Experimental Philosophy
Vaughan Bell writes about gathering data for thought experiments. He points to a New York Times article on experimental philosophy.
[tease]
… experimental philosophy [is] a new branch of philosophy where, for example, answers to philosophical thought experiments are tested on members of the public to find the most common answers and possible contradictions in everyday reasoning.
From the New York Times article, by Kwame Anthony Appiah a philosopher at Princeton University:
[tease]
Philosophers don’t observe; we don’t experiment; we don’t measure; and we don’t count. We reflect. We love nothing more than our “thought experiments,” but the key word there is thought.
As the president of one of philosophy’s more illustrious professional associations, the Aristotelian Society, said a few years ago, “If anything can be pursued in an armchair, philosophy can.”