Geography of Philosophy Project extended through December 2022

The Geography of Philosophy Project, an in depth, cross-cultural exploration of the concepts of knowledge, understanding and wisdom, has been extended. The Project, which receives major funding from the John Templeton Foundation, is conducting studies on five continents, using a wide range of methods. Though originally scheduled to end in May 2021, the John Templeton Foundation has extended the Project through December 2022. The Foundation has also provided generous additional funding (by $546,777 from $2,569,563 to $3,116,340) that will enable Project teams around the world to transition to online data collection and continue the Project’s cutting edge, in depth studies, despite the disruptions caused by the global Covid-19 pandemic. The Project PIs—Clark Barrett, Edouard Machery, and Steve Stich—and the international Team Leaders are enormously grateful to the John Templeton Foundation President, Heather Templeton Dill, and to the Foundation’s dedicated staff for their ongoing support of research inspired by Sir John Templeton’s conviction that all intellectual traditions would be enriched by deep exploration of fundamental philosophical concepts in cultures around the world.

Clark Barrett (UCLA, Anthropology), Edouard Machery (Pittsburgh, HPS), and Steve Stich (Rutgers, Philosophy), PIs of the Geography of Philosophy Project.

COVID-19 Update: in-person research has stopped in all sites

Since January, our teams have slowly stopped conducting research as COVID-19 spread -- stopping in-person data collection and work with all indigenous communities in Peru and Ecuador. And by early March, we stopped such research in all our sites.

We're still running studies online & working remotely.

YouTube Channel Launch: Geography of Philosophy Project

The Geography of Philosophy Project YouTube channel is now live, featuring videos from workshops and conferences. These videos provide access to a wider audience and archive their contents.

Available Videos:

• PI Clark Barrett on a new generation of cross-cultural research

• PI Stephen Stich on Epistemology for the Rest of the World

• PI Edouard Machery on the function of the concept of knowledge

• Pedro Romero on experiments in a small and large scale societies

• Introduction to the Geography of Philosophy Project

Please subscribe to be the first to see new videos.

Go Philosophy features knowledge, understanding, and wisdom

In the blog, Edouard Machery covers the three concepts explored by the Geography of Philosophy Project: knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.

The research of the GPP aims to begin answering open questions about the concepts, such as “Is knowledge ascription sensitive to what would happen if the agent’s belief were false?”, “Who are the sources of understanding?” and “Do wise people or people recognized as wise feel entitled to give advice?”, by providing empirical evidence through a cross-cultural approach.

Each of the core concepts will be researched in the many languages the GPP works with, partly in search of translations. The project will further “examine the frequency of use of these words as well as their semantic (e.g., their relation to other concepts) and syntactic properties across languages”.

The complete readings can be found on Go Philosophy or by following the links below:

Knowledge

https://go-philosophy.com/knowledge-ascription-open-questions/

Understanding

https://go-philosophy.com/understanding-open-questions/

Wisdom

https://go-philosophy.com/wisdom-open-questions/

Go Philosophy launch: the official blog of the Geography of Philosophy Project

We're excited to announce our project officially launched a blog: Go Philosophy.

Please visit the blog at https://go-philosophy.com/.

More content is coming soon detailing our research and to discuss cross-cultural topics in collaboration with the GPP teams.