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Bereft of all feeling, deprived of all passion, devoid of sense, robbed of its
humanity and stripped of any humaneness philosophy had become when in the
hands of mostly anglo-saxon, so-called analytic philosophers and mostly
white, male, seemingly confused, elderly , continental philosophers. The
passion that drives the thinker through the Socratic questioning are forgotten
and the slight glimpse of a vision of the golden dawn now and then revealed in
Heidegger by the lover of wisdom are replaced by pseudo-logic aspirations and
sterile mathematical notions of those who produce an infinity of peer reviewed
articles and endless writings to fulfil the contract of their tenure as paid,
professional thinkers who must produce on the academic assembly-line of living
off philosophy.
We are left we the bare bones of semantics expressed by the semiotics that are
reflected by the norms of reasoning and some form of, usually informal, logic.
Why do philosophy, why grasp, approach and ring out the blood from almost
anything, any thing, any thought, and why read every word and grasp its
wrestling for meaning with the philosopher who tears them out of his heart,
cleansed by his mind, why try to tune in to his stream of consciousness in an
attempt to share that what he tries to catch a fleeting glimpse of and express by
means of ideas, words, concepts, phrase, propositions, statements and
sentences? We read philosophy so as to tune into the life, the existence, the
passion, the fear, the dread, the occasional delight and happiness felt by the
thinker wrestling all day and all night, like Jacob, with THE ONE. We will not
let go of the slim hold we have on the tunic of the Beloved until, with the seeker
we arrived at knowing intimately the one, the one real self, our real SELF, the
Sufi Beloved, the Gottheit or Godhead of Meister Eckhart and the long line of
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mystical lovers. This is what the reader discovers when he attempts over and
over and over again, to grasp what Heidegger is trying to uncover, what those
like Socrates and Hegel attempt to reveal that what gives meaning to life in
spite of all its pain, its dread, the violence of war, the anguish of rape, the hurt
of a loved one murdered, the child ripped away out of the mothers arms by the
all-equalizing one, the grim reaper. We seek the few fleeting moments of
tranquillity, of inner peace, all contemplatives seek and that a few original- and
creative-thinking philosophers occasionally get hold of by means of flashes of
intuition in their consciousness and struggle to find suitable words to express
them in signs that reveal them and make them visible, known by means of
intersubjective tools to anyone who seeks passionately, who wishes to listen to
the almost silent voice of reason. Attempting to enter the thoughts, the
consciousness of the lover of Sophia, the yearning after her wisdom, is the prize
of the lover and seeker of absolute intimacy with Sophos. The thinker who
engages Sophos allows us to share in his most intimate embrace his Biblical
knowing of his Beloved this is what the one who reads philosophy realizes
the poetry of the lover singing the beauty, truth and meaning of the Beloved.
The reader is allowed to enter this secret chamber and being led by the words of
the philosopher can, almost as if s/he himself is the lover employ the
philosophers words to re-create his thought and sing out the poetry of the love
of wisdom.
THIS is why one reads philosophy. To share the intimacy the thinker expressed
in words, his oneness with wisdom, the reader is allowed to trace through every
word, every thought, every movement of consciousness and thus s/he can
himself become one/d with the Beloved grasped and held, beholden and
revealed by ideas, by reasoned thinking, not unlike the midwife pulls out the
bits of meaning by means of dialogue in ancient Greece.
Many aspects of what the original-and creative-thinking
philosopher reveals and allows us to share by the
intersubjective means of language, concepts, signs and
consciousness crystalized as words, appear not unlike poetry.
Like the life experienced by the poet when she says something
about the rule for living a life, as Mary Oliver in her instructions
for living a life, shares with us, with those who wish to listen -
Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it!
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My painting of my, now deceased, dog (bottom right) in the mist under a tree in
my garden.
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Why read philosophy, why write philosophy, why do philosophy .it is like
you stick, force your hand, your arm deep, deep, deep down into your most into
parts, through your pliable brain, into some dark, endless Freudian hole and pull
out handfuls of mass, formless mass, and then the first signs of some meaning
are forced into that mass, through deep pain you produce some initial meaning
as shown here in images, my visual art the initial step, then this so-called
intuition are slowly transformed into concepts, gradually constituted into the
forms of meanings, clay, paste, damp formless dough are sculpted by simple
signs into intersubjective meanings isolated thoughts that gives shape to
formless, imageless intuitive grasps for meaning, for sense.. and slowly in spite
of the severe pain they are given more recognizable shape the concepts that
begin to make sense, the first seconds of visible forms on the first day of
creation, and scalpels of logic are sliced into them to make them meaningful by
giving them a reasoned appearance these are the products presented in a more
ordered, reasoned form by means of visual shapes and perhaps, eventually as
arguments arguments to present to the reader the ordered, formerly shapeless
intuitive mass of sparks, are forced into concepts, propositions, statements and
birth is given to isolated insights of sense and gradually compelled by the force
of reason to sentences of sense. This is what, the end result, the reader is shown,
this is what the reader takes hold of, simple words and try to follow them up to
get hold of what the philosopher has tried to express and communicate.
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Some, hopefully the most important aspects of the most relevant, subconscious,
pre-conceptual, experience have been brought to conscious awareness as the
stuff of intuition and jotted down in some verbal, visual, diagrammatic manner.
Now the philosopher attempts to retain, with as little cognitive bias as possible
to identify the relevant features of this intuitive awareness and try to constitute
them as some form of conceptualized mind set, in the most open minded way or
manner as possible. Much of so-called Continental philosophical ideas concern
this stage of pre-conceptual awareness and the beginnings of conceptualized
consciousness. When these things have been brought more explicitly into verbal
or conceptual tools and arranged in some logical form by means of reasoning or
arguments we arrive at the areas where so-called analytical philosophy often are
the preferred approach. At this stage the philosopher begins to do things with
words, reasoning, logic of some kind, arguments and argumentation ways to
construct his mind set, frame of reference and cognitive contents in a visual and
most often a verbal form.
The latter is what the reader of philosophical material is presented with. That is
where he might find the string of meaning that he is to identify and grasp, hold
on to and follow through the darkness of non-sense, the cave of ignorance, to
the light of meaning at the other side of the tunnel. This is how he attempts to
lock into the verbally crystalized or conceptually expressed strings of ideas of
the philosopher if they make intersubjective sense and are presented in inter-
subjectively meaningful and logical ways.
These are the strings of meaning the reader, who becomes the co-thinker in the
dialogue, hold on and follow, in so far as they are meaningful, reasonable,
rational and sound if his cognitive attitudes and biases, experience, knowledge
and level of understanding allow it. In the so-called Socratic methods of doing
philosophy we see the ideas being explore, identified, shown and revealed very
gradually by the interchange of words of those involved in the discourse. Words
are not merely uttered in an objective manner but are meant to represent, depict
and make visible not only the thoughts, but also the underlying attitudes, values
and norms of those producing them. They depict the mind set, the reality, life
world and consciousness of those who use and utter them. With the result that
when these words are being modified, the logic they are being used in terms of
and the reasoning they express are identified, made explicit and altered the
associated beliefs, mind set, values, state of awareness, attitudes,, existence and
life of the individual are being transformed hopefully into a more meaningful,
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a more reasonable, a more rational, moral and human one. All this, all that what
takes place in dialogue, are meant to occur by and during the reading of written
philosophical words and works in this case the dialogue of rational persuasion
are in a written form and the reader himself must assist in the enlivening, the
energizing, the bringing to life the intended meanings represented by the written
words and phrases.
