomena	subsumed	under	the	empirical concept	of	language...Classical	empiricism...confused	the	grammar	of	philosophical predicates	by	attempting	to	identify	them	with	psychological	predicates.	In	many cases	the	grammar	was	so	seriously	confused	that	certain	of	the	more	consequent empiricists	can	hardly	be	called	philosophers. (Sellars,	1947,	pp.	645–6) In	response	to	this	attitude	Naess	was	quick	to	point	out	that	"the	term	semantics	is	a catchword	that	does	not	convey	any	definite	meaning,"	and	that	his	work	was	not	to	be conflated	with	what	is	"legitimately	done	in	pure	logical	analysis"	(Naess,	1953a,	p.	i). Although	Naess's	empirical	semantics	was	generally	met	with	resistance	and	scepticism about	its	relevance	for	analytic	philosophy,	it	was	viewed	quite	amicably	among	his	closer Vienna	Circle	peers.5	Tarski,	for	instance,	said	of	material	adequacy	that	it	"can	be	settled scientifically,	though	of	course	not	by	a	deductive	procedure,	but	with	the	help	of	the statistical	questionnaire	method.	As	a	matter	of	fact,	such	research	has	(p.336) been carried	on	[by	Naess]"	(Tarski,	1944,	p.	360).	Carnap	advocated	for	an	empirical approach	to	the	application	conditions	or	intension	of	natural	language	terms,	and endorsed	Naess's	work	as	exemplary	(Carnap,	1955a).6	Carnap	thought	that	a	theory	of pragmatics	was	needed	not	just	for	psychology	and	linguistics,	but	also	for	analytic philosophy	due	to	the	latter's	focus	on	natural	language	(Carnap,	1955b;	cf.	Lutz,	2009). Carnap	viewed	knowledge	about	these	"pragmatical	concepts"	as	instrumental	in inspiring	and	informing	one's	explications.	He	also	saw	it	as	instrumental	in	furnishing	a practical	justification	for	an	explication,	as	one	may	attend	to	the	function	that	these concepts	are	serving.	Empirical	semanticists	agreed	with	Carnap's	assessment	(e.g., Naess,	1953a;	Tennessen,	1960a). It	is	perhaps	no	surprise	that	ordinary-language	philosophers	discovered	a	way	to reformulate	psychologism	in	their	own	terms.	Ryle	did	this	explicitly	when	he	introduced a	distinction	between	use	and	usage	(Ryle,	1953).	In	the	revolt	against	psychologism,	he says,	linguistic	"vogues"	have	evolved:	first	from	talk	of	concepts	to	talk	of	meanings,	and now	to	talk	of	uses.	Ryle	attributes	psychologism	to	these	misleading	verbal	vogues.7	Yet use	has	a	critical	advantage	in	that	it	contrasts	with	misuse	and	so	is	clearly	"normative" (i.e.,	evaluative),	whereas	usage	is	merely	a	descriptive	type	of	linguistic	anthropology and	sociology	and	is	of	"no	philosophical	interest."	If	usage	is	not	in	accordance	with	use the	folk	are	mistaken.	And	analysis	of	use	is	not	informed	by	analysis	of	usage	anyway,	as descriptions	of	usages	presuppose	descriptions	of	uses.	To	be	sure,	Naess	and Tennessen	did	refer	to	themselves	as	specifically	analyzing	"usages"	(Naess,	1949; Tennessen,	1949a).	Tennessen	saw	Ryle's	distinction	as	"fruitful,	thought-economical"	but Experimental Philosophy* Page 10 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 did	not	find	a	difference	in	the	use/usage	of	"use"	and	"usage"	in	ordinary	language ("Ryle's	Dilemma";	Tennessen,	1965).	But	as	Tennessen's	colleague	Max	Wright	quickly pointed	out,	this	interpretation	presupposed	the	answer.	Either	there	is	no	difference and	the	results	show	it,	or	there	is	a	(p.337) difference	and	the	results	show	that	the folk	are	mistaken;	"the	appeal	was,	in	any	case,	philosophically	pointless"	(Wright,	1967). Eventually,	three	reviews	appeared	that	critically	engaged	with	empirical	semantics,	and these	are	familiar	in	their	arguments	and	concern	with	what	counts	as	philosophy.8	Since these	reviews	present	arguments	in	some	detail,	it	is	useful	to	highlight	how	they	pose their	concerns.	Apostel	was	worried	about	the	ordinary	concept	of	synonymy	(Apostel, 1953).	There	is	just	no	clear	way	to	avoid	the	apparent	circle	when	moving	from descriptive	"occurrence	synonymy"	(or	similar	types)	to	the	more	ambitious	"normative synonymy"	(synonymy	according	to	a	rule)-especially	concerning	the	meaning	of "synonymy"	itself.	Crockett	brought	up	a	similar	point	about	the	missing	bridge	to analyticity,	which	he	says	Naess	"quite	naturally	wishes"	to	cross	by	"counting	noses." The	question	remains,	however,	as	to	whether	Naess	has	made	any	positive contribution	to	analytic	philosophy...What	is	the	philosophical	point	of	these surveys?	[It]	is	not	at	all	clear	that	the	description	of	a	stock	use	of	an	expression	is assisted	by	counting	the	noses	of	those	who	employ	it	in	this	way. ...Let	us	suppose	that	in	a	questionnaire,	call	it	QS1A,	one	hundred	per	cent	of	the subjects	say	that	the	following	sentences,	chosen	by	them	from	other	similar sentences,	express	the	same	assertion:	[P,	Q].	Then	we	may	say	that	[P]	and	[Q] are	QS1A-synonymous,	and	this	will	be	a	shorthand	way	of	referring	to	the	above results.	Naess,	quite	naturally,	wishes	to	say	more	than	this,	and	what	he	wishes	to say	is	that	these	tests	results	are	relevant	confirmatory	evidence	for	the synonymity	of	these	expressions.	Here	we	need	a	clear-cut	hypothesis	of	the meaning	of	"synonymity"	as	it	is	used	in	the	preceding	sentence,	and	Naess's failure	to	provide	such	a	hypothesis	in	this	and	other	cases	makes	one	wonder what	can	be	the	usefulness	of	his	techniques. (Crockett,	1959,	pp.	109–110) In	another	review,	Toulmin	complained	that	Naess's	studies	were	only	able	to	handle "descriptive"	statements	and	raised	the	possibility	of	error,	thereby	questioning	the project's	philosophical	relevance.	What	do	the	studies	prove	about	the	correctness	of basic	math,	or	equivalently,	the	use	of	language	and	the	nature	of	our	concepts? (p.338) Exactly	what	Mr.	Naess	takes	to	be	their	relevance,	is	to	one's	sorrow, left	unclear-"The	question	of	relevancy	is	complicated,"	he	says.	What	makes	it	so puzzling	and	tantalizing	is	Naess's	vagueness	about	the	point	of	the	investigation for	philosophy. ...One	must	hope	that,	before	Naess	gets	too	immersed	into	the	practical	work	of framing	and	using	more	and	more	similar	questionnaires,	he	will	sit	down	and	tell Experimental Philosophy* Page 11 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 us	what	exactly	they	are	designed	to	prove.	Until	that	is	done,	it	will	be	easy	for philosophers	to	ignore	his	work.	"Even	if	25.8%	of	persons	are	found	to	give	the sum	of	two	and	two	as	five,"	they	will	argue,	"that	would	leave	the	correctness	of the	formula	'2	+	2=4'	in	formal	arithmetic	unaffected;	surely	also,	the	fact	that	quite a	number	of	people	were	prepared	to	give	some	sense	to	the	statement	'Jones knows	the	time	assiduously'	would	not	destroy	the	familiar,	established	use	of terms,	which	rules	out	the	collocation	of	such	a	verb	and	adverb?"	And	it	would	be a	pity	if	Naess's	work	were	to	be	entirely	ignored,	for,	reading	through	the	paper, one	certainly	feels	that	the	reactions	of	his	answerers	proves	something	about	the nature	of	our	concepts...At	the	moment,	all	one	can	do	about	the	larger	aspects	of his	work	is	to	suspend	judgment. (Toulmin,	1956,	p.	118) Indeed,	history	repeats	itself	for	those	in	analytic	philosophy	who	undertake	empirical investigation	into	concepts,	which	are	presupposed	in	evaluating	or	interpreting	people's performance	(Alexander	et	al.,	2010;	Kauppinen,	2007;	Machery,	2008).	These	concerns pose	problems	for	empirical	semantics	and	experimental	philosophy	to	the	extent	that	the aim	is	to	access	some	ambitious	form	of	a	priori	analyticity	or	conceptual	truth	by	means of	experimental	psychological	investigation.	But	in	the	case	of	empirical	semantics,	there was	just	no	attempt	pursue	such	a	"mentalist"	project	(Alexander	et	al.,	2010).	Naess, after	all,	rejected	that	goal	in	his	work	on	the	notion	of	truth,	and	his	students	and collaborators	agreed. Empirical	semanticists	were	well	aware	of	the	above	difficulties	and	had	nothing	against the	"laudable	effort	to	stamp	out	every	trace	of	psychologism"	(Naess,	1954,	p.	55).	What empirical	semanticists	deplored	was	the	persistent	concern	for	what	counts	as philosophy,	and	they	always	insisted	that	the	philosopher	who	uses	the	methods	of science	"need	not	stop	being	a	philosopher	for	that	reason"	(Naess,	1961a,	p.	173).	In their	analysis	of	some	of	Hume's	texts,	they	close	with	the	observation	that	the	isolation of	philosophy	from	psychological	research	is	"one	of	the	paradoxes	of	contemporary philosophy"	(Naess	and	Naess,	1960,	p.	146).	Throughout	much	of	the	work	of	empirical (p.339) semantics	they	advocated	a	return	to	a	traditional	and	broadly	empirical conception	of	philosophy.	Naess	sums	up	this	view	well: There	is	a	tendency	to	look	upon	deductive	and	axiomatical	procedures	as somehow	more	philosophical	than	empirical	ones,	and	this	has	undermined	the position	of	the	broad	empirical	traditions	(Aristotle,	Ockham,	Locke,	Berkeley, Hume,	Bentham,	John	Stuart	Mill),	which	in	my	view	deserve	a	strong representation	in	contemporary	culture.	The	charge	of	psychologism	against thinkers	of	this	tradition	is	well	founded,	but	has	been	largely	misapplied.	It	has discouraged	research	into	genuinely	empirical	components	of	question	complexes of	a	mixed	formal	and	empirical	character. ...Very	roughly,	one	may	distinguish	a	deductive,	an	intuitional,	and	an	empirical component	in	the	writings	of	analytical	philosophers.	Even	in	those	cases	in	which Experimental Philosophy* Page 12 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 deductions	and	intuitions	can	help	us	considerably,	consistent	neglect	of	the empirical	component	will	bring	research	toward	stagnation.	If	empirical	studies	are neglected,	we	shall	see	much	intelligent	debate	along	intuitionist	lines,	but	less	of that	process	that	many	of	us	find	so	inspiring	in	the	history	of	philosophy	and science:	the	development	of	new	branches	of	reliable	knowledge	as	a	result	of combined	philosophical	and	scientific	efforts....Critics	who	would	assume	that	the methods	described	in	this	book	aim	at	solving	questions	that	the	intuitively	and deductively	operating	logician	has	not	been	able	to	solve,	mistake	the	intention. (Naess,	1953a,	pp.	iii–iv) In	The	Function	of	Moral	Philosophy:	A	Plea	for	Integration	of	Philosophical	Analysis	and Empirical	Research	(1958),	Ofstad	begins	with	the	classical	conception	of	philosophy: Among	the	ancient	Greeks	the	philosophy	of	morals	did	not	exist	as	a	specific discipline.	Socrates	was	not	only	a	philosopher	of	morals,	he	was	a	psychologist	too, and	also	a	sociologist	and	a	political	scientist...The	attempt	to	answer	such	questions led	them	into	empirical	as	well	as	analytical	problems.	