ABSTRACT
The term ‘experimental philosophy’ has two quite different meanings. First, during the enlightenment, it was used (along with ‘natural philosophy’) to refer to what we would now call science or the scientific method: the method of investigating the nature of reality by devising and testing hypotheses on the basis of experiment and observation, as opposed to a priori reasoning (or, less charitably, armchair speculation). Experimental philosophy (in this sense) and what we now think of as philosophy enjoyed something of a symbiotic relationship. On one hand, the philosophical work of Bacon (1561-1626) on scientific methodology – which focused on freeing the mind of untestable preconceptions and prejudices and promoting the inductive method – led directly to the formation of the Royal Society, which was originally a forum for natural philosophers, including Newton (1642-1727) and Boyle (1627-91), to discuss experiments and hypotheses (John Locke was also a member). On the other hand, the empiricist tradition in philosophy owes much to the success (particularly in the hands of Newton) of experimental philosophy; for example, the subtitle of David Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40) is ‘an attempt to introduce the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects’.