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We began with the intuitive rising from the subconscious of experiences
gathered over time that became sudden flickers of insight. But these things are
seldom presented to the reader in written form. We find instead articles that
respond to other articles concerning very specialized niche problems or to
minute, detailed problems from the repertoire of work of established and well
known figures. This is what readers are encountering, the finished products of
philosophical thought, traditionally they are presented to the reader as a
complete, speculative, metaphysical system, that includes an epistemology,
ontology and methodology. Or, work may concentrate on one or more of these
areas and in a finalized, clinical form. Regardless of the form of the finished
product they are far removed from the seemingly simple, but ism, speculative
and metaphysical free Socratic conversations.
Is it therefore the case that we must make decisions right at the beginning of our
philosophizing if we wish to opt for the Socratic or Philosophical Investigations
speculative, -ism and metaphysical free path or for the, mostly amateurish kind
of theory-building and construction, systematic, -ism type in either the logic
obsessed anglo-saxon manner or the almost fictional phantasies of the so-called
continental schools and their followers?
Are we dealing with the same type of thing, the philosophical discourse, when
we explore these two opposing approaches, or are there many different kinds of
philosophical discourses, disciplines and socio-cultural practices? The Socratic
and PI ones seem to have less grandiose aims, apparently concentrating on the
clarification of some ideas, words, terms and the usage associated with them, so
as to identify, reveal and perhaps modify underlying or associated norms, values
and attitudes, while the Continental ones wish to reform the world, often with a
tint of a yearning for the lost utopia of Marxism, or the Anglophone satellites
and linguistic colonies worshipping the ideals of the gods of mathematics, logic
and science. Both of these academic tribes with their many mini-tribal sub-
cultures and their emphasis on professionalization are very far removed from
the aims of the philosophizing of PI or Socrates. So far, that one wonders what,
if anything they do still have in common?
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Much of Anglo-phone philosophy (both the subject-matter, methodology,
techniques, methods and tools) has gradually become during the last centuries a
concentration on explicit, logic (formal, informal, etc) and argumentation-
orientated phenomena. Compare this, implications and consequences with those
of the Socratic methods and PI, their visions, ideals, purposes, aims, values and
norms. In these, where reasoning, argumentation and logic play a role, of course
and important one, and have many, serious, functions, but they are not the sole
occupation, the main factors that determine the way philosophy, its aims, tools
and discourse are interpreted. And they are not the i) only and ii) ultimate norm
and standard for the evaluation of the a) doing of philosophy and the b) nature
of the philosophical subject-matter, its aims, purpose and norms of i) how it
must be done and ii) what philosophy is subject-matter and iii) method-wise.
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THE, great names in philosophy work in giant, universal strokes, they deal with
the big and new, big pictures (of visions of philosophy, metaphysics, ontology,
epistemology, reality and the nature of existence and that what exists), general
frameworks that reveal original theories and theoretical insights, models and
paradigms* and not in minute, detailed, microscopic, technical explorations
and mostly irrelevant questions that are mere variations on currently accepted,
ruling, established isms and ideologies, as found in scholarly, academic theses
and programmes or research suitable for peer-reviewed articles and journals.
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*with the result that they transform, re-create, re-invent and re-interpret in
revolutionary and drastic ways the entire landscape of philosophy, the discourse
of this socio-cultural practice and thereby transform notions of what philosophy
is, what it could be, what it should be as far as subject-matter goes and how it
should and could be done as far as its methods are concerned.
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In these ways they, in in his own way, move beyond the philosophy as some
form of logic-determined discourse, of the socio-cultural practice of philosophy
conceived as the expression of logic and the perception of the philosophical
enterprise as reduced to logic. As the young and obviously arrogant and quite
ignorant owner of the New Realism group on Facebook states: philosophers are
logicians!
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But, where does the creative- and original thinking philosopher get his original,
new and fresh subject-matter from? He invents ** it intuitively, by means of
the new, big picture, a new frame of reference, a new general framework, a new
paradigm that may or may not be meaningful, that may or may not be relevant
and that may or may not be better, more functional or useful than the current,
reigning one/s. This new frame of reference enables and allows the conception
of a new reality, new life-worlds, alternative universes or multiverses, populated
by new objects. This new subject-matter or the new perception of existing ones
are possible by the conceptually ordered intuitions that have their origin in the
past experiences drifting around in the thinkers pre-, or not yet- conceptual sub-
conscious for want of a better, more cognitive science informed notion and
explanation. These pre-conceptual or not yet visually, verbally... conceptualized
inklings are explored and eventually conceptualized as concepts, meanings and
ideas that constitute the collected data, the brain dump, the brain storming of the
new, still to be developed theory or still to be constructed theory or model of the
philosopher. Such theoretical frames of interpretation, understanding, cognition,
thinking and explanation will be developed gradually during the different steps
or stages of the processes of theorizing, theory-building or construction that will
follow when Kant conceptualizes his metaphysics of how we are conscious,
when Hegel lays down the nature and development of history, when Marx by
words fight the good fight for the working classes or Russell for the upper class,
Descartes for Reason, Husserl of Ideen and so on and onIn this way the new
so-called paradigm or frame of philosophical reference and understanding are
provided to conceive of reality in a new way, to constitute reality for us or our
life-worlds, our universes in new, original ways and as a result we are presented
with a transformed philosophical discourse, a new way to perceived philosophy,
the doing of philosophy and the execution of this socio-cultural practice.
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** Why? But why all this? Why fabricate yet another philosophy? Why create
yet another metaphysical system? Why manufacture yet another speculative ism
with its own world of ideas? Because the existing paradigm, the current isms
and its ideology, the reigning, institutionalized universe of philosophical ideas,
explanatory, theoretical frameworks, their implications, assumptions, ideals,
objectives, values, principles and norms, are no longer satisfactory. They lack in
meaning, in utility, in function, they, the intellectual reality, establishment and
socio-cultural worlds and elites they represent are losing their power. And in the
eyes of the thinker they and the philosophical reality (or the reality constituted
by them philosophically) are no longer cognitively satisfactory, no sufficiently
meaningful, relevant and explanatory. These are the reasons the thinker, creator
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numbered pieces and style and that of PI and the separate, individual dialogues
of Socrates is intentional and it has a serious, if not philosophical, at least a
logical purpose. The reason being that if the thoughts and exercises of the PI
were divided in, consisted of and were constructed in the traditional chapters of
books or chapter and book-long reasoning and arguments or argumentation,
instead of the isolated, independent numbered paragraphs, or if the dialogues or
conversations of Socrates consisted of one life-long, interconnected dialogue or
if I were to write not in isolated, independent, numbered paragraphs, but instead
think in terms of, express and write in traditional or chapter-length or book form
then the present isolated paragraphs, individual Socratic dialogues or numbered
sections of the PI would require some kind of artificial super-reasoning or meta-
argumentation to logically, coherently, consistently and in a sound manner glue
or cement the present, isolated, individual stand alone dialogues, the numbered
pieces and independent items together. Enforcing such systematic super levels
or structures on independent arguments so as to create the appearance of some
grand coherent, consistent metaphysical system is one of the fallacies, one of
the cognitive biases and mistakes in thinking of traditional metaphysics. By
means of the isolated dialogues, numbered paragraphs and independent items
one does not become involved in superficially constructing metaphysical super-
structures, contrived sets of ideas, fake models and theoretical speculations and
forced, fallacious reasoning or argumentation that one is compelled to invent
so as to fabricate artificial bridges (of ideas) to serve as cement that could glue
together independent and unconnected ideas, thoughts, insights and reasoning.