They	accepted	no	definite limits	for	their	speculations	in	these	areas.	Why	should	they?	It	is	we	who	have tried	to	distinguish	carefully	between	questions	of	analysis	of	language	and	those	of an	empirical	nature,	and	split	up	the	study	of	man	into	a	number	of	different sciences.	[The]	view	that	the	philosopher,	qua	scientist,	cannot	assert	pure	norms or	value-statements...has	dominated	important	parts	of	Anglo-American	and Scandinavian	moral	philosophy	for	nearly	fifty	years,	and	so	it	may	be	useful	to	take it	up	for	evaluation...It	has	stimulated	contacts	with	such	other	branches	of philosophy	as	logic	and	semantics,	but	the	connections	with	psychology	and	the social	sciences	have	been	almost	broken.	The	training	of	moral	philosophers	might be	changed	so	that	their	education	would	qualify	them	for	taking	part	in	team-work with	logicians,	semanticists,	psychologists	and	social	scientists. (Ofstad,	1958,	pp.	35–7) (p.340) Ofstad	then	surveys	research	programs	in	various	disciplines:	meta-ethics, communication	and	argumentation,	moral	deliberation	and	decision-making	processes, beliefs	and	ethical	behaviour,	and	so	on,	still	insisting	on	methodological	pluralism: Whether	research	of	this	kind	is	called	"moral	philosophy"	or	not,	seems,	however, rather	unimportant.	The	important	thing	is	that	there	ought	to	be	a	close	connection between	such	studies	and	investigations	which	are	more	central	to	moral philosophy...For	the	philosophical	significance	of	such	work,	it	is	important	to preserve	all	the	subtleties	which	are	compatible	with	the	exploitation	of	the research-instruments	developed	within	the	social	science. (Ofstad,	1958,	p.	40) In	today's	experimental	philosophy,	one	also	finds	a	nearly	identical	dialectic,	exemplified Experimental Philosophy* Page 13 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 by	Knobe's	response	to	Kaupinnen-that	is	to	say,	the	response	that	such	difficulties, while	interesting,	are	largely	a	red	herring;	where	this	is	accompanied	by	the	advocation of	a	traditional,	broadly	empirical	conception	of	philosophy	(Knobe	and	Nichols,	2008; Knobe,	2007;	Knobe	et	al.,	2012).	Again,	the	issue	for	empirical	semanticists	was	not	that the	questions	that	were	raised	were	not	interesting	or	difficult	ones	(given	relevant aims),	but	that	these	objections	have	been	misapplied	and	so	have	discouraged otherwise	valuable	empirical	research. Empirical	Semantics Despite	some	resistance,	Naess	was	appointed	as	chair	of	philosophy	at	the	University	of Oslo	in	1939,	and	here	he	continued	to	work	on	empirical	semantics	with	his	students	and collaborators.	This	work	culminated	in	his	monograph	Interpretation	and	Preciseness (Naess,	1953a),	and	later,	Communication	and	Argument	(Naess,	1966).	Empirical semantics	was	highly	influential	in	Norway;	for	nearly	twenty-five	years,	an	introductory version	of	Interpretation	and	Preciseness	had	served	as	the	obligatory	text	for	graduate students	who	intend	to	take	any	other	major	examination	at	"any	Norwegian	university,	at most	advanced	great-schools,	some	teacher	colleges	and	at	all	the	military	staff	colleges Norway"	(Tennessen,	1962,	p.	1).	After	introducing	some	relevant	terminology	and	an overview	of	the	methods,	I	survey	the	work	done	in	this	period. (p.341) Empirical	semantics	views	communication	in	terms	of	a	sender,	signal,	and receiver-particularly	the	interpretation	of	the	signal	by	the	receiver	(or	sender),	where interpretations	are	modeled	in	set	theoretic	terms.	Interpretations	can	be	discovered experimentally	with	the	use	of	questionnaires,	such	as	through	judgments	of	the	form	"Q may	be	synonymous	with	P"	and	"when	you	read	P,	did	you	take	this	to	mean	Q?"	An interpretation	Q	of	P	is	a	precization	(is	more	precise)	when	the	synonymic	alternatives	to Q	are	a	proper	subset	of	the	synonymic	alternatives	to	P.	An	expression	is	a	plausible interpretation	of	another	roughly	when	it	would	be	judged	as	potentially	synonymous	by many	interpreters.	Importantly,	precizations	and	interpretations	may	be	depicted	in	treelike	maps,	which	encode	direction	and	depth	of	precizations	(Figure	12.1).	Strictly speaking,	interpretations	are	properties	of	individuals,	plausible	interpretations	are properties	of	groups,	and	the	preciseness	of	expressions	are	given	by	social	usages (Gullvåg,	1983). Definiteness	or	depth	of	intention	refers	to	the	precization	operative	in	an interpreter/speaker,	as	evinced	by	the	point	at	which	the	individual	(p.342) Experimental Philosophy* Page 14 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 Figure	12.1 Tree-like	diagram	of	precizations,	modeled	from Ofstad's	precizations	of	the	sentence	scheme	"The	person	P decided	freely	in	situation	S"	(Ofstad,	1961).	Numbers	below branches	refer	to	the	count	of	precizations	that	have	been	omitted. Also	omitted	is	"freedom	as	virtue"	in	the	top	branch. becomes	indecisive	among	more	precise	formulations	of	what	they	mean	or	understand. Is	noonish	14	or	15	minutes	past	noon?	One	may	be	indecisive	about	the	matter	and unable	to	answer	the	question,	and	this	indecisiveness	is	the	hallmark	of	indefiniteness. The	concept	was	influenced	by	Pierce	and	his	definition	of	"vagueness"	(Gullvåg	and Naess,	1996;	Peirce,	1902,	p.	748).	It	is	more	precisely	a	type	of	"process	vagueness" found	in	the	interpreter's	head	(cf.	Sorensen,	1990).	Depth	of	intention	was	later explained	in	terms	of	the	conceptual	framework	underlying	an	individual's	ability	to discriminate	in	perception	and	thought	and	to	access	finer	distinctions	between	types	of situations	(Gullvåg,	1983;	Tennessen	and	Gullvåg,	1959). Much	use	was	made	of	the	concepts	of	definiteness	of	intention	and	preciseness	in diagnosing	and	explaining	fruitless	disagreement,	and	they	were	central	to	how	empirical semanticists	thought	about	conceptual	change	and	scientific	development.	It	also underpinned	their	views	of	the	value,	role,	and	limits	of	philosophical	analysis	(Gullvåg, 1988;	cf.	Howe,	2010;	Naess,	1936;	Tennessen,	1973).	The	centrality	of	definiteness	of intention	and	their	empirical	approach	to	language	encouraged	empirical	semanticists	to interpret	statements	about	conceptual	or	analytic	truths	as	optative	rather	than,	say, indicative,	constative,	apodictic,	or	anamnestic	in	character,	though	they	were	also fervent	methodological	pluralists. Empirical	semantics	research	would	typically	begin	with	a	survey	of	uses	alongside definitions	and	commentaries,	dubbed	"occurrence	analysis"	and	"metaoccurrence analysis"	respectively.	The	distinction	between	occurrence	and	metaoccurrence	analysis distinguishes	the	projects	of	understanding	how	a	term	is	used	versus	understanding how	it	is	defined	and	conceived	of	by	its	users,	so	as	to	be	able	to	diagnose discrepancies.	This	first	stage	was	coupled	with	a	detailed	discussion	of	the	interpretation of	certain	texts	of	interest	("elementary	analysis").	There	was	a	tendency	to	map	out	the space	of	possible	interpretations	by	substituting	precizations	of	component	parts	of expressions	and	then	narrowing	the	list	down.	The	goal	was	often	not	just	to	find	out	what Experimental Philosophy* Page 15 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 any	individual	actually	thought	but	to	map	out	the	space	of	what	one	could	possibly	think or	mean	more	precisely.9	The	whole	process	can	be	done	from	armchair	up	to	this	point in	the	procedure. (p.343) Once	some	hypotheses	were	formed	about	usages/underlying	concepts	and any	psychological	or	social	factors	of	interest,	these	were	tested	with	questionnaires,	with interviews,	or	simply	by	revisiting	the	original	occurrences.	Usually	a	panel	of interpreters	coded	occurrences	under	the	usage	rules	or	underlying	concepts.	Quite often	a	goal	was	to	understand	how	people	interpret	and	understand	each	other	in	fairly general	terms	(e.g.,	how	does	considering	someone	as	out-group	or	in-group	affect	one's direction	of	interpretation	of	key	words	in	political	argumentation?). The	result	of	the	investigation	would	be	a	map	of	precizations	and	underlying	concepts, plus	the	effects	of	such	factors	as	personality	and	philosophical	positions.	This	served	as	a basis	for	making	further	recommendations	and	evaluations,	such	as	for	facilitating	good political	or	scientific	discourse	through	an	increase	in	precision,	for	estimating	the convincingness	of	arguments	and	appeal	of	political	slogans	("market	analysis"),	or	for diagnosing	unnoticed	ambiguities	and	conflations	that	arise	from	indefiniteness	of intention. The	scope	and	detail	of	this	work	is	impressive.	Naess's	analysis	of	Zaslavski's	usage	of "democratie"	in	La	démocratie	soviétique	considered	all	192	occurrences	(Naess, 1953a,	pp.	300–49).	Tennessen's	study	on	"the	system	of	private	enterprise"	surveyed two	years	of	annual	newspapers	in	Norway	for	occurrences	before	constructing	"the longest	questionnaire	ever	given	in	Norway"	(Naess,	1964,	p.	7).	Under	the	six conceptions	of	private	enterprise	identified,	they	coded	7,667	occurrences	and	analyzed them	with	respect	to	political	party	and	profession	(Tennessen	and	Gullvåg,	1959,	p.	23). Siri	and	Arne	Naess	classified	661	sentences	in	Hume's	Treatise	of	Human	Nature	into normative,	declarative	(analytic,	synthetic),	and	other	linguistic	categories	(Naess	and Naess,	1960).	Tennessen,	Ofstad,	Gullvåg,	and	Bay	(1950)	investigated	nationalism	and	its relationship	with	psychological,	sociological,	and	economic	factors.	They	tested	sixty-three hypotheses	in	ten	surveys,	most	with	about	eighty	questions	and	500	questionnaires	per survey.	Analyzing	the	wealth	of	data	at	the	time	proved	quite	difficult,	as	one	can	imagine. (p.344) Empirical	semantics	research	at	Oslo Naess's	appointment	as	chair	of	philosophy	at	Oslo	was	soon	followed	by	a	five-year	Nazi occupation.	This,	of	course,	impacted	everyone	working	with	Naess	during	his	wartime seminars.	Indeed,	some	of	Naess's	students	did	not	survive	the	war	and	their	studies were	published	posthumously.10	It	is	in	this	context	that	a	"unique	interdisciplinary	milieu developed,	combining	an	emphasis	on	general	theory	and	methodology	with	a	strong concern	for	social	and	political	problems"	(Bay,	1958,	p.	vii).	This	attitude	is	reflected	in the	subject	matter	and	the	goals	of	many	of	their	studies.	