Last updated on 28 March 2010

Notice

International Conference

How and why economists and
philosophers do experiments:
dialogue between experimentaleconomics
and experimental philosophy

Kyoto Sangyo University, Kyoto, Japan
27-28 March 2010

Invited Speakers:
Speakers     Title / Abstract Paper/PPT
Prof. Ido Erev   (Israel Institute of Technology)    On Psychology, Economics, and the Prediction of Human Behavior   Paper
PPT 
Prof. Urs Fischbacher (University of Konstanz)   On intentions and responsibility Paper1 2
Prof. Shu-Heng Chen (National Chengchi University)   Origin of Agent-Based Computational Economics  
Prof. James R. Beebe (State University of New York)   The Relevance of Experimental Epistemology to Traditional Epistemology   Paper
Prof. Stephen Stich (Rutgers University)   Experimental Philosophy & Experimental Economics: Challenging Entrenched Assumptions PPT 
Masashi Kasaki (University of Calgary)   Enriching the Framework of Experimental Philosophy   Paper Handout
Prof. Nick Feltovich (University of Aberdeen)        
Program
27 March 28 March

Registration
9:00 - 9:15 Opening Note (Oda)
9:15-10:15 Introduction of experimental economics
to experimental philosophers (Masashi Kasaki)
10:30-11:30 Introduction of experimental philosophy
to experimental economics (Nick Feltovich)

Registration
9.00-10.30 Parallel Sessions 1

10.45-12.15 Parallel Sessions 2

Lunch Lunch
12:30-13:30 Invited Talk 1 (Ido Erev)
13:45-14:45
13:45-15:00		 Invited Talk 2 (Stephen Stich)
Break
15:15-16:15
15:30-16:30		 Invited Talk 3 (Shu-Heng Chen)
16:30-17:45
16:45-17:45		 Poster Session
13:15-14:15 Invited Talk 4 (Masashi Kasaki)
14:30-15:30 Invited Talk 5 (Urs Fischbacher)
Break
16:00-17:00 Invited Talk 6 (James R. Beebe)
17:00-17:15 Closing Note
18:00-20:00 Reception

All invited talks are held in room 5303 builiding #5
Access : Kyoto Sangyo University builiding #5 (No.14 on the map) Bus timetable (Kitaoji st. <->KSU)

*Please bring your own lunch. Nearly all the campas restaurants and shops are closed on Saturdays and Sundays.

From the organising committee

Despite having a short history, experiments are now considered indispensable in economics as in other fields of science and engineering. As Vernon Smith's Nobel Prize (2002) shows, experimental economics has now established itself in modern economics. In such an environment, researchers are expected to develop the tradition with new ideas in new fields for solving various problems in the real world

This understanding was the basis of the international conference held at Kyoto Sangyo University (KSU) five years ago: "The International Conference on Experiments in Economic Sciences: New Approaches to Solving Real-world Problems" 13-17 December 2004, which covered a broad range: experimental economics, experimental management theory, experimental accounting, computational economics and social engineering.

At the conference Vernon Smith stressed, in his speech to the general public, that his message is an optimistic message about the future, about economic betterment and the development of world trade and world resources. The audience found it interesting and moving to see his trust in humanity and the economy which have generated his scientific activities. He analyzed, in his speech to economists, the foundations of experimental economics, economic design and applications. His message, which is based on his insight and his long experience in experimental research, covered a wide range of economics. Emphasizing that all humans (including researchers) and social institutions are boundedly rational, he showed how we can deepen our understanding of human behavior and social institutions and make research applicable to improve the real world. The fruit of the conference containing Smith's two speeches can be seen in "Developments on Experimental Economics" published in 2007.

Economic experiments broaden and deepen our understanding of human behavior, the economy and their interdependence. In fact, experiments are powerful methods to understand the following topics: decision making, performance of systems, and interdependence of a system's performance and individual behaviour. Experiments for the first topic are designed to observe how people behave. Experimenters control subjects' economic environments to guess their strategies, which are not always apparent in the real world. The environment can be non-game-theoretic (a person's gain or loss is determined by chance and his/her own action) or game-theoretic (a person's gain or loss is affected by other people's actions). In either case what is investigated is the subjects' behaviour. Experiments for the second topic are conducted to see how market or other economic systems work. In this case, subjects are not the main object of investigation: the researcher uses the experiment to see the performance or the dynamics of the system the experiment represents. Experiments for the last topic synthesise experiments for the above-mentioned topics. They examine how an individual’s behaviour affects and is affected by the whole system.