Why? What would the positive functions and advantages of the presentation of
some superficial, seemingly coherent general metaphysical theory, all inclusive
or absolute philosophical system? Would one not merely deceive oneself by and
because of the lack of self meta-cognition of ones aim to devise such an all-
explanatory or all- inclusive metaphysical system? And the negative side of that
would be the artificial fabrication and introduction of, unnecessary, irrelevant,
meaningless, contrived reasoning and filling arguments to try and connect
isolated, independent thoughts, ideas and arguments that are meaningful in
their own right. Things such as these unnecessary contrived arguments and the
ideas they and their propositions consist of are unnecessary and lead to the
creation of isms, ideologies and speculative (metaphysical) ideas and systems
of them. These things are the consequences of attempting to construct bridges,
bridge arguments and employ ideas to develop entire, but unnecessary, coherent
complex systems.
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http://www.iep.utm.edu/con-meta/#SH1a
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Defining Metaphilosophy
There is more to metaphilosophy than explicit metaphilosophy. For there is also implicit
metaphilosophy. To appreciate that point, consider, first, that philosophical positions can
have metaphilosophical aspects. Many philosophical views views about, say,
knowledge, or language, or authenticity can have implications for the task or nature
of philosophy. Indeed, all philosophizing is somewhat metaphilosophical, at least in this
sense: any philosophical view or orientation commits its holder to a metaphilosophy that
accommodates it. Thus if one advances an ontology one must have a metaphilosophy that
countenances ontology. Similarly, to adopt a method or style is to deem that approach at
least passable. Moreover, a conception of the nature and point of philosophy, albeit
perhaps an inchoate one, motivates and shapes much philosophy. But and this is what
allows there to be implicit metaphilosophy sometimes none of this is emphasized, or
even appreciated at all, by those who philosophize. Much of the metaphilosophy treated
here is implicit, at least in the attenuated sense that its authors give philosophy much
more attention than philosophy.
Analytic Metaphilosophy
Logical Positivism
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Three Revivals
2. History of Philosophy
Strawson had his origins in the ordinary language tradition and he declares a large debt or
affinity to Wittgenstein (Strawson 2003: 12). But he is indebted, also, to Kant; and, with
Strawson, ordinary language philosophy became more systematic and more ambitious.
However, Strawson retained an element of what one might call, in Rae Langtons phrase,
Kantian humility. In order to understand these characterizations, one needs to appreciate that
which Strawson advocated under the heading of descriptive metaphysics. In turn,
descriptive metaphysics is best approached via that which Strawson called connective
analysis.
Descriptive metaphysics is, or proceeds via, a very general form of connective analysis. The
goal here is to lay bare the most general features of our conceptual structure (Strawson
1959: 9). Those most general features our most general concepts have a special
importance. For those concepts, or at least those of them in which Strawson is most
interested, are (he thinks) basic or fundamental in the following sense. They are
(1) irreducible, (2) unchangeable in that they comprise a massive central core of human
thinking which has no history (1959: 10) and (3) necessary to any conception of experience
which we can make intelligible to ourselves (Strawson 1991: 26). And the structure that
these concepts comprise does not readily display itself on the surface of language, but lies
submerged (1956: 9f.).
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describe the actual structure of our thought about the world, whereas revisionary
metaphysics aims to produce a better structure (Strawson 1959: 9; my stress). Strawson
urges several points against revisionary metaphysics.
Here are some worries about Strawsons metaphilosophy. [T]he conceptual system with
which we are operating may be much more changing, relative, and culturally limited than
Strawson assumes it to be (Burtt 1963: 35). Next: Strawson imparts very little about the
method(s) of descriptive metaphysics (although one might try to discern techniques in
which imagination seems to play a central role from his actual analyses). More serious is
that Strawson imparts little by way of answer to the following questions. What is a concept?
How are concepts individuated? What is a conceptual scheme? How are conceptual schemes
individuated? What is the relation between a language and a conceptual scheme? (Haack
1979: 366f.). Further: why believe that the analytic philosopher has no business providing
new and revealing vision[s] (Strawson 1992: 2)? At any rate, Strawson helped those
philosophers who rejected reductive (especially Russellian and positivistic) versions of
analysis but who wanted to continue to call themselves analytic. For he gave them a
reasonably narrow conception of analysis to which they could adhere (Beaney 2009: section
8; compare Glock 2008: 159). Finally note that, despite his criticisms of Strawson, the
contemporary philosopher Peter Hacker defends a metaphilosophy rather similar to
descriptive metaphysics (Hacker 2003 and 2007).
William Van Orman Quine was a second prime mover in the metaphysical revival. Quines
metaphysics, which is revisionary in Strawsons terms, emerged from Quines attack upon
two dogmas of modern empiricism. Those ostensible dogmas are: (1) belief in some
fundamental cleavage between truths that are analytic, or grounded in meanings
independently of matters of fact, and truths that are synthetic, or grounded in fact;
(2) reductionism: the belief that each meaningful statement is equivalent to some logical
construction upon terms which refer to immediate experience (Quine 1980: 20). Against 1,
Quine argues that every belief has some connection to experience. Against 2, he argues that
the connection is never direct. For when experience clashes with some belief, which belief(s)
must be changed is underdetermined. Beliefs face the tribunal of sense experience not
individually but as a corporate body (p. 41; see Evidence section 3.c.i). Quine expresses this
holistic and radically empiricist conception by speaking of the web of belief. Some beliefs
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those near the edge of the web are more exposed to experience than others; but the
interlinking of beliefs is such that no belief is immune to experience.
Quine saves metaphysics from positivism. More judiciously put: Quines conception, if
correct, saves metaphysics from the verifiability criterion (q.v. section 2.b). For the notion of
the web of belief implies that ontological beliefs beliefs about the most general traits of
reality (Quine 1960: 161) are answerable to experience. And, if that is so, then ontological
beliefs differ from other beliefs only in their generality. Quine infers that, Ontological
questions [...] are on a par with questions of natural science (1980: 45). In fact, since Quine
thinks that natural science, and in particular physics, is the best way of fitting our beliefs to
reality, he infers that ontology should be determined by the best available comprehensive
scientific theory. In that sense, metaphysics is the metaphysics of science (Glock 2003a:
30).
Is the metaphysics of science actually only science? Quine asserts that it is only within
science itself, and not in some prior philosophy, that reality is to be identified and described
(1981: 21). Yet he does leave a job for the philosopher. The philosopher is to translate the best
available scientific theory into that which Quine called canonical notation, namely, the
language of modern logic as developed by Frege, Peirce, Russell and others (Orenstein 2002:
16). Moreover, the philosopher is to make the translation in such a way as to minimize the
theorys ontological commitments. Only after such a translation, which Quine calls
explication can one say, at a philosophical level: that is What There Is. (However, Quine
cannot fully capitalize those letters, as it were. For he thinks that there is a pragmatic element
to ontology. See section 3.a below.) This role for philosophy is a reduced one. For one thing,
it deprives philosophy of something traditionally considered one of its greatest aspirations:
necessary truth. On Quines conception, no truth can be absolutely necessary. (That holds
even for the truths of Quines beloved logic, since they, too, fall within the web of belief.) By
contrast, even Strawson and the positivists the latter in the form of analytic truth had
countenanced versions of necessary truth.
Saul Kripke - the third important reviver of metaphysics - allows the philosopher a role that is
perhaps slightly more distinct than Quine does. Kripke does that precisely by propounding a
new notion of necessity. (That said, some identify Ruth Barcan Marcus as the discoverer of
the necessity at issue.) According to Kripke (1980), a truth T about X is necessary just when
T holds in all possible worlds that contain X. To explain: science shows us that, for example,
water is composed of H20; the philosophical question is whether that truth holds of all
possible worlds (all possible worlds in which water exists) and is thereby necessary. Any such
science-derived necessities are aposteriori just because, and in the sense that, they are
(partially) derived from science.