For	example,	at	the	end	of Tennessen's	investigation	of	the	attitudes	of	lawyers	to	the	trials	of	Quislings11	in Norway,	he	concluded: The	emotional	impetus	behind	this	kind	of	work	is	linked	to	the	hope	that	our	efforts Experimental Philosophy* Page 16 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 will	incorporate	research	with	a	relatively	direct	struggle	for	humanist	ideals. Regardless	of	whether	we	call	our	surveys	opinion	polls	or	attitude	analysis	or scientific	studies	in	the	areas	between	sociology,	social	psychology,	semantics,	and ethics,	the	hope	is	that	if	these	examinations	were	performed	on	a	larger	scale,	they would	effectively	contribute	to	the	eradication	of	antagonism	throughout	society. (Tennessen,	1950,	my	translation) Naess	and	his	students	helped	establish	the	Institute	for	Social	Research	in	Norway	in 1950,	and	Naess	led	UNESCO's	Philosophical	Analysis	of	Fundamental	Concepts	project to	study	concepts	of	democracy,	nationalism,	and	liberty. Still,	throughout	this	period	there	was	also	a	vibrant	empirical	semantics	research program	in	philosophy,	and	this	can	be	divided	into	some	rough	categories	(Table	12.1). In	philosophy	of	language,	there	was	an	(p.345) Table	12.1.	Overview	of	topics	and	sample	of	works	in	empirical semantics.	Asterisks	signify	experiments	that	use	questionnaires	and interviews.	For	some	other	bibliographies	and	overviews,	see	Ofstad (1951),	Naess	(1953a,	pp.	viii–ix),	and	the	journals	Synthese,	Theoria, The	Philosophical	Review,	and	Inquiry	for	the	1940s	through	the	1960s Sample	of	empirical	semantics	research Philosophy	of	language •	Verification	of	statements	on	ordinary	language	(Gullvåg,	1955;	Mates,	1958b). •	*	"True,"	"perfectly	certain,"	and	"extremely	probable"	(Naess,	1953b). •	*	"Or"	(Naess,	1961b). •	*	Common	sense	theories	and	"truth"	(Naess,	1938a,	1938b). •	*	The	intuitive	concept	of	synonymity	(Naess,	1956,	1957). •	*	Ordinary-language	philosophers'	claims	about	ordinary	language	(Austin	and Naess,	1964;	Tennessen	et	al.,	1964;	Tennessen,	1959a,	1965). Ethics,	action	theory,	and	freedom	of	the	will •	Aesthetics	and	ethics	in	Kierkegaard's	Either/Or	(Ofstad	and	Löfgren,	1965). •	"What	is	virtue?"	in	Plato's	Meno	(Grimm,	1962,	1964). •	Free	will	and	"The	person	P	decided	freely	in	the	situation	S"	(Ofstad,	1953,	1961, 1967). •	Verifiability	and	objectivity	of	descriptive	and	normative	claims,	relationship	to "reality"	(Naess,	1959;	Ofstad,	1951;	Wickström-Nielsen,	1948). Philosophy	of	science •	Evidential	expressions	in	science	(Naess,	1933). •	Normative,	analytic,	and	synthetic	sentences	in	Hume's	Treatise	(Naess	and Naess,	1960). •	"Consciousness"	in	the	psychology	of	perception	(Fluge,	1945,	in	Norwegian). Experimental Philosophy* Page 17 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 •	*	"Testability"	in	physics	(Lövestad,	1945;	see	also	Naess,	1953a,	pp.	374–6). •	*	Concepts	of	type/typicality	(Tennessen,	1949b,	in	Norwegian). Social,	political,	and	legal	philosophy •	Foundations	for	the	science	and	empirical	semantics	of	law	(Aubert,	1943). •	Concepts	of	legal	norm	(Ofstad,	1949,	1950). •	Critical	examination	of	Nietzsche's	"Will	to	power"	philosophy	(Haaland,	1947;	see also	Naess,	1953a,	p.	266). •	Examination	of	dialectical	materialism,	by	Arne	Torvik	(Ofstad,	1951,	p.	41). •	*	Businesspersons'	views	of	white-collar	crime's	status	as	"crime"	(Aubert,	1952). •	*	"The	system	of	private	enterprise"	(Tennessen,	1949c,	1959b). •	*	Lawyers'	attitudes	to	prosecution	of	Quislings	in	Norway	(Tennessen,	1950). UNESCO	and	Norwegian	Institute	for	Social	Research •	Gandhi's	ethics	(Naess,	1958). •	Freedom	and	liberty	(Bay,	1958). •	*	Concepts	of	democracy	(Naess	et	al.,	1956;	Naess,	1953a,	pp.	300–49;	Rokkan and	McKeon,	1951). •	*	Nationalism	(Bay	et	al.,	1950). Philosophy	and	education •	Precization	in	education,	and	educational	development	of	the	concept	of	truth (Grimm,	1955). •	*	The	effect	of	philosophy	education	on	students'	philosophical	positions	(Fain	and Kaelin,	1960). (p.346) effort	to	understand	statements	about	ordinary-language	rules,	de-precization in	ethical	statements,	and	studies	on	particular	terms	such	as	"true,"	"or,"	and "synonymity".	In	ethics	and	action	theory	there	are	interests	in	whether	people "produce"	decisions,	"ought"	and	"can,"	the	freedom	of	the	will,	and	relationships between	interpretations	of	descriptive	and	normative	statements.	In	philosophy	of science,	topics	included	consciousness	and	perception,	the	"testability"	of	physical	laws, and	the	concept	of	"type"	in	psychology.	They	even	tested	whether	scientists	end	up	at observation	sentences	through	repeated	questioning	(they	do	not).	In	social	and	political philosophy	they	investigated	concepts	of	crime,	dialectical	materialism,	Nietzsche's	"Wille zur	Macht,"	and	interpretations	of	"legal	norm"	in	law.	The	diverse	themes	in	empirical semantics	span	traditional	and	contemporary	philosophical	topics,	not	unlike	experimental philosophy	today. Tennessen's	"Concepts	of	Type"	aptly	illustrates	the	process	and	style	of	empirical semantics	research	(Tennessen,	1949b).	This	study	begins	by	stating	that	its	motive	is	to take	a	comparative	and	evaluative	approach	to	typological	methods,	hypotheses,	and research	programs,	using	tools	from	experimental	psychology.	Tennessen	surveys occurrences	of	and	commentaries	on	"type,"	"typical,"	and	closely	related	terms	using Experimental Philosophy* Page 18 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 sources	from	philosophy	and	psychology,	encyclopaedias,	and	newspapers.	Then	he surveys	the	range	of	possible	precizations	of	the	type	concept	using	a	schematic	formula and	substituting	(p.347) interpretations	of	key	components.	This	is	coupled	with	an analysis	of	specific	typologies	in	psychology	to	understand	how	they	function	in	research. There	is	also	a	wider	interest	in	non-cognitive	aspects	of	meaning,	such	as	the relationships	among	binaries	such	as	female/male,	young/old,	plant/animal,	passive/active, and	their	relationship	to	the	types	of	integration	disorders	distinguished	in	psychology. After	formulating	hypotheses	about	some	underlying	concepts	or	usages,	Tennessen reports	on	the	669	questionnaires	that	were	completed	by	students,	farmers,	and professionals. Tennessen	identifies	four	main	type	concepts,	which	seem	to	be	roughly	as	follows:	(1)	a characteristically	descriptive	individual	of	the	type	or	exemplar;	(2)	typicality	in	the	sense of	statistical	mode	or	set	of	most	expected	features;	(3)	those	distinguishing	properties with	high	sensitivity	and	specificity;	(4)	a	"class"	that	is	individuated	according	to	some constitutive	qualities	of	that	class.	Tennessen	subsequently	evaluates	the	work	of typologists	and	philosophers.	For	instance,	he	criticizes	Hempel	and	Oppenheim	for	failing to	distinguish	between	(2)	and	(4)	in	their	logical	analysis.	He	also	recommends	that typologists	in	psychology	use	precization	(3),	given	their	explanatory	and	diagnostic	aims, and	shows	how	a	number	of	them	unknowingly	shift	between	usages.	Although Tennessen	closes	by	saying	this	methodology	is	a	valuable	and	much	needed	contribution to	philosophical	and	logical	analysis,	he	places	special	emphasis	on	its	limited	role.	In particular,	this	strategy	makes	the	process	of	discovery	explicit	by	including	the techniques	for	surveying	the	possible	directions	of	precization.	It	also	uses	experimental methods	to	test	the	descriptive	adequacy	of	one's	delimited	usages	or	underlying concepts.	This	is	meant,	among	other	things,	to	fix	the	mysterious	absence	of	a methodology	section	(the	"method	of	revelation")	in	logical	analysis	publications (Tennessen,	1949a). One	program	in	today's	experimental	philosophy	focuses	on	understanding	how	people think	about	specific	philosophical	topics	of	interest,	and	this	aim	is	well	represented	in	the research	done	at	Oslo.	However,	the	studies	performed	in	empirical	semantics	are	unlike experimental	philosophy	in	their	concentration	on	language	systems,	at	least	when theorizing	about	their	work.	But	in	practice	they	did	not	sharply	distinguish	between meanings	and	concepts,	nor	did	they	distinguish	between	predication	of	a	term	and application	of	a	concept,	nor	the	use	of	a	term	and	deployment	of	a	concept,	etc.	Where these	studies	(p.348) are	experimental,	they	are	in	the	tradition	of	behaviourist psychology	and	social	science.	The	measurements	are	between	variables	such	as personality	and	philosophical	views	and	their	effects	on	questionnaire	results	and	other behaviour.	The	theories	contain	no	cognitive	architecture,	identification	of	cognitive systems,	or	information-processing	models,	and	this	is	typical	of	the	time.	This	is	also	true of	the	work	done	at	Berkeley	(discussed	below). There	is	also	a	complete	absence	of	any	attempt	to	establish	analyticities	or	conceptual truths.	Empirical	semanticists	were	happy	to	keep	their	results	descriptive	and Experimental Philosophy* Page 19 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 understand	various	parts	of	the	world,	and	never	aimed	directly	at	the	more	ambitious kind	of	philosophical	upshot	that	was	expected	of	them.	In	general,	they	did	not	find projects	of	refining	intuitions	or	increasing	definiteness	of	intention	in	conceptual	analysis worthwhile,	except	as	a	means	to	greater	clarity	and	precision	for	some	specified purpose.	This	overall	attitude	is	clearly	expressed	by	Naess	on	the	notions	of	synonymy and	analyticity: Benson	Mates	contends	"that	one	is	justified	in	saying	that	there	are	'intuitive' notions	of	analyticity	and	synonymy."	This	empirical	hypothesis	about	the	existence of	certain	phenomena	or	kinds	of	phenomena	is	tenable,	so	far	as	I	can	see.	Mates has	an	intuitive	notion	of	synonymity;	I	have	had	several	in	my	life,	and	there	is reason	to	believe	that	all	of	them	have	much	in	common.	On	the	other	hand,	there is	no	reason	to	believe	that	the	various	intuited	entities	are	identical	or	near identical...If	both	of	us	should	assert	that	our	own	intuitions	are	more	adequate	or more	nearly	similar	to	the	intuitions	of	respectable	authorities,	there	would	be disagreement	between	us.	But	by	what	kind	of	discussions	or	research	can	a disagreement	about	the	nature	of	an	intuited	entity	be	settled?	Fortunately, collective	research	does	not	seem	to	presuppose	that	all	intuitions	are	shared	by	all researchers,	or	that	they	should	even	know	of	the	differences,	or	that	the	intuited entities	should	be	definite	in	outline	and	content.	Thus,	there	may	in	the	years	to come	be	much	fruitful	research	concerning	synonymity	by	researchers	with partially	different	intuitive	notions	of	synonymity...It	is	our	contention	that	sound methodology	does	not	require	strict	conformity	of	research	terminology	to	prior intuitions.	