Before moving on to the first-order debates that Wilhelm so helpfully pursues, I want to concede an important point that he makes in the opening of his commentary. Wilhelm rightly observes that I overstate the extent to which a thoroughgoing naturalism can preserve traditional approaches to philosophy. Though ostensibly a plea for consilience, I am, in fact, skeptical about the notion a prioricity. Rather, I claim that armchair methods are observational (intuitions are defeasible inner observations informed by prior experience, and open to empirical correction). As Wilhelm makes clear, traditionalists who view conceptual analysis as an a priori endeavor will not share my enthusiasm for naturalism.
In another respect, however, my position is conservative. I don’t think traditional philosophers must stop working as they currently do. Armchair methods remain the primary source of philosophical theories and distinctions. They also are the primary source for philosophical thought experiments that can be used to test between theories. Thus, my invitation to interpret armchair methods as observation is intended as a vindication of traditional philosophy, though not a vindication of how some traditional philosophers understand their own endeavors.
Proof of this qualified vindication comes from the fact that empirically oriented philosophers regularly draw on traditional work in devising their studies. For example, experimental philosophers have used trolley problems, twin earth cases, and the thought experiments used to back contextualism in epistemology. In my target paper, I relied on theories that have been identified and articulated within traditional philosophy. Testing between theories requires observation, I believe, but it would be a great loss if every philosopher ran a laboratory. Instead, I envision a future for philosophy in which many researchers do no experimental work, others are primarily experimentalists, and still others do a combination of the two. If we begin to make empirical methods a standard part of philosophical training, then philosophers will be able to read psychological research more responsibly and conduct experiments when they see fit. But it doesn’t mean that they will also suddenly stop thinking and blindly collect data. As in the sciences, theoretical work is required in philosophy. We can resist the idea of a priori truth without throwing away the armchair.