Aposteriori necessity is a controversial idea. Kripke realizes this. But he asks why it is
controversial. The notions of the apriori and aposteriori are epistemological (they are about
whether or not one needs to investigate the world in order to know something), whereas
Kripke points out his notion of necessity is ontological (that is, about whether things could
be otherwise). As to how one determines whether a truth obtains in all possible worlds,
Kripkes main appeal is to the intuitions of philosophers. The next subsection somewhat
scrutinizes that appeal, together with some of the other ideas of this subsection.
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Kripke and especially Quine helped to create, particularly in the United States, a new
orthodoxy within Analytic philosophy. That orthodoxy is naturalism or - the term used by
its detractors - scientism. But naturalism (/scientism) is no one thing (Glock 2003a: 46;
compare Papineau 2009). Ontological naturalism holds that the entities treated by natural
science exhaust reality. Metaphilosophical naturalism which is the focus in what
follows asserts a strong continuity between philosophy and science. A common
construal of that continuity runs thus. Philosophical problems are in one way or another
tractable through the methods of the empirical sciences (Naturalism, Introduction). Now,
within metaphilosophical naturalism, one can distinguish empirical philosophers from
experimental philosophers (Prinz 2008). Empirical philosophers enlist science to answer,
or to help answer, philosophical problems. Experimental philosophers (or
experimentalists) themselves do science, or do so in collaboration with scientists. Let us
start with empirical philosophy.
Naturalized epistemology has been criticized for being insufficiently normative. How can
descriptions of epistemic mechanisms determine license for belief? The difficulty seems
especially pressing in the case of moral epistemology. Wittgensteins complaint against
naturalistic aesthetics a view he called exceedingly stupid may intend a similar
point. The sort of explanation one is looking for when one is puzzled by an aesthetic
impression is not a causal explanation, not one corroborated by experience or by statistics
as to how people react (all Wittgenstein 1966: 17, 21). A wider disquiet about meta-
philosophical naturalism is this: it presupposes a controversial view explicitly endorsed
by Quine, namely that science alone provides true or good knowledge (Glock 2003a: 28,
46). For that reason and for others, some philosophers, including Wittgenstein, are
suspicious even of scientifically-informed philosophy of mind.
Now the experimentalists the philosophers who actually do science tend to use
science not to propose new philosophical ideas or theories but rather to investigate
existing philosophical claims. The philosophical claims at issue are based upon
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1. Pragmatism
2. Neopragmatism: Rorty
3. Post-Analytic Philosophy
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3. Continental Metaphilosophy
1. Husserls Phenomenology
2. Critical Theory
2. Habermas
4. Derrida's Post-Structuralism
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Deleuze, Giles, and Guattari, Flix (1994) What is Philosophy? London and
New York: Verso. Trans. Graham Birchill and Hugh Tomlinson.
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Rorty, Richard, Schneewind, Jerome B., and Skinner, Quentin eds. (1984)
Philosophy in History: Essays in the Historiography of Philosophy.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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3. Continental Philosophy
4. Other
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1961) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Trans. D.F. Pears and B.F.
McGuinness. Routledge: London.
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http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/meta/topics.htm
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I made this list of questions primarily to help students appreciate what is distinctive about the
branch of philosophy we call "metaphilosophy". Students who have no trouble understanding
when a question is epistemological or ethical sometimes nevertheless have great trouble
deciding whether a question is metaphilosophical. I've found that no straightforward
definition of metaphilosophy helps students with this task. What does help, a bit, is to see a
large number of metaphilosophical questions. My secondary purpose is making this list is to
help students come up with paper topics, read philosophy with attention to its implicit
metaphilosophy, and sort out their own metaphilosophical thoughts. (My comments are in
brackets, I think with the author and emphasize philosophically more relevant aspects, if any,
that he sort of expressed or perhaps pointed to)
Table of Contents
Cognitivity
Systematicity
Methodology
Historicity
Ends of philosophy
Death of philosophy
Anti-philosophies
Philosophy as literature
Literature as philosophy
Philosophical beauty
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Philosophy as science
Cognitivity
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possible explanations:
They had secret doctrines, and did not publish their real
views. (True for the majority?)
The way they wrote does not really imply cognitivity; truth
claims, refutations, arguments, etc. are moves in the game.
(Needs further explanation, justification.)
truth only within system (meaning not truth, contexts not system
only that is too large and not the only type of context), and system
suspended or floating (Kant? Wittgenstein)
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philosophy as criticism
philosophy as prescription
philosophy as play
philosophy as (a certain kind of) living (yes, is a total role like that of
a monastic or contemplative solitary/hermit)
How can we decide that some philosophy is better than others? Are non-
cognitivists at a loss, or disadvantage, here? (meaningful or meaningless)
See John Lange, The Cognitivity Paradox, Princeton University Press, 1970;
Jacob Loewenberg, Reason and the Nature of Things: Reflections on the
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Systematicity
Can systems prove themselves without begging the question by taking the
methods and standards of proof from within the system? (reject system
and systemizing philosophy)
Do systems that purport to be complete (reject them, not within the scope
of philosophy to create systems) absorb all criticism as part of the system
(the "tarbaby defense"). If so, is this regrettable?
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31
Are systems demanded (by those who demand them) because the
explanandum of philosophy is systematic, or because human beings have
a quirky preference (such as a native architectonic or anal retentive
neurosis)? (they are misled by their attitudes)
Cf. Nietzsche: "I mistrust all systematizers and avoid them. The will to a
system is a lack of integrity." Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ,
trans. R.J. Hollingdale, Penguin Books, 1968; from Twilight of the Idols
(original 1889), I.26 (p. 25); cf Hollingdale's comments on N's anti-
systematicity in Appendix A, of this edition, pp. 188-89.
Methodology
How does philosophy justify its methods? (it does not, they are merely
taken for granted)
What is, and what ought to be, the role of argument in philosophy?
(revealing sense, meaning)
31
32
What are the roles of consistency,(its role is very different from the two
other notions mentioned here) completeness, (meaning and functions?)
and certainty (this is related to the authors obsession, wrongly, with truth
and knowledge as truth/factual truth) in philosophical writing? What is
their value? What are relations among these three traditional desiderata?
(are they THE desiderata?)
What's wrong with being unmethodical? (what is expressed will not make
sense or be meaningful)
Why is philosophy more conscious of its methods than the sciences? (is
it?)
Historicity
For a given philosopher who claims eternal truth for her conclusions,
(what and how would this be? Deal in meaningfulness not truths)
how does she claim to have transcended history, and how does she
explain her own historicity?
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33
What is the relation between the substance of a philosophy and its 'place'
in the history of philosophy? (relevant to certain aspects only too general
a statemenat)
Can philosophy regress? Can you cite any examples? (irrelevant terms in
this context progress and regress)
Can bad history make good philosophy? (See e.g. Russell and Heidegger
on the pre-Socratics.) (irrelevant, not directly related, intervening,
intermediate factors involved)
Hobbes said that if he wasted his time reading the books of his
predecessors, then he'd never know more than they did.
(meaningful)
33
34
In what ways have the questions of philosophy changed and stayed the
same from the Greeks to the 20th century? (specify, some questions
changed, new ones introduced and other not)
Is it legitimate (?) to take philosophical questions from one period and look
for answers in philosophers of another period? (Philosophers do that all the
time as in a sense philosophy deals with the same problems, expressed
in different words and perceived in different ways)
Can Kant be right when he says that he understands Plato better than
Plato understood himself? (First Critique, B.370; cf B.862.) (in hindsight)
Can Fichte be right when he makes the same claim about Kant?