One	may	even	say	that	strict	conformity	is	not	possible	because	of	the indefiniteness	of	the	intuitions. (Naess,	1957) Indeed,	he	argued	that	intuitions	about	universal	interchangeability	salva	veritate	are	not universally	held	and	that	there	are	lax	and	broad	notions	of	synonymy.	Naess hypothesized	that	the	thought	that	this	intuition	is	universal	owes	to	overestimation	of	the definiteness	of	intention	(p.349) in	unqualified	statements,	thereby	mistaking unqualifiedness	for	generality	or	absoluteness	(as	with	"lying	is	wrong").	Indefiniteness was	also	a	major	point	of	contention	between	empirical	semanticists	and	ordinarylanguage	philosophers.	Although	use/usage	is	a	distinction	between	correct	language	use and	actual	performance,	when	taken	as	an	empirical	hypothesis	about	ordinary	language it	turned	out	to	be	below	the	definiteness	of	intention	of	its	users	(Tennessen,	1965). Whereas	Ryle	saw	the	ordinary	concept	of	voluntary	as	somehow	shaped	by	its	role	in blaming	(as	shown	by	illustrations	of	presumably	competent	usage),	empirical semanticists	would	see	this	as	unduly	precise,	i.e.,	as	more	definite	than	or	even	contrary to	how	ordinary	folk	define	"voluntary"	or	conceive	of	voluntariness	(Mates,	1958b). Empirical	Semantics	at	Berkeley The	short	period	from	1957	to	1961	at	Berkeley	was	another	highly	fruitful	episode	in empirical	semantics.	Much	work	originally	done	in	Norwegian	at	Oslo	was	also	published in	English	by	Tennessen	and	Naess	(the	two	main	experimentalists).12	Whereas	empirical Experimental Philosophy* Page 20 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 semanticists	had	previously	focused	on	logical	analysis	and	the	social	and	political applications	of	their	techniques	to	specific	concepts,	at	Berkeley	the	focus	shifted	to ordinary-language	philosophy	and	to	explaining	why	people	have	the	intuitions	about linguistic	expressions	that	they	do.	One	goal	in	this	section	is	to	outline	this	explanatory project.	The	work	done	at	Berkeley	is	also	a	little	piece	of	lost	history	that	is	interesting	in its	own	right,	and	it	has	some	parallels	with	debates	in	experimental	philosophy. The	main	cohort	of	empirical	semanticists	went	to	Berkeley	in	1957.13	Tennessen	took	a professorship	at	Berkeley	in	the	Department	of	Speech	(now	named	the	Department	of Rhetoric).	Naess	also	became	a	part-time	visiting	professor	in	philosophy,	and	Gullvåg	a visiting	scholar.	Here	they	worked	alongside	philosophers	David	Rynin,	Isabelle Hungerland,	Benson	Mates,	and	John	Searle.	Everyone	here	was	critical	of	ordinary- (p.350) language	philosophy.14	John	Austin	was	a	visiting	professor	in	1958	and	inspired much	of	the	empirical	study	that	transpired	in	these	years	(Tennessen,	1959a). Upon	arrival,	Tennessen	and	Gullvåg	participated	in	Mates's	1957	seminar	on	Austin's	"A Plea	for	Excuses"	(1956).	In	this	seminar	they	concentrated	on	ordinary-language philosophy	and	their	own	methodology.	Notes	from	the	seminar	show	that	they	focused intensively	on	how	Austin	was	arguing	for	his	positions: Each	set	of	hypotheses,	it	will	be	noticed,	contains	statements	about	usage	and statements	about	actions:	e.g.,	that	it	is	generally	not	permissible	to	use	adverbs	in descriptions	of	normal	actions,	and	some	(or	most)	actions	are	neither	voluntary nor	involuntary.	One	occasionally	feels	that,	for	Austin,	the	two	kinds	of	statements, which	he	simply	juxtaposes,	have	some	close	logical	relation:	one	kind	is	evidence for	the	truth	of	the	other	kind,	for	instance. (Tennessen	et	al.,	1964,	pp.	106–7) They	also	found	it	striking	that	"Austin's	favourite	method	appears	to	be	telling	little stories	and	asking	people	what	they	should	say	in	the	described	situation;	by	means	of sets	of	stories,	he	finds	himself	able	to	elicit	general	agreement	as	to	'what	we	should	say when'"	(Tennessen	et	al.,	1964,	p.	103). The	main	worry	in	Mates's	seminar	was	the	lack	of	explicitness	about	the	way	in	which these	vignettes	were	paired	with	usage	hypotheses.	Nearly	a	decade	earlier,	Tennessen ran	some	experiments	to	investigate	problems	with	assessing	usage	from	the	armchair, and	found	a	tendency	to	conflate	evidence	with	illustration	(Tennessen,	1949a).15	As Naess	summarized	it: (p.351) This	mechanism	radically	destroys	the	function	of	definitions.	Instead	of giving	us	precise	and	tenable	hypotheses	for	language	usages	to	be	tested	by observing	usages	of	the	rule	in	a	language,	a	definitoform	sentence	is	looked	upon as	a	formulation,	the	meaning	of	which	is	to	be	understood	by	means	of	the definiendum	within	the	language.	As	a	result,	there	is	a	tendency	to	accept uncritically	and	without	any	qualifications	whatever	subsumptions	are	explicitly	or Experimental Philosophy* Page 21 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 implicitly	asserted. (Naess,	1953a,	pp.	278–9) They	apparently	achieved	similar	results	with	Austinian	vignettes,	and	so	stressed	that this	distinction	needs	to	at	least	be	made	fully	explicit	in	philosophical	writing	and	seminars such	as	his	(Tennessen,	1959c,	1959d). In	order	to	explore	Austin's	method	more	carefully,	they	surveyed	possible interpretations	of	Austin's	approach.	They	stressed	that	what	is	important	is	not	just	what Austin	meant	but	any	other	interpretations	as	well,	as	was	standard	practice.	Some examples: (2)	Usually,	use	of	any	modifying	expression	is	not	permissible.	(2a)	It	would	sound odd.	(2b)	It	is	not	in	accordance	with	communication	norms	in	English.	(2c)	It	would be	meaningless.	(2d)	It	would	be	false...(5a)	Most	people	do	not	ever	use "voluntary"	and	"involuntary"	in	describing	more	than	a	small	number	of	cases. (5b)	Can	not	meaningfully	be	used	outside	of	such	cases.	(5c)	Most	people	do	not use	the	terms	so	that	they	ever	say	it	was	voluntary	or	involuntary. (Tennessen	et	al.,	1964,	pp.	101–2;	results	in	Tennessen,	1965) Their	diagnosis	of	the	bleak	prospects	of	the	more	ambitious	claims	of	ordinary-language philosophy,	as	they	saw	it,	turned	on	an	ambiguity	about	what	is	"correct." Of	course	it	is	true	that,	if	an	action	has	a	certain	characteristic,	then	some statement	is	"correct",	i.e.,	true,	namely,	one	which	attributes	that	characteristic	to that	action.	But	on	any	other	meaning	of	"correct,"	this	does	not	follow,	nor	does the	converse	relation	hold:	that	a	locution	is	"permissible"	does	not	allow	us	to	infer anything	about	the	world...Simply	put:	we	feel	it	necessary	to	distinguish	between what	one	would	say	and	what	one	could	say,	and	to	insist	that	knowing	the	former does	not	give	us	complete	information	about	the	latter. (Tennessen	et	al.,	1964,	pp.	107–8) While	the	Mates	seminar	went	on,	Stanley	Cavell	was	expressing	high	praise	for	ordinarylanguage	philosophy	(OLP)	just	a	few	doors	away.	So	(p.352) Rynin	arranged	a	debate at	the	1957	Pacific	APA,	and	they	told	Cavell	he	would	have	to	defend	OLP	against	Mates (Cavell,	1958;	Mates,	1958b).16 Mates's	paper	draws	from	the	seminar	notes,	but	the	target	shifts	to	Ryle	and	his apparently	irritating	use/usage	distinction	(Ryle,	1953).	Mates	argues	that	Ryle's	claims about	use	are	descriptive	after	all,	and	accuses	OLP	of	conflating	semantics	and pragmatics	(conversational	implicatures).17	He	then	distinguishes	between	extensional and	intensional	methods	of	studying	ordinary	language,	and	complains	that	OLP	focuses only	on	the	extensional	method.	The	extensional	method	is	occurrence	analysis,	and	the intensional	method	is	metaoccurrence	analysis	with	a	Socratic	twist.	The	intensional Experimental Philosophy* Page 22 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 method	involves	asking	participants	what	they	mean	and	presenting	cases	that	might make	them	revise	and	precisify	their	accounts.	Ordinary-language	philosophy	does	not account	for	the	conflict	between	methods,	Mates	charges.	Both	methods	are incorporated	into	empirical	semantics	(Hungerland,	1960;	Tennessen,	1959e).	The Socratic	dialogue	was	first	proposed	by	Toulmin	to	transgress	merely	"descriptive" statements	by	investigating	the	semantics	and	entailment	relations	endorsed	by	the	folk's own	lights	(cf.	Naess,	1961b;	Toulmin,	1956).	The	Socratic	dialogue	model	is	revived	in Kauppinen's	discussion	of	experimental	philosophy	for	the	same	purpose	(Kauppinen, 2007). Experiments	on	language	judgments By	1959,	at	least	fifteen	projects	and	4,500	questionnaires	and	interviews	had	been administered	at	Berkeley	on	topics	including	the	analytic/synthetic	distinction,	definiteness of	intention,	verbal	rigidity	and	argumentation	patterns	in	religious	and	political	discourse, and	"P	can	decide	to	do	x"	(see	Tennessen,	1959a,	p.	287).	Tennessen	used	these	to argue	"against	any	tendencies	to	narrow	down	the	field	of	permissible	communication	by employing	rigid,	a	priori	norms	or	rules	for	'what	can	possibly	be	said	(p.353) and meant'"	because	"the	whole	thing	is	most	often	a	question	of	general	(including hermeneutical)	imagination"	(Stern,	1969;	Tennessen,	1959a,	pp.	276–7,	1961). Tennessen's	target	is	exemplified	by	his	appraisal	of	the	Russell–Strawson	controversy over	Russell's	theory	of	descriptions. It	has	always	been	clear	that	whatever	advantages	this	proposal	might	have,	they have	nothing	to	do	with	analyses	or	hypotheses	about	(common	or	"ordinary") language	usages.	None	the	less,	the	following	passage	is	found	in	Strawson's	"On Referring"	(p.	330): Now	suppose	some	one	were	in	fact	to	say	to	you	with	perfectly	serious	air:	"The king	of	France	is	wise."	Would	you	say,	"That"s	untrue"?	I	think	it's	quite	certain that	you	wouldn't. Strawson	is	wrong:	Of	about	1,500	informants	tested	in	some	recent	experiments no	one	seemed	to	act	in	accordance	with	Strawson's	predictions...Strawson,	one might	say,	has	opened	the	door	a	crack	to	the	vast	field	of	empirical	investigations of	language,	taken	a	peep	in,	and,	after	(almost	immediately)	having	shut	the	door, he	reports:	"Russell	is	wrong:	The	Theory	of	Descriptions	is	fatally	incorrect because	one	would	not	(could	not?	should	not?	ought	not	to?)	utter,	and/or	mean: 'The	present	King	of	France	is	wise	is	false'!"	