“It used to be commonplace that the discipline of philosophy was deeply concerned with questions about the human condition. Philosophers thought about human beings and how their minds worked. They took an interest in reason and passion, culture and innate ideas, the origins of people’s moral and religious beliefs. On this traditional conception, it wasn’t particularly important to keep philosophy clearly distinct from psychology, history, or political science. Philosophers were concerned, in a very general way, with questions about how everything fit together. The new movement of experimental philosophy seeks a return to this traditional vision.
- Joshua Knobe and Shaun Nichols, “An Experimental Philosophy Manifesto” (2008), pg 3
Our goal is to “Launch” a new area of research: experimental philosophy of religion. The central mechanism for achieving this aim is a major funding initiative, through which interdisciplinary teams of academics were invited to conduct research on the project theme.
Though the tools and conceptual resources of experimental philosophy have been fruitfully applied to longstanding debates within epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics, relatively little work has been done connecting experimental philosophy to philosophy of religion or philosophical theology. This project aims to take this next step.
October 2025: The John Templeton Foundation agreed to fund the “Virtues and Vices of Spiritual Yearning” project.
August 2025: Experimental Psychology and Philosophy of Religion is under contract with Cambridge University Press (Elements Series).
Ian Church is writing a chapter for the forthcoming Compact Compendium of Experimental Philosophy (Walter de Gruyter) edited by A. M. Bauer & S. Kornmesser, entitled, “Experimental Philosophy of Religion.”