Can you recognize the historical strata in the list of questions, for
example, in this hand-out?
34
35
For a given work, what is the effect of doctrine (if any meaning please?)
on the genre of its exposition, type of discourse, or use of language? on its
mode of assertion, type of confidence or certainty claimed?
35
36
Many philosophers use reason to limit or subvert reason (see e.g. Sextus
Empiricus, Hume, and Kant). If this is paradoxical at first sight, what does
it show in the last analysis about the nature (no THE nature, one possible
aspect of its use and application)of reason, philosophy, and method?
How should we judge philosophies which (as most do) instruct us how to
judge?
Why (many reasons, motives, cultural, social, personal, etc) does a given
philosopher practice philosophy and write books? Is her book consistent
with this vision of the nature and function of philosophy?
Can the doctrinal aspect of a philosophy be consistent with all its other
aspects? What is the price of trying? of failing? (please specify too
general)
36
37
How far can the two types of explanation of philosophy work together? Is it
consistent to interpret the same philosopher or text as having reasons
(immanent) and causes (non-immanent), or does the latter undercut the
former? (YES, obviously)
Even if so, what might be useful for us, qua philosophers, to learn
about the philosopher's (or philosophy's) psychological, political,
economic, or historical background and circumstances? ( like certain
types of literature criticism and French philosophical approaches)
For a given philosopher, ask whether her important theses arose, or are
presented as if they arose, entirely from thinking about issues and
examining arguments? (good exercise)
What are the social and political conditions (specify, too general) that
define philosophers and philosophy? Does identifying them help solve or
dissolve any philosophical problems? (it might or might not assist in it,
please specify, too general, vague and abstract)
37
38
Have philosophers agreed more than at first appears? Less? (too general)
What may, and may not, legitimately be inferred from the spectacle of
disagreement in philosophy? Why? (specific cases, too general)
For example, does it follow that at least half the positions are in
error? that we should be relativists? that we should be skeptics?
that certainty is unattainable? that philosophy is non-cognitive? that
philosophy is dialectical? that truth is contradictory? that philosophy
is not a science? that philosophers are narcissists? that future work
is necessary? that future work is pointless? something else?
38
39
Can philosophy be functional for good in its culture and for its
individual practitioners (even if its theories are false or uncertain)?
the fact that individual philosophers differ from each other in some
combination of race, class, gender, personality, language, century,
and culture?
misunderstanding?
What does it mean that philosophers disagree even about the significance
of disagreement? (give specific cases, too general and too many
assumptions for all of these, identify your assumptions and specify your
questions)
If epistemology converts the search for truth into the search for certainty
(Suber),(No not truh, but meaning) then does it thereby convert it to the
search for agreement as well?
39
40
If two positions are not really contradictory, but appear to be so, they may
be reconciled at the immanent level. But all philosophies may be
reconciled at a non-immanent level, even if they really contradict one
another. One non-immanent reconciliation is to regard the positions as
stages in the unfolding of truth. What are the dangers, and glories, of non-
immanent reconciliations? (give specific cases, too general and too many
assumptions for all of these, identify your assumptions and specify your
questions)
Does one philosophy imply that all other, disagreeing philosophies are
wrong?(no less meaningful) Do all philosophies have a (tacit or explicit)
"exclusivity clause"? (give specific cases, too general and too many
40
41
assumptions for all of these, identify your assumptions and specify your
questions)
Find philosophies that do and that do not take this position. What
are their various views of disagreement? of logic? of debate? of
error? of corrigibility?
In the second Critique Kant said that the distinction between contingent
unanimity and necessary universality is essential to ethics. Is it essential
to philosophy or metaphilosophy?
Why is it so very rare to read words to the effect, "I am right, everyone
else is wrong, and I can prove it..."?
41
42
How should a philosopher regard the critics and dissenters who do not
agree with her? ? (give specific cases, too general and too many
assumptions for all of these, identify your assumptions and specify your
questions, and applies to all of the following)
42
43
If good action requires true belief, how do we cope with the difficulty of
attaining true belief? That is, how do we act ethically while undertaking
the philosophical (scientific, quotidian...) labor of attaining true belief?
Should we settle for approximations and fictionalist shortcuts (as in
Descartes' provisional morality), or should we spend all the time it takes to
"do epistemology right", letting our duties suffer in the meantime?
Can philosophy be dangerous? If so, what are your models of safety and
danger? What is the relation between truth and safety? What are the
dangers of philosophy? ? (give specific cases, too general and too many
assumptions for all of these, identify your assumptions and specify your
questions, and applies to all of the following)
Hegel believes that philosophy cannot give moral or political advice, (can
be interpreted as such, but not the main function = which is to clarify
meaning) since it always comes on the scene too late (spreading its wings
only with the falling of the dusk). If true, would this rule out the primacy of
the practical for philosophy? (What does Hegel himself say?)
43
44
What does it reveal about the nature of philosophy that the life of
Socrates, far more than his views, has been cherished and influential for
two millenia? (nothing)
Studying the meaning of the word "of" is apt to affect one's life less than
studying the concept of freedom.? (give specific cases, too general and
too many assumptions for all of these, identify your assumptions and
specify your questions, and applies to all of the following) Is it fair to judge
the merits of a philosophy, or character of a philosopher, by the degree of
integration of the philosophy in the life of the philosopher? (no)
Are there different answers to the questions, (1) how did philosophy arise,
and (2) why should one study philosophy? For example, did philosophy
arise for epistemological reasons, to render our beliefs coherent, or for
metaphysical reasons, to understand what was going on, whereas
(perhaps) one ought to study philosophy for moral reasons? (YES, but
specify)
Are philosophers moral experts? Are moral experts (if any) philosophers?
(NO)
44
45
45
46
If one denies that there is a special kind of expertise for philosophy, is one
thereby committed to relativism? (no, specify the expertise and
relativism)
Cf. Kant on the "genteel tone" that had recently arisen in philosophy.
Ends of philosophy
In what sense are the ends of philosophy therapeutic for the philosopher
and for the readers? (clarification in Socratic ways)
Are the ends of philosophy yet to be achieved? (NO and it never will as
there are none) Or are they constantly achieved and/or by their nature in
need of continual pursuit and accomplishment?
46
47
If the chase is worth more than the capture, would it ever make
sense (or ever make good philosophy) to forgo the capture when it
was within reach in order to continue the chase? If we translate this
out of metaphor, what are we talking about?
Lessing: if God had truth in one hand and pursuit of truth in the
other, he'd choose the second. Wittgenstein: let the fly out of the fly
bottle; get to the point where you can stop doing philosophy. (stop
doing philosophy in that specific case, problem, context, but always
other contexts, problems to be clarified remains)
What would lead a philosopher to expound a position and then at the end
to abandon it, (too general specify) or in the metaphor of Sextus Empiricus
made famous by Wittgenstein, to kick down the ladder after climbing up
it?
47
48
Death of philosophy
What is philosophy such that it might well be finished? What is it such that
it is clearly still alive? (see above)
Anti-philosophies
Are there positions or theories that, if true or justified, would make most or
all philosophy nugatory? (YES, see my comments above about subject-
matter, abuses and misues of methods and my articles at Academic. Edu)
Consider the claims of the following in this light:
Marxists on ideology
American pragmatists
radical empiricists
naive realists
48
49
How does, and how should, philosophy evaluate these claims? ? (give
specific cases, too general and too many assumptions for all of these,
identify your assumptions and specify your questions, and applies to all of
the following)
Why couldn't Plato (or Nietzsche...) just state his assertions and argue
them? If we translated Plato (or Nietzsche...) into a "handbook" of their
assertions and arguments, what would be lost except for "rhetorical
color"? (if they knew them they would, but they do not know all of them
beforehand, they appear during their thinking and writing)
faith
49
50
mischievous, misleading
What is the relation between the substance of a doctrine and the genre in
which it is presented (dialogue, treatise, system, essay, aphorism, private
journal, novel, poem...)? (too vague, specify)
50
51
Are there philosophical positions that can only or that can best be
expounded in the genres of literature? (too general)
What implications can a doctrine have for the legitimate motives for
promulgating it? Discuss a few cases. (?)
