I suspect this has to do with the demise of the "linguistic turn," which in my view was a deviation from the mainstream of philosophical tradition. But, whatever explains the historical trend, clearly these days philosophy is *not* a purely a priori discipline.
Lots of people think philosophy is an "armchair" discipline in which empirical evidence is largely irrelevant. But, humorously, this idea is contradicted by the empirical data. Looking at records from prestigous, generalist philosophy journals, I found something striking.
This IHE article discusses my recent work with @mvazquez.bsky.social about how students' politics change during college. Simply put, independently of political *beliefs* students seem to adopt an "educated liberal" *identity.*
We think these results, now published in American Psychologist, highlight a need for more theorizing and tests of popular claims about how to cultivate this much-needed trait.
psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?d...
@mvazquez.bsky.social and I tested this "collaborative dialogue hypothesis." But the results of quasi-experiments and a randomized experiment (and using self-reports, behavioral indicators, and text-analytic measures) consistently contradicted the hypothesis.
Intuitively, it seems like bringing people together to discuss complex ethical and political issues should help them to be more intellectually humble about those issues—at least if the conversations are rigorous yet respectful. But, empirically, doesn't seem to work that way.
The official version is now up on the journal's website: doi.org/10.1007/s112...
Philosophy was mostly "armchair" in the mid-20th century—but it's not anymore! Philosophers have increasingly cited empirical sources and discussed empirical data and evidence. In fact, as of the 2020s, non-empirical philosophy has become the minority.
The paper (forthcoming in Synthese) is available on PhilPapers!
philpapers.org/rec/PRITRO-23