The development of experimental economics continues. New findings and applications have been presented one after another. Nevertheless many experimental economists are not satisfied with making their subjects play economic games in the laboratory to observe the subjects' behaviour and to analyze it in terms of economics: they do experiments in the real world, use psychological terms to explain their subjects' behavior, and employ an fMRI to examine the brain activities of their subjects while making economic decisions. In these circumstances experimental economists should reconsider how and why they do experiments. These questions may be examined more deeply and productively (if not answered) when they are investigated with those who do experiments in other fields. "How and why do we experiments?" can be a significant question also for experimental philosophers, who introduced experiments to philosophy where the experimental approach was beyond imagination for centuries. Are experiments only for criticizing theories? What makes philosophical experiments different from experiments in other disciplines? These questions may be examined deeply and productively when they are investigated with those who do experiments in other fields.

The present conference is organized in the context mentioned above. We have invited leading experimental economists and experimental philosophers, whose speeches will shed a new light on these questions. All are welcome to the conference who are interested in experiments in economics, in philosophy and/or in other disciplines.


Call for papers

All papers are welcome that would shed a new light on experimental studies in social or cultural sciences. The central topics are experimental economics and experimental philosophy, but other topics are quite acceptable for this interdisciplinary workshop. Both experimental research and theoretical analysis are acceptable. You are encouraged to join the workshop with your fresh findings or original ideas. The workshop will provide you a unique opportunity for discussing your experiments and experimental approaches in general with people who are interested and engaged in experiments in other fields.
Deadline: 31 January 2010.
Send an extended abstract (one or two pages of text plus minimum references) of your presentation to the cotact point. You may also send a full paper; please send it with its extended abstract.

Are you willing to present your research at the conference?

Although the calling for presentations at pararell sessions is closed, poster sessions are still open.
Please send an abstract of the poster to the conference address.
Research still in progress or research proposal are acceptable if they contain new insights and possibility.


Parallel Sessions
Session 1
9:00-10:30 		Session 2
10:45-12:15
Room
5321		 Tamura Hitoshi “Will” and “Ishi”: Explanation of Action in Cross-Cultural Perspectives Tomasz Wysocki
Katarzyna Szuber		 Justice behind the veil of ignorance?do real people behave according to?Rawls’ conclusions?
Matthew, Lindauer, Vincent The Influence of Knowledge of Upbringing On Moral Responsibility Judgments Adrien Barton Psychology of probability and its normative consequences
Tsuyoshi Hatori Can the mass man discuss with others? An experimental study on spiritual vulgarity of the masses and failure of dialectic discussion Satoshi Fujii Defection defined in social psychology research on social dilemma and the theory of the mass in Ortega’s “The Rebellion of the Masses”
Room
5322		 Katsuhiko Nagase Who will divert the trolley?: The trolley problem and personality Yohsuke Ohtsubo Costly Apology as a Reputation Maintenance Strategy
Masaharu Mizumoto Mind’s Room Project as an Early Example of Experimental Philosophy ~ Or what it is like to do experimental philosophy in Japan~ Tatsuji Takahashi Studying Cognitive Symmetry for Experimental Social Science
Regina Rini Experimental Economics and Experimental Ethics: Some Methodological Lessons
Room
5323		 Ryoko Wada The reasons for the braking of the independence alternative irrelevant: alternative in portfolio choice problems. Kazuhito Ogawa Group decision, distant place and donation in the experimental dictator games
Jun Nakabayashi Procurement Auctions with Pre-award Subcontracting: A Laboratory Experiment Takehisa Kumakawa Isolating and Identifying Motivations:A Voluntary Contribution Mechanism Experiment with Interior Nash Equilibria
Ai Takeuchi An Experimental Study from the Perspective of Inductive Game Theory Nick Feltovich The effect of leniency programmes on anti-competitive behaviour: an experimental study
Room
5324		 Tatsuyoshi Saijo A Solution to Prisoner’s Dilemma: 100% Cooperation in the Experiment with Approval Stage YusukeNarita Commtting to Promises by Guilt: A Generalized Approach
Naoki Watanabe An experiment on learning about own payoff functions. Joseph, Wang, Tao-yi A Window of Cognition: Eyetracking the Reasoning Process in Spatial Beauty Contest Games
Mark Alfano Social Cues in the Public Good Game

Each session is expected to be chaired by its last presenter.