However,	in	his	own	attempt	at	a "solution	to	this	puzzle"	Strawson	seems	absolutely	uninterested	in	what	"one" would	or	would	not	say. (Tennessen,	1960b,	pp.	187–8)18 By	dividing	up	the	mechanisms	underlying	intuitions	about	language	and	explaining	the tendency	to	reject	statements	for	purely	language	reasons,	Tennessen	and	collaborators aimed	to	show	that	these	judgments	were	quite	irrelevant	as	to	a	statement's	tenability. Experimental Philosophy* Page 23 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 After	surveying	plausible	interpretations	of	"what	should	we	say"	and	similar	locutions, they	identified	three	general	lines	of	defense:	ineffability,	infrequency,	and impermissibility.	A	sample	of	each	follows. Under	the	ineffability	approach,	a	tenuous	connection	was	found	in	the	"verbal	rigidity" hypotheses	of	Vygotsky,	Piaget,	and	Frazer,	according	to	which	children	and	"primitive societies"	cannot	separate	word	forms	from	word	meanings.	Tennessen	found	that children	just	have	a	strong	tendency	to	adhere	to	the	permissibility	rather	than potentiality	direction	of	interpretation	of	"can"	in	such	questions	as	"can	you	call	a	cat	a dog?"	(Tennessen,	1959a,	pp.	266–72).	The	order	of	questions	was	sufficient	to	make	the difference,	and	once	clarified	there	was	no	(p.354) evidence	of	verbal	rigidity	for English	speakers.	However,	there	was	an	analogous	form	of	rigidity	on	the	side	of experimenters,	as	they	were	apparently	unaware	of	these	language	ambiguities	and	did not	imagine	such	alternative	interpretations. The	infrequency	approach	draws	on	what	is	"never	said"	to	formulate	language	rules. This	is	what	Austin	reportedly	suggested	at	Oslo	(October	1959),	in	a	debate	with	Naess over	some	of	Tennessen's	experiments	on	"voluntary	yawning": Austin: The	subjects	gave	wrong	answers	concerning	their	own	use	of	expressions,	e.g.: when	saying	they	would	never	use	"he	yawned	voluntarily"	as	a	description	of	a perfectly	ordinary	of	event	of	yawning	because	it	is	perfectly	obvious	that	such yawnings	are	voluntary.	Actually	the	subjects	would	not	say	it	because	it	cannot	be said. Naess: The	subjects	interpreted	"he	yawned	voluntarily"	as	synonymous	with	"he	was	not forced	to	yawn"	and	thus	conceived	it	as	obvious	that	he	was	not	forced	to	(and therefore	not	worth	while	saying). Austin: But	then	they	do	not	know	well	enough	the	expression	"voluntary."	It	is	too	difficult a	word,	maybe.	Better	use	"clumsy." Naess: Suggestion	to	HT:	New	experiments... Austin: ...Rules	(grammatical	or	others)	do	not	exist	as	rules.	We	say	there	is	a	rule against	saying	x	when	x	is	never	said.	What	is	against	the	language	system	cannot be	true	or	false	or	obvious.	Thus	"He	yawned	voluntarily"	cannot	be	true	or	false Experimental Philosophy* Page 24 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 or	obvious. Naess: Tennessen	investigates	communication	rather	than	language	systems.	What happens	if	something	actually	is	said	(uttered)	which	"never	is	said"?... Austin: Suppose	that	someone	yawned	in	a	standard	way	and	there	is	nothing	exceptional (i.e.,	the	case	is	a	standard	case).	If	we	ask	people	to	describe	completely	as possible	what	happens,	they	will	never	add	"clumsily"	or	"voluntarily."	If	we	say "but	did	he	or	did	he	not	yawn	clumsily	(or	voluntarily)"	they	would	find	the	terms inapplicable,	the	sentences	neither	true	nor	false. (Austin	and	Naess,	1964)19 (p.355) These	potential	problems	and	predictions	were	the	subject	of	further experiments,	of	course.	In	one	case,	they	hosted	fake	discussion	groups	on	social problems	among	students	(accompanied	by	a	hidden	tape	recorder),	and	aimed	to	have the	locution	"voluntary	yawning"	occur	as	naturally	as	possible	(Tennessen,	1965,	pp. 234–6).	Contrary	to	Austin's	predictions,	the	statements	were	accepted	as	meaningful.20 Lastly,	consider	the	impermissibility	approach.	Tennessen	and	collaborators	predicted	a dissociation	between	two	sources	underlying	the	evaluation	of	a	statement:	(1)	a grammatical	and	idiomatic/literal	direction	of	interpretation,	and	(2)	a	tenability	direction	of interpretation.	So	some	experiments	began	with	either	(1)	a	"logical-maniacal"	lecture	on how	people	often	assert	nonsense	and	contradictions,	or	(2)	a	"common-sensical"	lecture on	how	the	most	important	thing	is	to	understand	what	someone	means.	Participants	then classified	sentences	as	tautologies,	contradictions,	or	nonsense,	or	as	conveying	factual synthetic	statements.	Participants	were	also	asked	to	provide	their	reasons,	and	these were	coded	as	language	or	tenability	reasons	for	rejecting	the	statement.	These experiments	showed	that	participants	could	adopt	and	switch	between	the	two interpretive	attitudes	and	exposed	tendencies	for	pseudo-disagreement	when	these distinct	sources	or	attitudes	explain	the	disagreement	(Figure	12.2A;	Tennessen,	1959a, pp.	280–4,	1959f). So	Tennessen	identified	two	mechanisms	or	processes,	one	fast	and	intuitive	and	the other	requiring	a	bit	of	reflection	and	imagination,	and	these	underlie	the	difference between	language	and	tenability	directions	of	interpretation.	Tennessen	took	the	upshot of	his	studies	to	show	that	so	far	there	are	no	empirical	grounds	for	a	theory	of	linguistic necessity	or	for	linguistic	restrictivism;	they	are	either	empirically	unsupported	or	they split	between	two	sources	of	judgments	about	the	acceptability	of	a	statement.	The reasons	and	features	these	sources	track	do	not	tell	us	anything	about	each	other;	if	a statement	is	ungrammatical,	counterintuitive,	or	goes	against	ordinary	usage	in	one	way or	another,	this	tells	(p.356) Experimental Philosophy* Page 25 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 Figure	12.2 Example	of	one	of	Tennessen's	experiments	and	his rough	explanation.	(A)	Example	of	one	question	evincing	a dissociation	between	language	and	tenability	reasons	for	evaluating a	statement.	Rows:	Type	of	reason	given	by	the	participants. Columns:	Whether	the	participant	accepts	or	rejects	the	sentence. (B)	Expressions	and	arguments	may	be	interpreted	in	trivial	or audacious	directions,	trading	on	plausibility.	(C)	Logical	oddities	as trivialities	due	to	their	wide	acceptance	or	as	audacities	due	to	their wide	non-acceptance,	where	the	range	of	intuitively	plausible interpretations	are	a	function	of	occurrence	frequency.	(D) Significance	is	the	maximization	of	tenability	and	audacity	and provides	a	norm	for	interpretation	and	a	gauge	of	significance	when proposing	a	new	theory.	(A	adapted	from	Tennessen,	1959a;	B–D adapted	from	1959f,	1959g.) us	nothing	about	its	tenability,	and	vice	versa.	Tennessen	insisted	on	Carnap's	principle	of tolerance	for	matters	linguistic	and	conceptual,	and	defended	the	viability	of	Russell's approach	against	Strawson-style	ordinary-language	refutations	(Tennessen,	1960a). More	interesting	to	Tennessen	was	what	the	ineffability,	infrequency,	and	impermissibility approaches	do	get	right,	and	to	this	end	he	offered	some	tentative	"explanations	of	the fact	that	there	are	linguistic	expressions,	locutions,	formulations	which	intuitively	or discoursively	sound	odd	or	even	'logically	odd'"	(Tennessen,	1959f,	p.	369).	Tennessen viewed	this	as	part	of	his	"attack	on	the	method	of	revelation"	(the	use	of	intuition)	in philosophy.	He	said: A	particularly	interesting	situation	arises,	when	[historically]	philosophically interesting	problems-linguistic	or	non-linguistic-have	not	yet	been	tackled	by	the scientists	within	any	ramiculated	branch	of	existing	science	disciplines.	(p.357) The prim	and	proper	philosopher,	then,	who	insists	on	an	a	priori	attitude,	has	to choose	between	keeping	his	hands	clean,	at	the	cost	of	ignorance	on	relevant matters,	or	to	engage	in	empirical	research	himself.	It	seems	that	confronted	with this	choice-situation,	most	analytical	philosophers,	and	in	particular	the	so	called "ordinary	language"	oriented	philosophers,	choose	ignorance	as	the	lesser	of	the two	evils.	The	present	paper	is	partly	meant	as	an	attempt	to	indicate	what	may	be gained	for	philosophy	by	choosing	the	more	earthly,	a	posteriori,	attitude, employing	empirical	investigations	after	the	pattern	of	the	social	(and	other	"soft") sciences,	and	developing	the	available	methods	and	techniques	to	fit	within	a philosophical	frame	of	reference. Experimental Philosophy* Page 26 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 (Tennessen,	1960a,	pp.	496–7) Tennessen's	tentative	proposal	was	that	the	quick,	unreflective	judgments	about	linguistic or	"logical"	oddness	can	be	explained	by	a	person's	linguistic	and	conceptual	habits	plus the	factors	governing	the	remarkability	of	an	expression	(Tennessen,	1959f,	1959g, 1963).	For	example,	"P	is	cultivating	weeds"	was	labeled	as	"logically	odd"	by	NowellSmith,	despite	this	being	a	perfectly	natural	way	to	describe	a	normal	and	important activity	undertaken	by	many	anti-weed-spray	producing	companies	(Tennessen,	1959f). It	is	just	because	Nowell-Smith	is	not	a	worker	at	such	a	company	and	that	this	is	never remarkable	that	a	tension	is	intuited	by	him,	and	this	explanation	holds	quite	generally	as a	first	approximation. Here	is	the	gist	of	Tennessen's	theory.	The	"audacity"	or	"triviality"	of	a	statement	is	a measure	of	how	widely	accepted	the	statement	is	among	one's	audience.	In	general, interpretations	of	statements,	arguments,	and	theories	tend	to	leave	open	a	continuum between	audaciously	false	and	trivially	true	directions	of	interpretation-as	he	previously noticed	in	his	previous	work	on	nationalism,	"the	system	of	private	enterprise,"	and elsewhere	(Figure	12.2B).	The	range	of	fast	and	intuitive	interpretations	is	a	function	of that	expression's	remarkability	among	situations	that	a	person	regularly	encounters,	so that	these	intuitive	semantic	judgments	are	a	reflection	of	one's	linguistic	and	conceptual habits.	However,	the	whole	range	of	plausible	interpretations	is	not	immediately	obvious and	may	require	deliberation	and	a	little	imagination	(Figure	12.2C).	What	makes	a "hypothesis"	or	"proposal"	significant	is	that	it	is	sufficiently	audacious	while	still	tenable (Figure	12.2D). Tennessen	used	the	assumed	rule	of	significance	as	a	benchmark	for	successful interpretation;	if	someone	propounds	a	contradiction	or	obvious	absurdity	and significance	is	assumed,	the	interpreter	is	forced	to	(p.358) engage	in	a	roundabout interpretation	by	figuring	out	what	the	sender	is	"up	to"	and	intends	to	convey.	He applied	this	schema	to	various	cases	and	accounted	for	witty	sayings	and	double entendres	as	a	mismatch	between	intuitive	and	reflective	interpretations,	to	explain	the value	in	audacity	for	special	emphasis,	and	to	give	reasons	why	one	would	ever	remark	a truism,	obvious	falsehood,	or	something	completely	irrelevant	(Tennessen,	1959a, 1960b,	1965).	