Contrast, where you can, the motives for writing books that are
found in biographical research with the motives that follow from the
doctrine immanently. Can you find a case where these two motives
are inconsistent?
Why would a philosopher write a work with the intention of being difficult
to understand, or of being misunderstood by some? (many reasons)
How should we read such texts? Do we (1) work very hard and crack
the code or (2) 'respect' the intention to hide or to mislead, and
take the work at face value?
51
52
To what extent are philosophers responsible for the use or misuse of their
work? Discuss the case of one or two philosophers (e.g. Plato, Hegel, and
Nietzsche were all used by Nazi scholars to justify the Nazi program). (no
they are not responsible, like art ab/used by others for their own motives
and isms)
What is the relation between the substance of a doctrine and the style in
which it is written? ? (give specific cases, too general and too many
assumptions for all of these, identify your assumptions and specify your
questions, and applies to all of the following)
Find a few philosophies that have implications for the use of language and
compare them on the relation between their style and content. How well
did their own writing live up to, abide by, or embody their views?
52
53
Arthur Lovejoy said of William James that he wrote so well that it is difficult
to know what he was saying or whether it is true. Should philosophers, like
scientists and jurists, adopt dry styles that create no risk of persuasion
beyond the evidence? (no!)
See F.C.S. Schiller, "Must Philosophy be Dull?" (in his Our Human
Truths)
Margaret Wiley said of Spenser and Emerson that they adopted paradox as
a style in order to avoid the risk of oversimplification. (pointless
generalization says nothing) Are there other "logically objectionable"
tropes that might have higher rhetorical justifications in philosophy?
(meaning?)
Edgar Allen Poe said nothing was ineffable. One qualification we may put
on this is that nothing thinkable is ineffable. One way to read this is that
everything thinkable can be expressed in common language; the
introduction of technical vocabulary, or new languages, is always
unnecessary. We could refine this further to an a priori suspicion more
than a provable truth: if we feel driven to esoteric language to express our
esoteric thought, then we should first suspect that we are bad writers. ?
(give specific cases, too general and too many assumptions for all of
these, identify your assumptions and specify your questions, and applies
to all of the following)
What are the differences among (1) Kant's reluctance to use examples, (2)
Hegel's reluctance to use picture-language, and (3) Dennett's preference
for using "intuition pumps"? (point you are trying to make by this?)
See Pat Bigelow, Kierkegaard and the Problem of Writing, Florida State
University Press, 1988; Brand Blanshard, On Philosophical Style, Indiana
53
54
Philosophy as literature
Do great works of philosophy and of literature survive "the test of time" for
different reasons? (yes!!! Different discourses, aims, values, functions)
How do works of each kind become "dated" (like works of art, fashionable
and restricted fades, fashions like Koons, Abramoviz, Yoko One, Tracy
Emin, YBP or YBA in art)primarily of historical interest?
54
55
Literature as philosophy
What makes the boundary between philosophy and literature change over
time? (does it?)What changes have occurred? Can you correlate the
changes with philosophically important changes in the history of
philosophy, or with critically important changes in the history of literature?
55
56
Interpreting Philosophy
56
57
What if our own position explains away the position we are reading,
as opposed to explaining it?
What follows for the ethics of argument from that fact that we can
demand fairness but cannot demand commensurability?
Philosophical beauty
57
58
Are there "great" works of philosophy that are not beautiful? Are there
beautiful works that are not great?
Philosophy as science
In what periods has philosophy most and least emulated its contemporary
science? Can you correlate the coming and going of such periods with the
state of science? with the state of philosophy?
How tenable is it to say that the sciences were once part of philosophy
and were jettisoned when they became scientific? What does that imply
about the nature of what currently passes under the name of philosophy?
(explore detailed cases of disciplines being differentiated etc)
58
59
See C.J. Ducasse, Philosophy as a Science: Its Matter and Its Method,
Oskar Piest, 1941 (on many different models of philosophy as a science);
Edmund Husserl, "Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft," Logos, 1 (1910-
11) 289-95; Hilary Putnam, Renewing Philosophy, Harvard University
Press, 1992 (against science as a model for philosophy); Hans
Reichenbach, The Rise of Scientific Philosophy, University of California
Press, 1951.
How is philosophy different from (and similar to) religion, theology, faith,
literature, empirical science, history, mathematics, logic, linguistics,
dreaming, guessing, common sense, play? (Related? SPECIFY) ? (give
specific cases, too general and too many assumptions for all of these,
identify your assumptions and specify your questions, and applies to all of
the following)
Take a religious philosopher and ask what, in her view, religion offers that
philosophy does not, and vice versa. (This will tend to highlight her
metaphilosophy.)
Are there results in any of the special sciences, e.g. logic, that
philosophers must accept to be good philosophers? Or are all such results
open to philosophical criticism? (specify?)
59
60
What plays the role for philosophy that philosophy plays for
science? (NONE)
Did the fairly sudden success of the physical sciences in the 17th
century change philosophy? If so, how exactly? What does this show
about the relation between philosophy and science? (no)
How did philosophy emerge from non-philosophy? (what does this mean?
Either there is or you do philosophy or you dont what is this non-
philosophy that precedes philosophical ways of thinking? Why define the
60
61
Why do we think Thales was the first philosopher? If not Thales but
x, then why x?
If abstruse arguments are not persuasive, even when sound (Hume), then
what are the chances that a sophisticated philosophy can be "lived"?
(meaning?)
What philosophical reasons have been given in the tradition to excuse the
lack of argument in a given work or for a certain assertion? ? (give specific
cases, too general and too many assumptions for all of these, identify your
assumptions and specify your questions, and applies to all of the
following)
E.g., it's a matter of faith; it's more certain than any proof; it's
admittedly hypothetical; it's a sheer choice; it's presupposed by the
very concept of argument, logically prior to any argument; it's a
"potential contribution"
61
62
What is wisdom? How does it differ (if at all) from knowledge? from virtue?
(specify)
Is wisdom non-cognitive?
If it has ceased to love wisdom, roughly when and why did it cease
to do so?
For a given work of philosophy, what is its vision of wisdom (if any), and
how does it (if at all) promote wisdom in its readers?
What is the place of play and humor in philosophy? How are they related
to wisdom?
62
63
Who was more right, Pythagoras for humbly calling himself a mere lover of
wisdom (philo-sopher), or Hegel for saying that the time has come to go
beyond love to the actual attainment and science of wisdom?
63
64
Is Kant right that philosophy need not be popular, (YES) that is, accessible
to non-professionals? (obviously)
Cabell said bitterly that literature was a starveling cult kept alive by the
literary. Is philosophy a starveling cult kept alive by the philosophical,
irrelevant to the lives of non-philosophers? (meaning? And if this is the
case, so what?)
64
65
What is the relation between philosophy and myth? ? (give specific cases,
too general and too many assumptions for all of these, identify your
assumptions and specify your questions, and applies to all of the
following)
Cf. Schelling's call for a new mythology at the end of his System of
Transcendental Philosophy.
