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Introduction: 20 Years of Experimental Philosophy of Language

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Experimental Philosophy of Language: Perspectives, Methods, and Prospects

Part of the book series: Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning ((LARI,volume 33))

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Abstract

Experimental philosophy of language, as a subdiscipline of experimental philosophy, shares its most important defining characteristic: conducting empirical studies to solve traditional problems in the philosophy of language. Much of the attention in the field has been directed to theories of reference because of the influential 2004 article by Edouard Machery, Ron Mallon, Shaun Nichols, and Stephen Stich, Semantics, Cross-Cultural Style. After almost 20 years of research, it is time to take stock. This introduction has two goals. First, to represent the discipline’s past and current state, and highlight which have been the topics of study addressed by the discipline in addition to the theories of reference. Second, to draw attention to corpus methods in the experimental philosophy of language, a methodology that, although not the most widespread today, is gaining more and more adherents.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Other mentions, however, are much more recent. For example, Knobe and Nichols (2017) define research in experimental philosophy as consisting in two key features: “a. the kinds of questions and theoretical frameworks traditionally associated with philosophy; b. the kinds of experimental methods traditionally associated with psychology and cognitive science.”

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  1. Departamento de Lógica y Filosofía Teórica, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    David Bordonaba-Plou

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Correspondence to David Bordonaba-Plou .

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    David Bordonaba-Plou

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Bordonaba-Plou, D. (2023). Introduction: 20 Years of Experimental Philosophy of Language. In: Bordonaba-Plou, D. (eds) Experimental Philosophy of Language: Perspectives, Methods, and Prospects. Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning, vol 33. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28908-8_1

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