Michał Wyrwa
research teaching
Michał Wyrwa

Contents

Methods in experimental philosophy of mind 2025/2026 (lab)

 included in Classes
   1473 words   7 minutes 

General info

The course aims to develop participants’ ability to apply empirical methods to philosophical questions. We will explore how experimental findings shape philosophical debates within the broader cognitive science framework. Since the focus will be on understanding, designing, conducting, and analyzing empirical inquiries inspired by philosophy rather than delving into philosophical nuances, students are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the suggested theoretical literature.

Each class will consist of a discussion on a key paper reading, a student presentation on follow-up studies, and research exercises. In mid-to-late November, we will also have a refresher on basic statistics, so ensure you have appropriate software installed (I’ll be using RStudio or Jamovi but you can work with whatever you are comfortable with).

Please feel free to use generative AI to help enhance your understanding of papers, concepts, or methods, but don’t blindly trust its results. You may also use AI to improve the flow of your written work, but do not outsource the creation itself—this is one of the most crucial parts of what makes you you: your unique thought processes and perspectives.

If you have questions about the course, feel free to drop me an email at michal.wyrwa [at] amu.edu.pl. I’m also available on Fridays from 11:30 to 12:30 in Room 65AB.

And here are the PDFs: www.

Course calendar

(Only compulsory readings are listed below. Ones for presentations are in the ‘Read-up literature’ section.)

  1. Introduction, formalities + about experimental philosophy (XPhi) (10.10)
    • Sytsma, J., & Livengood, J. (2015). The New Experimental Philosophy. In The Theory and Practice of Experimental Philosophy (pp. 3–19). Broadview Press.
  2. Exploring the conceptual scheme of folk psychology + General introduction to scientific methodology (17.10)
    • Weisman, K., Dweck, C. S., & Markman, E. M. (2017). Rethinking people’s conceptions of mental life. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(43), 11374–11379.
    • (For a refresher on scientific inquiry and methodology) Morling, B. (2018). Research Methods in Psychology: Evaluating a World of Information (part 1, i.e., Introduction to Scientific Reasoning, 5-84)
  3. Why think phenomenal consciousness exists? + Formulating research problems and planning research (7.11)
    • Sytsma, J., & Machery, E. (2010). Two conceptions of subjective experience. Philosophical Studies, 151(2), 299–327.
  4. Why think phenomenal consciousness exists? p. 2 (textual data) + Other XPhi questionnaire studies + Designing experimental tools (14.11)
    • Sytsma, J., & Fischer, E. (2023). ‘Experience’, ordinary and philosophical: A corpus study. Synthese, 201(6), 210.
  5. Catch-up on statistics + Other XPhi studies with textual data (21.11)
    • Stats class, practical session focusing on getting you on board with basic inferential statistics (correlations, differences, anova).
    • And your short recaps of XPhi linguistic studies
  6. XPhi condition: worries and prospects + Analyzing data p. 1 (28.11)
    • Bach, T. (2023). Limitations and Criticism of Experimental Philosophy. In A. M. Bauer & S. Kornmesser (Eds.), The Compact Compendium of Experimental Philosophy (pp. 101–130). De Gruyter.
  7. Exploring lived experiences (naturalizing phenomenology) + Analyzing data p. 2 (5.12)
    • Petitmengin, C. (2006). Describing one’s subjective experience in the second person: An interview method for the science of consciousness. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 5(3–4), 229–269.
    • Petitmengin, C., Van Beek, M., Bitbol, M., Nissou, J.-M., & Roepstorff, A. (2019). Studying the experience of meditation through Micro-phenomenology. Current Opinion in Psychology, 28, 54–59.
  8. Exam! (12.12)
    • A detailed list of topics for the exam will be provided in November
  9. Project meetings (individual/groups, general research idea) (19.12)
  10. Project meetings (individual/groups, experimental design and analysis plan) (9.01)
  11. Project meetings (individual/groups, progress report) (15.01/16.01)
  12. Reports deadline and project presentations! (23.01)

Grading

You can collect up to 60 points:

  • Exam (easier if you do presentation during class meetings, see below) (1/3 of total points)
  • Assignments during classes (exercises, overall participation) (1/3 of total points)
  • Final project (1/3 of total points)

Grading scale:

  • 5.0: >54pt
  • 4.5: >48 to 54pt
  • 4.0: >42 to 48pt
  • 3.5: >36 to 42pt
  • 3.0: >30 to 36pt
  • 2.0: 0 to 30pt

Final project

The final project involves designing, conducting, and analyzing a small XPhi study, with a written report (7 000-10 000 characters, following APA7) to present the results. Projects should be done individually or in groups of 2. The topic, methods, and analysis plan need to be approved during the compulsory project meetings.

You can either fill a gap in the XPhi literature, do a cross-culture replication of an existing study, or propose a new design for a yet unexplored philosophical issue.

Project meetings are compulsory, and the grade for the project will only be given after the vivas.

The viva gives you an opportunity to defend your project and clarify any ambiguities that may have arisen from reading your report. Projects will be assessed based on their philosophical relevance, the validity of operationalization and experimental design, the rigor of results analysis and interpretation, and the overall quality of the manuscript. (Vivas will take place in a class setting, with a short presentation of your results to the other groups.)