65
66
What is gained and what is lost by studying philosophical texts apart from
the biographies of their authors? To what extent, and for what purposes,
should we bring in biography? (what would be the purpose and function of
dong this?)
What parts of a philosophy can biography most illuminate? (can it?) Its
truth-value? the proper interpretation of its texts? the philosopher's choice
of topics, scope of coverage, emphasis? expositional style and structure?
idea of the audience, hence, degree of rigor, use of technical language,
political appeals? (are these philosophical relevant questions?)
66
67
Does philosophy appeal only to certain personality types? (YES) If so, what
non-immanent perspectives on philosophy does this suggest? Could
philosophy be a neurosis? (yes)
Might the latter have their own autonomy and simply attract (rather
than being explained by) the former? (depends on what your
purpose of explanation is)
May we legitimately call someone a philosopher who denied that she was
a philosopher? (nonsense , pointless question) (See case of Simone de
Beauvoir; cf. Dostoevsky, Camus, Buber.) May we deny the name of
philosopher to one who called himself a philosopher? (Analytic
philosophers often deny that their non-analytic colleagues are
philosophers.)
How would we, and how should we, interpret the works of a philosopher
with known moral failings? (irrelevant to some of his philosophical texts,
relevant to others) For example: Nietzsche was a vicious misogynist,
Charles Peirce beat his wife, Heidegger was a Nazi. See the case of Paul de
Man, an influential deconstructionist lately revealed to have been an early
Nazi propagandist.
How would we, and how should we, change our evaluation of a
philosopher's work if we learned that he killed someone in cold blood? ( do
not , no need to do this)
67
68
See case of Louis Althusser, who murdered his wife at the height of
his respect and influence as a Marx scholar.
If a philosophy cannot 'be lived', what legitimately follows about its worth
as a philosophy?
What background should one have prior to the study of philosophy? (none,
have a brain and be seriously interested)
68
69
Can philosophy be taught to elementary school children? (if you have to,
to some pupils)
Philosophy and literature share the problem of the "canon". (NO) How do
we decide which works should be taught in an undergraduate curriculum
when there is not enough time to teach everything? (This is similar to, but
significantly different from, the question which books we should read
ourselves, knowing we cannot read them all.)
Are "the classics" classical only by criteria that are class-biased and
injurious to minority viewpoints? (specify)
69
70
Peter Suber, Department of Philosophy, Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana, 47374, U.S.A.
peters@earlham.edu. Copyright 1997-2000. Peter Suber.
14
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/meta.12228/full
Abstract
This article argues for four interrelated claims: (i) Metaphilosophy is not one sub-discipline
of philosophy, nor is it restricted to questions of methodology.(OBVIOUSLY!!) Rather,
metaphilosophical inquiry encompasses (SOME OF )the general background conditions of
philosophical practice. (ii) These background conditions are of various sorts, not only those
routinely considered philosophical but also those considered biographical, historical, and
sociological.(when relevant) Accordingly, we should be wary of the customary distinction
between what is proper (internal) and merely contingent (external) to philosophy. (iii) What
is philosophy? is best understood as a practical question concerning how members of
different philosophical sub-communities identify what is pertinent to their respective
activities and self-conceptions. (iv) Given (i)(iii), understanding what philosophy is requires
us to take more seriously the social-institutional dimension of contemporary philosophical
practice.
The task of philosophers who seek to define their subject is akin to that of fools who attempt
to shovel smoke. It is not exactly that there's nothing there, but whatever it is, it isn't
amenable to shovelling. (Mandt 1991, 77)
15
http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195396577/obo-
9780195396577-0074.xml
Metaphilosophy
70
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Yuri Cath
DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396577-007
Introduction
Often philosophers have reason to ask fundamental questions about the aims, methods,
nature, or value of their own discipline. When philosophers systematically examine such
questions, the resulting work is sometimes referred to as metaphilosophy. Metaphilosophy,
it should be said, is not a well-established,(see my work on this it IS well-defined!!) or
clearly demarcated, field of philosophical inquiry like epistemology or the philosophy of art.
However, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries there has been a great deal of
metaphilosophical work on issues concerning the methodology of philosophy in the analytic
tradition. This article focuses on that work. (Notice its narrow scope!!)
General Overviews
Currently there is a lack of more general overviews of metaphilosophy or philosophical
methodology.(see my many articles on this at Academia. Edu) However, there are a number
of good overviews of more narrowly defined topics within these areas. Braddon-Mitchell and
Nola 2009 outlines the influential Canberra Plan project in philosophical methodology.
Manley 2009 provides a very useful overview of the recent literature on metametaphysics, as
does Eklund 2006. Nagel 2007 provides an excellent overview of the literature on epistemic
intuitions. Daniels 2009 gives a good overview of work in moral philosophy on the method of
reflective equilibrium. Gutting 2009 is a book on philosophical knowledge that closely
examines the methods of a number of famous philosophers. Papineau 2009 is a survey article
on naturalism that includes a good overview of methodological naturalism. Alexander and
Weinberg 2007 gives a good introduction to the experimental philosophy movement and
some of the most important works in that literaturesee also Knobe and Nichols 2008 cited
under Anthologies and Collections.
E-mail Citation
E-mail Citation
71
72
E-mail Citation
E-mail Citation
Gutting, Gary. What Philosophers Know: Case Studies in Recent Analytic Philosophy.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
E-mail Citation
A book arguing that analytic philosophy as a discipline has achieved a great deal of
knowledge (data, information instead of insights and philosophical understanding)
over the last fifty years. Unlike many discussions of philosophical methodology, this
book has the important virtue of basing its conclusions on a series of detailed case
studies of the methods and arguments of important works in analytic philosophy.
E-mail Citation
E-mail Citation
A very good overview of metaphilosophical debates about the status and nature of
epistemic intuitions; also shows how empirical evidence from linguistics and
psychology connects with these debates.
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73
E-mail Citation
If you would like to purchase an eBook article and live outside North America please email
onlinemarketing@oup.com to express your interest.
http://www.ditext.com/encyc/frame.html
Meta-Encyclopedia of Philosophy
A| B| C| D| E| F| G| H| I| J| K| L| M| N| O| P| Q| R| S| T| U| V|
W| X| Y| Z
Compare topics in the most important Encyclopedias and Dictionaries of
Philosophy on the Internet.
To find a word, click on a letter in the upper window. Data will then appear in this window.
Entries are in the left column; sources in the other columns. If a source has an entry, it is
marked with a linked "X".
This is a dynamic resource which will be updated to keep up with changes in the targeted
sites. There is also room to add new sites.
73
(R) Dagobert D. Runes (ed.), Dictionary of Philosophy, 1942.
16
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/meta.12228/full
On the Domain of Metaphilosophy Bob Plant
Abstract
1 Introduction
2 Inside/Outside Philosophy
3 Communicative Norms
4 The Philosophy Industry
5 Is That Philosophy?
6 Meta/Philosophical Integrity
7 Conclusion
Acknowledgments
References
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Culler, Jonathan. 2003. Bad Writing and Good Philosophy. In Just Being
Difficult? Academic Writing in the Public Arena, edited by Jonathan Culler
and Kevin Lamb, 4357. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
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Derrida, Jacques. 2001. A Taste for the Secret. Edited by Giacomo Donis
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Glendinning, Simon. 2011. Argument All the Way Down: The Demanding
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77
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Rorty, Richard. 1990. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Oxford: Basil
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o CrossRef |
Sluga, Hans. 1998. What Has History to Do with Me? Wittgenstein and
Analytic Philosophy. Inquiry 41, no. 1:99121.