The	difference	between	mere	sensationalism	and	significance	was accounted	for	in	terms	of	a	difference	between	prima	facie	and	actual	tenability	(Barnes and	Robinson,	1972;	Tennessen,	1959g,	1973,	1984).	Something	as	audacious	as "photons	are	both	particles	and	waves"	or	"neuroscientists	discover	free	will	is	an illusion"	is	truly	significant	only	if	it	is	tenable	in	spite	of	its	audacity;	only	if	it	does	not receive	its	audacity	by	trading	on	untenable	implications	or	rigging	spurious interpretations.	Tennessen	and	Naess	were	very	interested	in	how	this	view	could	apply to	theory	construction	in	social	science	(see	Tennessen,	1960a,	pp.	496–7). It	seems	that	this	was	the	last	major	period	of	development	in	empirical	semantics.	The Department	of	Speech	that	was	home	to	Rynin,	Tennessen,	Hungerland,	and	others underwent	restructuring	in	around	1960	and	the	Norwegian	empirical	semanticists	all moved	to	different	institutions.	Many	of	the	books	and	collections	of	experiments	that Experimental Philosophy* Page 27 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 Tennessen	repeatedly	cites	throughout	his	studies	were	no	longer	pursued	after	1959– 60	and	were	never	completed.21	This	is	perhaps	unfortunate,	as	manuscripts	show	that they	were	aiming	to	develop	a	theory	of	"contextual	pragmatic	implications,"	which	they identified	as	an	area	for	which	a	scientific	theory	is	lacking	(Tennessen,	1959e,	1959h). Hungerland	made	some	key	insights	into	conversational	implicatures	and	the	manuscripts show	enthusiasm	for	systematizing	these	(Hungerland,	1960).22 To	sum	up,	the	empirical	semanticists	at	Berkeley	viewed	ordinary-language	philosophers as	appealing	to	ordinary	usage	and	tested	these	claims,	often	with	negative	or	uncertain results.	The	constructive	project	(p.359) to	explain	sources	of	language	intuitions immediately	followed.	Much	earlier	was	the	discovery	that	the	interpretation	mechanism tends	to	treat	evidence	and	illustration	of	usage	indiscriminately.	At	Berkeley	they explored	a	dissociation	between	language	and	tenability-based	judgments	in	evaluating	a statement,	plus	the	various	other	studies	on	usage	frequency	and	remarkability	(see Tennessen,	1959a,	1959f).	These	were	used	to	provide	some	tentative	explanations	for the	patterns	of	counterintuitivity	in	terms	of	usage	and	a	distinction	between	fast	intuitive language	judgments	and	reflective	interpretations,	which	was	then	applied	to conversational	and	scientific	contexts.	By	better	understanding	the	sources	of	the intuitions	in	these	cases,	the	hope	was	to	clarify	when	they	have	a	legitimate	role	in argumentation	and	theorizing. Summary	and	Conclusion Empirical	semantics	had	an	interesting	history	from	its	launch	in	Vienna,	its	development and	applications	at	Oslo,	and	through	its	disagreement	with	the	methods	of	ordinarylanguage	philosophy	at	Berkeley.	Naess	was	motivated	by	philosophers'	appeal	to	the	way terms	are	conceived,	defined,	and	used	by	ordinary	people,	as	exemplified	by	Tarski's material	adequacy	condition.	For	Naess	and	the	other	empirical	semanticists,	intuitions about	common	sense	and	the	pre-theoretic	views	of	ordinary	people	were	not	sufficient, especially	given	enduring	disagreement	on	such	matters.	The	conclusion	was underwhelming:	there	is	just	as	much	variation	and	indefiniteness	in	the	minds	of ordinary	people. The	empirical	techniques	were	valuable	for	other	reasons,	and	so	Naess	continued	his work	with	collaborators	at	Oslo.	Empirical	semanticists	had	success	in	projects	with UNESCO	on	concepts	with	social	and	political	significance,	in	the	study	of	science	and	law, and	in	their	inquiries	into	questions	of	traditional	philosophical	interest.	Later	work	at Berkeley	involved	developing	theories	to	understand	disagreements	arising	from	the claims	of	ordinary-language	philosophers.	The	research	done	at	Oslo	and	Berkeley	was extensive	and	broad	in	its	scope.	It	was	very	constructive	as	well;	part	of	this	was	of necessity	due	to	the	lack	of	pre-existing	methods	and	theories	for	their	purposes,	part	of this	was	due	to	a	commitment	to	pluralism	about	the	methods	and	subject	matter	of philosophy,	and	part	of	this	owed	to	the	view	that	long-term	constructive	(p.360) cooperation	of	many	workers	is	just	as	important	in	philosophy	as	it	is	in	science	(Naess, 1953a). I	have	highlighted	the	lamentable	dialectic	that	surrounded	empirical	semantics Experimental Philosophy* Page 28 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 throughout	the	period	of	logical	analysis	and	linguistic	philosophy.	Empirical	semanticists advocated	a	return	to	the	traditional	conception	of	philosophy	that	accepted	the philosophical	legitimacy	of	both	empirical	and	analytical	questions.	Their	kind	of	approach was	marginalized,	often	inadvertently	to	be	sure,	due	to	the	expectation	that	a	priori analytical	results	should	follow	from	or	be	the	aim	of	scientific	investigation	in	matters philosophical-as	if,	for	instance,	in	developing	a	scientific	theory	or	explanation	of	how people	define,	conceive,	and	use	certain	terms	and	their	cognates,	it	would	not	be philosophy	proper	unless	it	also	went	toward	proving	some	contentious	logical,	semantic, or	conceptual	truth	without	begging	the	question.	That	was	the	worry	with	analyticity	and synonymy,	with	deriving	use	from	usage,	the	correctness	of	math	from	math performance,	or	other	forms	of	psychologism.	Although	some	of	the	dialectic	persists today	(Kauppinen,	2007;	Knobe,	2007),	the	philosophical	climate	and	attitude	has definitely	improved. Compared	to	experimental	philosophy,	there	is	an	absence	of	any	"positive"	or	"negative" mentalist	program,	where	these	both	involve	taking	intuitions	to	have	some	distinctive evidential	role	in	conceptual	analysis	or	discovering	analyticities,	and	the	negative program	casting	doubt	on	such	mentalist	programs	(Alexander	et	al.,	2010;	Cappelen, 2012;	Machery,	2008).	Whether	or	not	this	is	an	accurate	picture	of	today's	experimental philosophy	movement,	it	was	at	any	rate	not	a	topic	of	interest	in	the	eyes	of	empirical semanticists.	And	there	are	many	reasons	why,	including	their	view	of	indefiniteness	of intention	in	semantics,	their	survey	of	possible	universal	normative	conclusions	that	might be	drawn	from	descriptions	of	language,	and	their	broadly	Carnapian	attitude	to	theory construction-not	to	mention	their	attention	to	differences	in	directions	of	interpretation and	preciseness	(compare	Chalmers,	2011). Today	there	are	two	broad	explanatory	goals	found	in	experimental	philosophy	that	are concerned	with	understanding	how	people	think	about	philosophical	topics	and	explaining why	they	think	the	way	they	do	about	them.	Both	were	well	represented	in	empirical semantics,	though	of	course	in	the	form	of	a	behaviourist	psychology	that	(p.361) emphasizes	language	usage.	Much	of	the	research	at	Oslo	was	concept-driven	research on	how	closely	related	terms	are	defined,	conceived,	and	used	by	people,	and	was motivated	by	an	interest	in	improving	political	discourse	and	contributing	to	science	and philosophy.	The	work	done	at	Berkeley	exemplified	the	interest	in	explaining	why	people have	the	intuitions	they	do	about	the	acceptability	of	a	statement.	Although	many experiments	directly	tested	the	claims	made	by	philosophers	about	ordinary	language and	thought,	this	tended	to	function	as	a	rhetorical	point	of	departure	for	subsequent theorizing	and	explanation. At	the	center	of	empirical	semantics	and	experimental	philosophy	is	the	use	of	the	latest tools	from	psychology	and	social	science,	and	a	return	to	a	traditional	conception	of philosophy	as	one	that	engages	with	both	analytical	and	empirical	questions.	Empirical semantics	had	a	small	following	and	faced	some	difficulties	with	experiment	construction and	interpretation	of	the	evidence,	and	most	of	the	actual	experiments	in	philosophy	were done	in	connection	with	just	a	few	philosophers,	among	them	Naess	and	Tennessen.	In Experimental Philosophy* Page 29 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 contrast,	today's	experimental	philosophy	has	much	wider	appeal	and	has	far	better	tools at	its	disposal,	and	the	experiments	and	researchers	already	outnumber	the	work	in empirical	semantics	by	a	wide	margin.	Despite	empirical	semantics'	successes,	Ernest Nagel	was	correct	when	he	predicted	that	Naess	would	"no	doubt	remain	an	outcast from	the	philosophic	community	and	will	have	to	find	what	solace	he	can	in	being	a	'mere' scientist"	(Nagel,	1939).	Needless	to	say,	experimental	philosophy	has	much	brighter days	to	look	forward	to. References Bibliography	references: Alexander,	J.,	Mallon,	R.,	and	Weinberg,	J.	(2010).	Accentuate	the	Negative.	Review	of Philosophy	and	Psychology	1(2):	297–314.	doi:10.1007/s13164-009-0015-2. Apostel,	L.	(1953).	Book	Review:	Interpretation	and	Preciseness.	Synthese,	9(6):	413–16. Appiah,	K.A.	(2008).	Experimental	Philosophy.	Proceedings	and	Addresses	of	the	American Philosophical	Association	82:	7–22. 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Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 Gullvåg,	I.	(1983).	Depth	of	Intention.	Inquiry	26(1):	31–83. doi:10.1080/00201748308601984. Gullvåg,	I.	(1988).	Remarks	on	Wittgenstein's	"Über	Gewissheit"	and	a	Norwegian Discussion.	Inquiry	31(3):	371–85.	doi:10.1080/00201748808602162. Gullvåg,	I.,	and	Naess,	A.	(1996).	Vagueness	and	Ambiguity.	In	Dascal,	M.,	Gerhardus,	D., Lorenz,	K.,	and	Meggle,	G.	(eds.),	Philosophy	of	Language:	An	International	Handbook	of Contemporary	Research.	Berlin:	Walter	de	Gruyter,	vol.	2,	pp.	1407–17. Haaland,	A.	(1947).	Exposition	and	Critical	Examination	of	Nietzsche's	"Will	to	Power" Philosophy,	vol.	5.	Oslo:	Skrivemaskinslua. Hintikka,	J.	(1999).	The	Emperor's	New	Intutions.	The	Journal	of	Philosophy	96(3):	127– 47.	doi:10.2307/2564660. Howe,	B.	(2010).	Was	Arne	Naess	Recognized	as	the	Founder	of	Deep	Ecology Prematurely?	Semantics	and	Environmental	Philosophy.	Environmental	Ethics	32(4):	369– 83. Hungerland,	I.C.	(1960).	Contextual	Implication.	Inquiry	3(1–4):	211–58. doi:10.1080/00201746008601311. Hutten,	E.H.	(1953).	Book	Review:	Semantics	and	the	Philosophy	of	Language	by	Leonard Linsky.	The	British	Journal	for	the	Philosophy	of	Science	4(15):	229–35. doi:10.2307/685900. Kauppinen,	A.	(2007).	The	Rise	and	Fall	of	Experimental	Philosophy.	Philosophical Explorations	10(2):	95–118.	doi:10.1080/13869790701305871. Knobe,	J.	(2007).	Experimental	Philosophy	and	Philosophical	Significance.	Philosophical Explorations	10(2):	119–21.	