Read-up literature for presentations

The papers listed below are those you can choose from to make a short presentation (7-10 minutes explaining the research question, experimental design, and results). For each specified class meeting, there is time for up to three presentations. You may also cover a study that was omitted in an earlier class. Each presentation will reduce the number of exam questions by 1/3.

  1. Why think phenomenal consciousness exists? (questionnaires, p. 2) (7.11)
    • ★ Sytsma, J., & Ozdemir, E. (2019). No Problem: Evidence that the Concept of Phenomenal Consciousness is Not Widespread. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 26(9–10), 241–256.
    • ★ Díaz, R. (2021). Do people think consciousness poses a hard problem? Empirical evidence on the meta-problem of consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 28(2–4), 55–75.
    • ★ Gregory, D., Hendrickx, M., & Turner, C. (2022). Who knows what Mary knew? An experimental study. Philosophical Psychology, 35(4), 522–545.
  2. Why think phenomenal consciousness exists? p. 2 (textual data) + Other XPhi questionnaire studies + Designing experimental tools (14.11)
    • ★ Díaz, R. (2022). Emotions and the body. Testing the subtraction argument. Philosophical Psychology, 35(1), 47–65.
    • ★ Nadelhoffer, T., Shepard, J., Crone, D. L., Everett, J. A. C., Earp, B. D., & Levy, N. (2020). Does encouraging a belief in determinism increase cheating? Reconsidering the value of believing in free will. Cognition, 203, 104342.
    • ★ Salomons, T. V., Harrison, R., Hansen, N., Stazicker, J., Sorensen, A. G., Thomas, P., & Borg, E. (2022). Is Pain “All in your Mind”? Examining the General Public’s Views of Pain. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 13(3), 683–698.
    • ★ Cova, F., Gaillard, M., & Kammerer, F. (2020). Is the phenomenological overflow argument really supported by subjective reports? Mind and Language, May 2019, 1–29.
  3. Catch-up on statistics + Other XPhi studies with textual data (21.11)
    • ★ Hansen, N., Porter, J. D., & Francis, K. (2019). A Corpus Study of “know”: On the Verification of Philosophers’ Frequency Claims about Language. Episteme, 1–27.
    • ★ Reuter, K. (2024). Normativity and Concepts of Bodily Sensations, Studia Philosophica, 83, 55–73.
    • ★ Loureiro, F., Garcia-Marques, T., & Wegener, D. T. (2024). More than meets the gut: A prototype analysis of the lay conceptions of intuition and analysis. Cognition and Emotion, 38(8), 1229–1245.
    • ★ Wright, J. C., Sedlock, T., West, J., Saulpaugh, K., & Hopkins, M. (2016). Located in the thin of it: Young children’s use of thin moral concepts. Journal of Moral Education, 45(3), 308–323.
  4. XPhi condition: worries and prospects + Analyzing data p. 1 (28.11)
    • ★ Cova, F., Strickland, B., Abatista, A., Allard, A., Andow, J., Attie, M., Beebe, J., Berniūnas, R., Boudesseul, … Zhou, X. (2021). Estimating the Reproducibility of Experimental Philosophy. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 12, 9–44.
    • ★ Landes, E., & Reuter, K. (2025). Conceptual Revision in Action. Review of Philosophy and Psychology.
    • ★ Peters, U., & Lemeire, O. (2023). Hasty generalizations are pervasive in experimental philosophy: A systematic analysis. Philosophy of Science, 1-21.
    • ★ Maćkiewicz, B., Kuś, K., & Hensel, W. M. (2023). The influence of philosophical training on the evaluation of philosophical cases: a controlled longitudinal study. Synthese, 202(4), 113.
  5. Exploring lived experiences (naturalizing phenomenology) + Analyzing data p. 2 (5.12)
    • ★ Allen, K., Quinlan, P., Andow, J., & Fischer, E. (2021). What is it like to be colour‐blind? A case study in experimental philosophy of experience. Mind & Language, mila.12370.
    • ★ Blundell, Emma. K., Grover, Laura. E., Stott, J., & Schrag, A. (2023). The experience of Anxiety for people with Parkinson’s disease. Npj Parkinson’s Disease, 9(1), 75.
    • ★ Moskalewicz, M., Kordel, P., Kokociński, M., Wiertlewska-Bielarz, J., & Makowski, P. (2023). The rhythm of chemotherapy and the felt experience of time: a front-loaded phenomenological retrospective cohort study. Scientific Reports, 13(1), 9286. (has to be done alongside ★ Moskalewicz, M., Popova, Y., & Wiertlewska-Bielarz, J. (2022). Lived time in ovarian cancer – A qualitative phenomenological exploration. European Journal of Oncology Nursing, 56, 102083.)
    • ★ Przyrembel, M., & Singer, T. (2018). Experiencing meditation–Evidence for differential effects of three contemplative mental practices in micro-phenomenological interviews. Consciousness and cognition, 62, 82-101.
Updated on 1011-09-00
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