John Turri

Professor, Canada Research Chair in Philosophy and Cognitive Science

Areas of interest

Experimental philosophy and cognitive science

Current research

Professor Turri directs the Philosophical Science Lab. The lab mainly uses online behavioral experiments to answer questions about concepts, judgments, and practices central to commonsense cognition and communication. Broadly speaking, topically, this has fallen into four (or so) categories: epistemology (knowledge, belief, evidence, reasons), language (speech acts, norms), ethics (duties, blame, excuse), and metaphysics (agency, luck, abilities, identity). We practice open science, value viewpoint diversity, eschew intolerance, and oppose the politicization of research or the workplace.

Graduate students comfortable with that combination of methodology, topical focus, and ethos, and interested in working in the lab should contact Professor Turri to discuss their plans.

For a fuller description, see Professor Turri’s research page and lab page.

Areas of graduate supervision

experimental epistemology
experimental ethics
experimental philosophy of language
experimental metaphysics
interdisciplinary synthesis of research findings relevant to experimental philosophy, including developmental, comparative, computational, biological, and cultural evidence

Undergraduate supervision

Waterloo undergraduates interested in applying for an NSERC-USRA to work in the lab should contact Professor Turri to discuss their plans.

Select publications

For a complete list, see Professor Turri’s publication page.

Buckwalter, W. & Turri, J. (In press). Knowledge, adequacy, and approximate truth. Consciousness and cognition.
Turri, A. & Turri, J. (2019). Lying, fast and slow. Synthese.
Turri, J. (2018). Exceptionalist naturalism: human agency and the causal order. Quarterly journal of experimental psychology, 71(2), 396–410.
Weaver, S. & Turri, J. (2018). Personal identity and persisting as many. In T. Lombrozo, J. Knobe, & S. Nichols (Eds.), Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy, volume 2. Oxford University Press.
Turri, J. (2017). How “ought” exceeds but implies “can.” Cognition, 168, 267–275.
Turri, J. (2016). Knowledge and the norm of assertion: an essay in philosophical science. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers.