It sure isn't obvious from what they let through in the recent "Room for Debate" about experimental philosophy.  Here is "Lew," comment #2, "responding" [sic] to Ernie Sosa's perfectly sensible remarks (the capital letters are Lew's):

YOU SEEM TO HAVE A TENDANCY TO MUSH THINGS TOGETHER. YOU ARE A MUSHER. PHILOSOPHERS NEITHER 'BORROW' FROM SCIENCE NOR 'BECOME' SCIENTISTS. SCIENCE IS A PREREQUISITE FOR PHILOSOPHY. PHILOSOPHY IS A HIGHER RUNG ON THE HIERARCHY OF KNOWLEDGE. THE PHILOSOPHER INCORPORATES AND TRANSFORMS SCIENCE. THEREFORE, HE IS A SCIENTIST BEFORE HE IS A PHILOSOPHER. THIS IS THE WAY IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN AND IS SUPPOSED TO BE. SO THIS WHOLE DEBATE IS GENERATING UNNECESSARY CONFUSSION THAT YOU HAVE ADDED TO.

i find williamson's comments vacuous and self serving. in what specific ways does psychology or any other branch of science differ from "a combination of abstract reasoning and particular examples", if by abstract reasoning we mean scientific theory and by particular examples we intend replicable experiments or naturalistic observations? and how exactly do the "naive inferences" of some investigators evade the critical test of further experiments in the normal conduct of science, or create a predicament that requires philosophical rescue?

the crux here is that philosophy only has one tool and one domain of experiment: talk, words, semantics, definitions. nothing else. to the extent that philosophy begins to address facts, in the specific sense of an experiment — a distinctive arrangement of facts that will produce a recognizable new fact as an outcome — then it simply morphs into science. "testable hypothesis" is the clearly drawn boundary between the two.

We get all the way to #5 on my piece before we get "natty bumpo" delivering the typical infantile insult:  "I'm always impressed by the former philosophy majors who pour my coffee in the morning."  Now, on the plus side, it might be observed that most of the first ten comments on most of the contributions (that's all I surveyed) aren't hopeless, sometimes reflect appreciation of philosophy, and sometimes have a substantive and intelligent point to make.  Compared to the comments on the typical "Stone" column at the Times, these comments are really quite good overall.  Still, if being insulting and utterly confused about the subject isn't enough to get your comment moderated out of existence at the NY Times, one wonders what is?

UPDATE:  Gary Gutting (Notre Dame) writes:

Thanks for bringing up the question of comments from the public on the NYT's philosophy blogs.  My two recent Stone pieces on religion, particularly one criticizing Richard Dawkins' case against theism, attracted some particularly vitriolic and illogical responses.  To cite just one prominent example, comment after comment "refuted" (or at least ridiculed) my alleged attempts to prove the existence of God, although I had offered no positive case for God's existence but only pointed out some problems with Dawkins' case for atheism.

 

Much more disturbing to me was the disdain for professional philosophy shown by many respondents, particularly atheists who pride themselves on clear, rational thinking.  A major part of my criticism of Dawkins was that he assumed that any God would have to be complex and therefore in need of outside explanation, but ignored significant philosophical accounts of God as simple and as necessary.  (My point was not that these accounts are right, just that you can't assume a contrary view of God without coming to terms with them.)  To this the most frequent response was that philosophy was just a lot of obscurantist, self-indulgent babbling that no sensible person needed to pay attention to.

 

I was disappointed that hardly any philosophers wrote comments opposing these attacks on their discipline, although I understand the reluctance to get involved in disputes on this level.  But I also think that we philosophers need to assert the relevance of our work to questions about religion, consciousness, freedom, and happiness that are frequently discussed in forums such as the NYT.  There is typically a  large and generally well-disposed audience for biologists, neuroscientists, psychologists, and sociologists who talk about these topics.  We philosophers need to push back against the perception that our work on such topics is of little significance.