doi:10.1080/13869790701305905. Knobe,	J.,	and	Nichols,	S.	(2008).	An	Experimental	Philosophy	Manifesto.	In	J.	Knobe	and S.	Nichols	(eds.),	Experimental	Philosophy.	Oxford:	Oxford	University	Press,	pp.	3–14. Knobe,	J.,	Buckwalter,	W.,	Nichols,	S.,	Robbins,	P.,	Sarkissian,	H.,	and	Sommers,	T.	(2012). Experimental	Philosophy.	Annual	Review	of	Psychology	63(1):	81–99. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-120710-100350. Kusch,	M.	(1995).	Psychologism:	A	Study	in	the	Sociology	of	Philosophical	Knowledge. London:	Routledge. Kusch,	M.	(2011).	Psychologism.	In	E.N.	Zalta	(ed.),	The	Stanford	Encyclopedia	of Philosophy.<>. Linsky,	L.	(1952).	Semantics	and	the	Philosophy	of	Language.	Urbana,	IL:	University	of Illinois	Press. Experimental Philosophy* Page 32 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 Lövestad,	L.	(1945).	The	Structure	of	Physical	Laws.	Theoria	11(1):	40–70. doi:10.1111/j.1755-2567.1945.tb00003.x. Lutz,	S.	(2009).	Ideal	Language	Philosophy	and	Experiments	on	Intuitions.	Studia Philosophica	Estonica	2,	117–39. Machery,	E.	(2008).	The	Folk	Concept	of	Intentional	Action:	Philosophical	and Experimental	Issues.	Mind	and	Language	23(2):	165–89. Malisoff,	W.M.	(1939).	Book	Review:	"Truth"	as	Conceived	by	Those	who	are	Not Professional	Philosophers.	Philosophy	of	Science	6(3):	379. Mates,	B.	(1958a).	Book	Review:	Interpretation	and	Preciseness.	The	Philosophical Review	67(4):	546–53.	doi:10.2307/2182950. Mates,	B.	(1958b).	On	the	Verification	of	Statements	about	Ordinary	Language.	Inquiry 1(1–4):	161–71.	doi:10.1080/00201745808601278. Moore,	J.S.	(1939).	Book	Review:	"Truth"	as	Conceived	by	Those	who	are	Not Professional	Philosophers.	The	American	Journal	of	Psychology	52(3):	489–90. doi:10.2307/1416771. Morris,	C.W.	(1935).	Philosophy	of	Science	and	Science	of	Philosophy.	Philosophy	of Science	2(3):	271–86. Naess,	A.	(1933).	"You	Assert	This?":	An	Empirical	Study	of	Weight	Expressions.	In Krabbe,	E.C.W.,	Dalitz,	R.J.,	and	Smit,	P.A.	(eds.),	Empirical	Logic	and	Public	Debate: Essays	in	Honour	of	Else	M.	Barth.	Amsterdam	and	New	York:	Rodopi,	pp.	121–32. Naess,	A.	(1936).	Erkenntnis	und	wissenschaftliches	Verhalten	[Cognition	and	Scientiic Behavior]	(Vol.	Skrifter	Utgitt	av	Det	Norske	Videnskaps-Akademi	i	Oslo.	II.	Hist.-Filos. Klasse.	1936).	Oslo:	Kommisjon	Hos	Jacob	Dybwad. Naess,	A.	(1938a).	"Truth"	as	Conceived	by	Those	who	are	Not	Professional Philosophers.	Oslo	And	London:	Kommisjon	Hos	Jacob	Dybwad. Naess,	A.	(1938b).	Common	Sense	and	Truth.	Theoria	4:	39–58. Naess,	A.	(1949).	Toward	a	Theory	of	Interpretation	and	Preciseness.	Theoria	15(1–3): 220–41. Naess,	A.	(1953a).	Interpretation	and	Preciseness:	A	Contribution	to	the	Theory	of Communication,	vol.	1.	Oslo	and	London:	Kommisjon	Hos	Jacob	Dybwad. Naess,	A.	(1953b).	An	Empirical	Study	of	the	Expressions	"True,"	"Perfectly	Certain"	and "Extremely	Probable."	Oslo	and	London:	Kommisjon	Hos	Jacob	Dybwad. Naess,	A.	(1954).	Husserl	on	the	Apodictic	Evidence	of	Ideal	Laws.	Theoria	20(1–3):	53– Experimental Philosophy* Page 33 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 63.	doi:10.1111/j.1755-2567.1954.tb00387.x. Naess,	A.	(1956).	Logical	Equivalence,	Intentional	Isomorphism	and	Synonymity	as Studied	by	Questionnaires.	Synthese	10(1):	471–9. Naess,	A.	(1957).	Synonymity	as	Revealed	by	Intuition.	The	Philosophical	Review	66(1): 87–93. Naess,	A.	(1958).	A	Systematization	of	Gandhian	Ethics	of	Conflict	Resolution.	The	Journal of	Conflict	Resolution	2(2):	140–55. Naess,	A.	(1959).	Do	we	Know	that	Basic	Norms	Cannot	be	True	or	False?	Theoria	25(1): 31–53.	doi:10.1111/j.1755-2567.1959.tb00290.x. Naess,	A.	(1961a).	The	Inquiring	Mind.	Inquiry	4(1–4):	162–89. Naess,	A.	(1961b).	A	Study	of	"Or".	Synthese	13(1):	49–60. Naess,	A.	(1964).	Foreword	to	"The	System	of	Private	Enterprise".	In	H.	Tennessen (ed.),	Eighteen	Papers	on	Language	Analysis	and	Empirical	Semantics.	Edmonton: University	of	Alberta. Naess,	A.	(1966).	Communication	and	Argument,	Elements	of	Applied	Semantics	(A. Hannay,	trans.).	Oslo	and	London:	Universitetsforlaget,	Allen	and	Unwin. Naess,	A.	(1981).	The	Empirical	Semantics	of	Key	Terms,	Phrases,	and	Sentences: Empirical	Semantics	Applied	to	Nonprofessional	Language.	In	A.	Drengson	(ed.),	The Selected	Works	of	Arne	Naess.	Dordrecht:	Springer	Netherlands,	pp.	1562–82. Naess,	A.	(1983).	How	My	Philosophy	Seemed	to	Develop.	In	A.	Drengson	(ed.),	The Selected	Works	of	Arne	Naess.	Dordrecht:	Springer	Netherlands,	pp.	2189–202. Naess,	A.	(1993).	Logical	Empiricism	and	the	Uniqueness	of	the	Schlick	Seminar:	A Personal	Experience	with	Consequence.	In	A.	Drengson	(ed.),	The	Selected	Works	of Arne	Naess.	Dordrecht:	Springer	Netherlands,	pp.	1765–83. Naess,	A.	(2005a).	Author's	Introduction	to	the	Series.	In	A.	Drengson	(ed.),	The	Selected Works	of	Arne	Naess,	vol.	1.	Dordrecht:	Springer	Netherlands. Naess,	A.	(2005b).	How	Can	the	Empirical	Movement	Be	Promoted	Today?	A	Discussion of	the	Empiricism	of	Otto	Neurath	and	Rudolf	Carnap.	In	A.	Drengson	(ed.),	The	Selected Works	of	Arne	Naess.	Dordrecht:	Springer	Netherlands,	pp.	1666–719. Naess,	A.,	Christophersen,	J.A.,	and	Kvalø,	K.	(1956).	Democracy,	Ideology	and Objectivity:	Studies	in	the	Semantics	and	Cognitive	Analysis	of	Ideological	Controversy. Oslo:	Oslo	University	Press. Naess,	S.,	and	Naess,	A.	(1960).	Psychological	Research	and	Humean	Problems. Experimental Philosophy* Page 34 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 Philosophy	of	Science	27(2):	134–46. Nagel,	E.	(1939).	Book	Review:	"Truth"	as	Conceived	by	Those	who	are	Not	Professional Philosophers.	The	Journal	of	Philosophy	36(3):	78–80.	doi:10.2307/2017766. Nagel,	T.	(2009).	Lecture.	Jon	Searle,	50	Years	at	Berkeley.<>. Ofstad,	H.	(1949).	Alf	Ross's	begrepsbestemmelse	av	begrepet	"rettsregel":	En elementaer	analytisk	og	kritisk	undersøkelse	[Alf	Ross's	concept	of	the	determination	of the	term	"legal	rule":	An	elementary	analytical	and	critical	examination],	vol.	13.	Oslo: Skrivemaskinslua. Ofstad,	H.	(1950).	The	Descriptive	Definition	of	the	Concept	"Legal	Norm"	proposed	by Hans	Kelsen:	An	Elementary	Analytical	and	Critical	Investigation.	Theoria	16(3):	211–46. Ofstad,	H.	(1951).	Objectivity	of	Norms	and	Value-Judgments	According	to	Recent Scandinavian	Philosophy.	Philosophy	and	Phenomenological	Research,	12(1):	42–68. doi:10.2307/2103367. Ofstad,	H.	(1953).	Analyses	of:	"P	Could	Have	Decided	Differently	in	the	Situation	S,"	A field	for	Interdisciplinarian	Research.	In	Proceedings	of	the	XIth	International	Congress of	Philosophy,	vol.	14,	Amsterdam,	pp.	128–35. Ofstad,	H.	(1958).	The	Functions	of	Moral	Philosophy:	A	Plea	for	an	Integration	of Philosophical	Analysis	and	Empirical	Research.	Inquiry	1(1–4):	35–71. doi:10.1080/00201745808601270. Ofstad,	H.	(1961).	An	Inquiry	into	the	Freedom	of	Decision.	Oslo:	Norwegian	Universities Press. Ofstad,	H.	(1967).	Recent	Work	on	the	Free-Will	Problem.	American	Philosophical Quarterly	4(3):	179–207. Ofstad,	H.,	and	Löfgren,	A.A.	(1965).	Morality,	Choice	and	Inwardness.	Inquiry	8(1–4): 33–73. Overton,	J.A.	(2013).	"Explain"	in	Scientific	Discourse.	Synthese	190(8):	1383–405. doi:10.1007/s11229-012-0109-8. Peirce,	C.S.	(1902).	Vagueness.	In	Baldwin's	Dictionary	of	Philosophy	and	Psychology, vol.	2.	London:	Macmillan. Quine,	W.V.	(1951).	Main	Trends	in	Recent	Philosophy:	Two	Dogmas	of	Empiricism.	The Philosophical	Review	60(1):	20–43.	doi:10.2307/2181906. Rokkan,	S.,	and	McKeon,	R.	(1951).	Democracy	in	a	World	of	Tensions.	Chicago: University	of	Chicago	Press. Experimental Philosophy* Page 35 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 Rudner,	R.	(1950).	Counter-Intuitivity	and	the	Method	of	Analysis.	Philosophical	Studies: An	International	Journal	for	Philosophy	in	the	Analytic	Tradition	1(6):	83–9. doi:10.2307/4318095. Ryle,	G.	(1953).	Ordinary	Language.	The	Philosophical	Review	62(2):	167–86. Sellars,	W.	(1947).	Epistemology	and	the	New	Way	of	Words.	The	Journal	of	Philosophy 44(24):	645–60.	doi:10.2307/2019792. Sober,	E.	(1978).	Psychologism.	Journal	for	the	Theory	of	Social	Behaviour	8(2):	165–91. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5914.1978.tb00398.x. Sorensen,	R.	A.	(1990).	Process	Vagueness.	Linguistics	and	Philosophy	13(5):	589–618. doi:10.1007/BF00627293. Stadler,	F.	(2009).	Arne	Naess-Dogmas	and	Problems	of	Empiricism.	In	J.	Manninen	and F.	Stadler	(eds.),	The	Vienna	Circle	in	the	Nordic	Countries.	Dordrecht:	Springer,	pp.	11– 32. Stern,	K.	(1969).	Linguistic	Restrictionism	and	the	Idea	of	"Potential	Meaning".	The Monist	53(2):	246–61. Strawson,	P.F.	(1954).	Book	Review:	Semantics	and	the	Philosophy	of	Language	by Leonard	Linsky.	Philosophy	29(109):	180–1.	doi:10.2307/3747774. Tarski,	A.	(1944).	The	Semantic	Conception	of	Truth	and	the	Foundations	of	Semantics. Philosophy	and	Phenomenological	Research	4(3):	341–76. Tennessen,	H.	(1949a).	The	Fight	Against	Revelation	in	Semantical	Studies.	Synthese	8(1): 225–34. Tennessen,	H.	(1949b).	Typebegreper	[Concepts	of	Type].	Filosofiske	Problemer	12: 231. Tennessen,	H.	(1949c).	"Private	Enterprise."	A	Semantical	Study.	In	The	Psychological and	Sociological	Implications	of	Economic	Planning	in	Norway.	Oslo:	University	Press. Tennessen,	H.	(1950).	Holdninger	til	rettsoppgjøret	(1945–1948)	belyst	ved	intervjuer	av 150	Oslo-jurister	[Attitudes	to	the	Trials	(1945–1948)	Illustrated	by	Interviews	of	150 Lawyers	in	Oslo],	vol.	15.	Oslo:	Klubben. Tennessen,	H.	(1959a).	What	Should	We	Say?	Inquiry	2(1–4):	265–90. Tennessen,	H.	(1959b).	"The	System	of	Private	Enterprise,"	An	Empirio-Semantical Analysis	of	a	Slogan.	Synthese	11(1):	72–83. Tennessen,	H.	(1959c).	Evidence	and	Illustration.	Synthese	11(3):	274–6. Experimental Philosophy* Page 36 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 Tennessen,	H.	(1959d).	Note	on	Confusion	of	Evidence	and	Illustration	in	Descriptive Definitions.	The	Journal	of	Philosophy	56(18):	733–5.	doi:10.2307/2022186. Tennessen,	H.	(1959e).	Controversies:	Factual	and	Fictitious	as	Revealed	by	EmpirioSemantical	Investigations,	sections	28–32	(manuscript).	Alberta:	University	of	Alberta. Tennessen,	H.	(1959f).	Logical	Oddities	and	Locutional	Scarcities.	Synthese	11(4):	369–88. Tennessen,	H.	(1959g).	On	Worthwhile	Hypotheses.	Inquiry	2(1–4):	183–98. Tennessen,	H.	(1959h).	Language	and	Reality,	manuscript	to	be	included	in Controversies.	Alberta:	University	of	Alberta. Tennessen,	H.	(1960a).	Permissible	and	Impermissible	Locutions:	"Principle	of	Tolerance" and	"Ordinary	Language	Philosophy".	