Poster Session
All parallel session presenters are encouraged to present their researchs at the poster session too. Presentations which will be shown in the poster session only are as follows:
Masaharu MizumotoAn Analysis of Knowledge from a Developmental Perspective
Fumiya OishiRobustness of Prediction Market for Price Manipulation? : An Experimental Examination


Registration
Please fill following form and send to


Name (First, Family, Middle):
Title:
Organization/Company:
Mailing address:
e-mail:
Paricipate the reception? (Yes/No):

The registration fee is free, but not including the fee of conference reception.


Conference Reception
We will hold a conference reception in the evening of March 27.
Fee of the reception is 5,000 JPY.
Please inform whether you will paticipate or not when you make resistration.
You can make your payment at the conference resistration desk in Japanese Yen.
Please note that credit cards, traveler's cheques and so on cannot be accepted.

Hotel Reservation
Since a lot of travelers visit Kyoto in March, you are advised to make a forward
booking your accommodation during your stay as soon as possible.
You may look for your accommodation by yourself or ask a travel agent (GT centre).
Please contact Ms Kamo. e-mail: kamo(at)gtcenter.co.jp.


What is Experimental Phylosophy?

Experimental philosophy is a new growing field whose core consists in applying the methods of experimental psychology to our pre-theoretical intuitions regarding philosophical cases (by extension, it also includes neural image studies of our brain states while having such intuitions). Traditional philosophers heavily rely on such intuitions, and, by appeal to them, construct or justify their philosophical theories. However, surprisingly little is known about ways in which we form intuitive judgements concerning philosophical cases, i.e., it is yet unclear what mechanism underlies such intuitions, let alone what factor or set of factors provoke a certain type of intuitions. Presumably, the methods that best suit inquiries into the mechanism in question are empirical, and there lies the importance of the methods of experimental psychology. However, it is controversial whether and to what extent experimental philosophy impacts the traditional methodology of philosophy. Some argue that unrestricted usage of philosophers' intuitions is to be prohibited. This is because some surveys reveal that philosophers' intuitions significantly differ from those of non-philosophers; whereas some claim that experimental philosophy can collaborate with traditional philosophy for fruitful results. Thus, experimental philosophy is not only of empirical significance but also of philosophical significance, since it is concerned with the very methodology of philosophy.

(Masashi Kasaki)



プレコンファレンスセミナー（3月26日）

プレコンファレンスセミナーをコンファレンスの前日、３月２６日に予定しています。
これは実験経済学と実験哲学、双方の研究の入門的な概要と招待講演者の研究を紹介し、 専門用語など英語では把握しにくい概念についても事前に予備知識を持っていただくことで、 双方の領域の研究者同士の理解の障壁を引き下げ、研究者間の対話、 そしてコンファレンスそのものをより有意なものにすることを意図しています。
セミナーは日本語で行います。是非ご参加ください。

 9:00-10:30   実験哲学入門   笠木雅史(カルガリー大学） PPT 実験哲学の哲学の中での位置づけ、
研究手法、代表的な研究など 
10:45-12:15   招待講演者紹介   笠木雅史(カルガリー大学）   招待講演者の研究と招待講演の概説 
13:15-14:45   実験経済学入門    濱口泰代（名古屋市立大学）   実験経済学の経済学の中での位置づけ、
研究手法、代表的な研究など
15:00-16:30   招待講演者紹介    関絵里香（アバディーン大学）
小川一仁（大阪産業大学）		  
PPT		 招待講演者の研究と招待講演の概説 

本学５号館３階、5303 5301教室で行います。


Organising Committee:

Contact point: