From Princeton’s Kwame Anthony Appiah we learn that a “new, new” breed of philosophers, in a development some in their ranks call “x-phi,” is browsing about and collecting information about what folks actually think and say about the scholars’ work.

Appiah, asking if one can “really do philosophy with clipboards and questionnaires,” answers:

X-phi helps keep us honest and enforces a useful modesty about how much weight to give one’s personal hunches … But — this is my own empirical observation — although [these new methods or] experiments can illuminate philosophical arguments, they don’t settle them. (New York Times Magazine)