Synthese	12(4):	495–508. Tennessen,	H.	(1960b).	Vindication	of	the	Humpty	Dumpty	Attitude	towards	Language. Inquiry	3(1–4):	185–98.	doi:10.1080/00201746008601317. Tennessen,	H.	(1961).	Whereof	one	has	been	Silent,	thereof	one	May	Have	to	Speak.	The Journal	of	Philosophy	58(10):	263–74. Tennessen,	H.	(1962).	Introduction	to	Empirical	Semantics.	Alberta:	University	of	Alberta Press. Tennessen,	H.	(1963).	Language	and	Absurdity.	Alberta:	University	of	Alberta. Tennessen,	H.	(1964).	Eighteen	Papers	on	Language	Analysis	and	Empirical	Semantics. Alberta:	University	of	Alberta	Press. Tennessen,	H.	(1965).	Ordinary	Language	in	Memoriam.	Inquiry	8(1–4):	225–48. Tennessen,	H.	(1973).	On	the	Conceptual	Absurdity	of	"Conceptual	Absurdity". Philosophical	Forum	5(74):	584–91. Tennessen,	H.	(1984).	What	is	Remarkable	in	Psychology?	In	J.R.	Royce	and	L.P.	Mos (eds.),	Annals	of	Theoretical	Psychology.	Dordrecht:	Springer,	pp.	273–8. Tennessen,	H.,	and	Gullvåg,	I.	(1959).	Logical	Analysis	and	Definiteness	of	Intention. Oslo:	Universitetsforlaget. Tennessen,	H.,	Ofstad,	H.,	Gullvåg,	I.,	and	Bay,	C.	(1950).	Nationalism:	A	Study	of Identifications	with	People	and	Power.	I.	Problems	and	Theoretical	Frame-work,	vol.	1. Oslo:	Institute	for	Social	Research. Tennessen,	H.,	Mates,	B.,	and	Gullvåg,	I.	(1964).	Some	Vague	and	Preliminary	Reflections on	Austin's	"A	Plea	for	Excuses."	In	H.	Tennessen	(ed.),	Eighteen	Papers	on	Language Analysis	and	Empirical	Semantics.	Edmonton:	University	of	Alberta	Press,	pp.	99–110. Experimental Philosophy* Page 37 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 Thue,	F.W.	(2009).	Empiricism,	Pragmatism,	Behaviorism:	Arne	Naess	and	the	Growth	of American-Styled	Social	Research	in	Norway	after	World	War	II.	In	J.	Manninen	and	F. Stadler	(eds.),	The	Vienna	Circle	in	the	Nordic	Countries.	Dordrecht:	Springer,	pp.	219– 29. Toulmin,	S.	(1956).	Book	Review:	An	Empirical	Study	of	the	Expressions	"True," "Perfectly	Certain"	and	"Extremely	Probable"	by	Arne	Naess.	The	Philosophical	Review 65(1):	116–18.	doi:10.2307/2182195. Wickström-Nielsen,	O.	(1948).	Forholdet	mellem	dekriptive	og	normative	utagns gyldighet	og	om	utsagns	forhold	til	"virkeligheten"	[The	Relation	between	the	Verifiability of	Descriptive	and	Normative	Statements	and	the	Relation	between	Statements	and "Reality"],	vol.	7.	Oslo:	Skrivemaskinslua. Wright,	M.	(1967).	Language	and	the	Use	of	Language.	Inquiry	10(1–4):	439–46. doi:10.1080/00201746708601511. Notes: Special	thanks	to	Adam	Morton	and	Jeff	Pelletier's	summertime	seminar	on	empirical semantics	and	experimental	philosophy	at	the	University	of	Alberta	in	2009.	Here	I became	aware	of	the	manuscripts,	seminar	notes,	and	original	studies	that	were	left	by Herman	Tennessen,	which	served	as	valuable	material	for	understanding	the	research	at Oslo	and	at	Berkeley.	Some	of	this	material	has	been	placed	online	on	my	website,	and	is otherwise	available	on	request.	I	would	also	like	to	thank	the	anonymous	reviewers	and editors	for	their	insightful	and	helpful	comments. (1)	As	Ernest	Nagel	elegantly	summarized:	"It	also	contains	many	delicious	morsels:	for example,	Dr.	Naess	found	that	school	children	at	the	age	of	puberty	are	capable	of discussing	the	problem	of	truth	with	as	much	aplomb,	though	without	the	technical language,	as	philosophers	with	reputation;	that	the	theory	of	truth	as	adaequatio	rei	et intellectus	was	propounded	to	him,	except	for	the	jargon,	by	a	school-girl	of	sixteen;	that his	women	test-persons	had	a	greater	tendency	than	men	to	believe	in	"absolute	truth"; and	that	the	criticisms	by	his	test-persons	of	statements	by	their	fellows,	when	these statements	were	torn	completely	out	of	their	context,	were	not	unlike	those	made	by professional	philosophers	upon	the	writings	of	their	colleagues."	(E.	Nagel,	1939,	p.	78) (2)	On	Tarski,	Naess	pointed	out	that	the	group	in	this	vicinity	is	unified	by	its	function	in conversation	as	a	means	of	affirming	something	stated	or	as	otherwise	avoiding redundancy.	Tarski	responded	that	participants	likely	misunderstood,	and	proposed another	test	(Tarski,	1944,	p.	360). (3)	For	this	reason,	it	is	incorrect	to	count	Naess	as	an	early	proponent	of	"experimental philosophy,"	characterized	as	advocating	empirical	studies	of	non-philosophers' "intuitions	about	philosophical	cases,"	or	as	subscribing	to	the	view	that	philosophers appeal	to	intuitions	as	such	as	evidence	(Cappelen,	2012,	p.	219). Experimental Philosophy* Page 38 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 (4)	Empirical	semanticists	had	much	to	say	about	Frege	and	Husserl.	Frege's	views about	vaguely	grasped	propositions	receive	treatment	in	Gullvåg's	formalization	of	depth of	intention	as	discussed	later	in	the	chapter,	using	Barwise	and	Perry's	situation semantics	(Gullvåg,	1983).	See	also	Naess	on	Husserl's	apodictic	evidence	of	ideal	laws from	the	perspective	of	empirical	semantics	(Naess,	1954). (5)	The	views	of	many	Vienna	Circle	members	such	as	Carnap,	Schlick,	Nagel	and Neurath	(who	were	in	agreement	with	Naess's	approach)	did	not	gain	much	credence	in German	academic	philosophy	because	of	this	contrasting	attitude	(Kusch,	1995,	pp.	222– 6). (6)	Naess	(1953b)	also	thanks	Carnap	for	input	into	experimental	hypotheses.	Probably this	input	was	given	at	the	1937	Congress	in	Paris,	where	Naess	presented	some preliminary	results. (7)	That	is	to	say,	when	philosophers	have	remarked	such	things	as	"the	concept	of	P"	or "the	meaning	of	"P,"	they	have	never	been	talking	about	some	concept	or	term	that stands	in	relation	to	P,	but	P	itself.	Ryle's	take	on	this	phenomenon	is	similar	to	that	of Timothy	Williamson	and	Herman	Cappelen. (8)	Apostel,	Crockett,	and	Toulmin	all	have	positive	things	to	say	in	the	rest	of	their reviews,	as	does	Mates	(Mates,	1958a).	Of	course,	Quine	influentially	noted	that	it	is	not at	all	clear	how	empirical	investigation	can	solve	disputes	about	meaning,	and	his	influence shows	up	in	some	of	the	reviews	(cf.	Naess,	1957;	Quine,	1951). (9)	Indeed,	when	Naess	talked	of	the	"possibility	of	an	'experimental	philosophy'"	in	his study	of	truth	he	referred	to	a	developmental	psychology	of	conceptual	systems-one which	begins	with	the	"embryonic	form"	of	philosophical	positions	found	among	nonphilosophers	(Naess,	1938a,	p.	161). (10)	In	a	1945	letter	to	Otto	Neurath,	Naess	wrote	of	his	wartime	experiences:	"I	am	still somewhat	groggy	and	disheartened	because	of	lost	friends	and	collaborateurs,	but	I hope	soon	to	recover.	The	very	brilliant	young	philosopher	Ludvig	Lövestad	died	this year.	He	was	my	close	friend	in	all	kinds	of	work,	also	the	'illegal.'	He	was	tortured	to death,	remaining	silent	about	my	hiding-place.	Another	close	friend	and	collaborateur	in philosophy,	Wickström-Nielsen,	was	killed	when	jumping	from	parachute.	He	came	from England	and	jumped	with	documents	and	Russell's	new	book	on	Truth	etc.	and Lundberg's	new	book	on	the	methods	of	sociology.	Also	other	young	people	who	wished to	go	on	with	philosophy	and	mathematics	are	missing.	This	field	got	an	exceptionally	hard blow."	(Quoted	in	Stadler,	2009,	p.	20.) (11)	Quislings	were	members	of	Vidkun	Quisling's	collaborationist	party	during	the	Axis occupation	of	Norway	in	World	War	II. (12)	Much	of	this	was	facilitated	by	Naess's	editorship	at	Synthese,	and	Naess's	new journal,	Inquiry. Experimental Philosophy* Page 39 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 (13)	This	is	aside	from	Ofstad,	who	went	to	the	University	of	Stockholm	in	1955. (14)	Their	colleague	Stanley	Cavell	described	this	period	as	one	of	being	engaged	in	"all but	continuous	argument,	sometimes	consisting	of	friendly	exchange	sometimes	of (temporarily,	but	you	couldn't	be	sure)	estranging	dispute"	(Cavell,	1999,	p.	xxiii).	"[I was	surprised	by	the]	outrage	[OLP]	produced	in	my	older	colleagues.	Outrage	is	what it	was.	This	was	evident	in	my	colleague	Benson	Mates's	contempt,	echoed	in	his	older friend	David	Rynin's	exasperation"	(Cavell,	2010,	p.	372). (15)	Some	of	the	experiments	went	as	follows:	"The	word	x	seems	to	be	used	in	different ways.	Occasionally	it	is	used	in	the	sense	of	y,	as	for	instance	in	the	sentence:	'...'.	We inserted	a	sentence	which	made	it	seem	preposterous	to	believe	that	the	word	was	used as	indicated	in	the	text.	In	spite	of	this,	there	was	a	tendency	among	the	respondents	to agree	to	the	subsumability.	Some	of	the	questionnaires	contained	questions	of	the following	kind:	'Do	you	think	this	x	is	a	good	or	bad	example	of	y	being	used	in	the	sense of	z?'"	(Tennessen	and	Gullvåg,	1959,	p.	3). (16)	Although	it	launched	his	career,	Cavell	remembers	it	thus:	"Rynin	issued	this invitation-summons	rather-coming	upstairs	and	down	the	hall	from	his	to	my	office	in Dwinelle	Hall,	at	the	end	of	a	conversation	that	he	began	by	noting	that	since	I	arrived	in town	I	had	been	saying	a	lot	of	extravagant	things	about	this	new	work	on	ordinary language...The	impression	of	anger	in	such	exchanges	never	left	me."	(Cavell,	2010,	pp. 372–3.) (17)	This	appears	to	be	the	first	time	conversational	implicatures,	though	not	named	as such,	are	explicitly	used	as	arguments	against	ordinary-language	philosophy. (18)	The	"1,500"	number	presumably	comes	from	its	regular	inclusion	in	studies	at Berkeley. (19)	The	full	transcript	and	other	materials	are	available	on	the	author's	website. (20)	Austin	planned	to	study	the	interviews	apparently	supported	occurrence	analysis	in dictionaries	(Austin	and	Naess,	1964).	Indeed,	Austin	saw	his	approach	as	one	that	would be	absorbed	into	a	larger	scientific	enterprise	(see	Naess,	1961a,	p.	197).	Unfortunately Austin	passed	away	shortly	after	these	debates.	At	the	time	it	was	an	open	secret	at Oxford	that	Austin	was	seriously	considering	moving	to	Berkeley,	having	reportedly remarked	that	he	"could	build	an	empire	there"	(T.	Nagel,	2009),	and	having	expressed concern	with	a	lack	of	a	next	generation	of	like-minded	philosophers	at	Oxford	(Chapman, 2009). (21)	This	is	aside	from	Objectivity,	which	was	published	by	a	small	San	Francisco publisher. (22)	Hungerland	argued	that	a	satisfactory	account	of	contextual	implication	depends crucially	on	what	one	can	infer	about	the	speaker's	beliefs	given	that	the	norms	of Experimental Philosophy* Page 40 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the l icence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Yale University; date: 01 July 2015 conversation,	whatever	they	are,	are	still	not	violated	(see	also	Chapman,	2008,	2009).