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1 Introduction
Few philosophers enjoy being asked What is it you do? Fewer still relish the follow-up
question What is philosophy? Even if one is sufficiently confident to describe oneself as a
philosopher, one invariably struggles to say anything plausible and informative when asked
What is philosophy?1 Here we routinely sidestep the question, offer platitudes, or say
things many other philosophers would reject as an adequate characterisation of what they do.
Thus, in a recent survey of professional philosophers, philosophy was variously defined as
the activity of thinking hard about fundamental questions, the attempt to make sense of
ourselves and the world, an inquiry into what is true, the analysis of concepts, reflection on
anything one happens to be interested in, an examination of those things we ordinarily take
for granted, the love of knowledge, the search for wisdom, the process of clear and critical
reflection, understanding what really matters, an inquiry into what is unknown, and an
investigation into the meaning of life (Lack of meta-cognition and philosophical self-
reflection by philosophy and philosophers!!
And here
https://independent.academia.edu/UlrichdeBalbian/Books
and here
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linguists, or chemists are less capable of saying wise and true things about their respective
domains. And here philosophy faces a deeper problemnamely, what exactly is its proper
domain? In Sellars's estimation, philosophers aim to understand how things in the broadest
possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term, including
such radically different items as numbers and duties, possibilities and finger snaps,
aesthetic experience and death (Sellars 2014, 21). It is not surprising that Sellars is cited
more than once in the aforementioned survey (see Edmonds and Warburton 2012, xvi, xxiii),
for the great virtue of his formulation is its accommodation of a vast array of
meta/philosophical views. This is a virtue because we tend to play down the diversity of
philosophical practice, often reconstructing philosophy's history to suit our own current
interests, procedures, and aspirations. (Indeed, we sometimes portray the history of
philosophy as a chronicle of error and confusion.) But whatever the merits of Sellars's view, it
is unlikely to enlighten those unfamiliar with what philosophers actually do. There are, of
course, other ways of responding to the question What is philosophy? One might insist that
philosophy is an activity rather than a body of knowledge. (Both, depends on the question
you are asking) But not only is it unclear whether our predecessors would have recognised
this characterisation of the philosophic enterprise (see Crane 2012, 22), being an activity is
hardly distinctive of philosophy. (a specific kind of socio-cultural practice or activity- specify
its characteristics, aims, purposes, functions, values, norms, principles, assumptions, etc) In
any case, what sort of activity philosophy is permits a wide variety of answers.
Part of the problem philosophers face when asked What is philosophy? is the essentialist
form of the question itself (see Janz 2004, 106). For while it would be convenient to
transform the philosophical point of view into an analytic truth that would then determine
what is and what is not philosophy (Weitz 1977, 249), it is unduly optimistic to think that
there are necessary and sufficient conditions for a work of philosophy. Just as we routinely
underestimate the role individual temperament and group psychology play in the formation
and sustenance of our meta/philosophical views (see Morrow and Sula 2011, 3024), rarely
do we seriously consider that what we think of as the real philosophical issues could ever
become pass or no longer part of philosophy.3 But perceived hot topics (fashionable!!!)
soon go off the boil, just as particular debates fall silent, not because the problems are solved
or, once agreement about solutions is widespread, lasting consensus is attained. On the
contrary, philosophical debates run their course without ever reaching substantive resolutions,
only to re-emerge later in one guise or another (see Unger 2014). Likewise, despite the fact
that the philosophical canon is a dynamic assortment of authors and texts, as philosophers we
often struggle to imagine particular canonical figures ever becoming of merely historical
interest. Indeed, talk of the philosophical canon obscures the fact that the status and
influence of many philosophers have waxed and waned for different philosophical
communities at different times. We might therefore characterise philosophy as a family-
resemblance term, pertaining to a loose constellation of overlapping traditions of thought,
with often very different conception[s] of which texts are canonical and which inquiries are
worth pursuing (Crane 2012, 22). Indeed, as Crane suggests, understanding a philosophical
tradition as a collection of inter-related texts, rather than a body of doctrines or a distinctive
technique, might help to explain why fundamental disagreement (2012, 23, 32) is such a
pervasive feature of philosophy (see Rescher 1978, 1985; Van Inwagen 2009; Kornblith
2010; Plant 2012a).
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Of course, to appreciate the diversity of philosophical practice one does not have to trawl
through the annals of history. The pages of current journals, publishers catalogues, and
conference proceedings abound with discussions of topics that seem eccentric to philosophers
of different metaphilosophical persuasions. Indeed, as Rescher notes, there are countless
academic societies dedicated to the pursuit of issues, now deemed philosophical, that no one
would have dreamt of considering so a generation ago (Rescher 1993, 729). It is perhaps
natural to consider the time and place (and other social, cultural, historical, personal, etc
factors) we happen to occupy as having unique meta/philosophical (related) importance. But
assuming that philosophy survives as a distinct discipline beyond the twenty-first century, (IF
it does it should realize that it is one form of theorizing and deal with that) we might
reasonably wonder how much contemporary philosophical (fashions, fades and contemporary
gimmicks) work our successors will judge to have been worthwhile, which texts and authors
will achieve and maintain canonical status, and which issues and debates will become solely
of antiquarian interest. While some of our currently perceived philosophical achievements
may survive more or less intact, our immersion within specific philosophical sub-
communities tends to obscure the fact that philosophy's futureincluding its future
assessment of usremains uncertain.
So, offering a plausible and informative answer to the question What is philosophy? is
extremely difficult. It is therefore unsurprising, not only that non-philosophers often have misgivings about the value of philosophy, but also
that philosophers themselves are sometimes plagued by self-doubt. Glendinning thus
cautions: It's always a tricky moment for any philosopher to acknowledge that what you are
doing, what you think might be worth doing, might just be a spinning in the wind or just a
kind of doing nothing at all, or doing something very badly (2002, 207; see also Vattimo
2010, 11415). These sorts of worries should not be dismissed as mere expressions of
metaphilosophical despair. On the contrary, the difficulty of responding to metaphilosophical
questions is exactly as it should be, and sets philosophers apart from their colleagues in other
disciplines. For the history of philosophy is a history of disagreements about both specific
philosophical issues and the nature of philosophy itself. In this sense at least, philosophers
aspirations seem inversely proportionate to their results, for there is no widespread consensus
on what such results might consist in.4 It is therefore interesting to note that in two of the
four multidisciplinary funding panels Lamont studied, philosophy emerged as a problem
field, seen as producing proposals around which conflicts erupt. Specifically, a number of
the panellists expressed at least one of the following views: (1) philosophers live in a world
apart from other humanists, (2) nonphilosophers have problems evaluating philosophical
work, and they are often perceived by philosophers as not qualified to do so, (3) philosophers
do not (self-cognitively and meta-cognitively) explain the significance of their work, and (4)
increasingly, what philosophers do is irrelevant, sterile, and self-indulgent (Lamont 2009,
64; see also 66). Lamont concludes: [P]hilosophy's reputation as a potential problem case
is not helped by the fact that the discipline is defined by its own practitioners as contentious.
Philosophers tend to approach each other's work with scepticism, criticism, and an eye for
debate. Disagreement is not viewed as problematic; rather, it largely defines intelligence and
is considered a signature characteristic of the culture of the disciplinewith often disastrous
results for funding (69; see also 105).
That What is philosophy? (is a question that could be interpreted and answered in different
ways, depending on a number of factors for example: the institution, individual, academia
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and other social, cultural, historical, attitudinal, value, etc factors) is one of philosophy's most
stubborn questions is not because philosophers happen to be more cantankerous or befuddled
than historians, chemists, anthropologists, or mathematicians. Rather, it is part of the
philosopher's task to question the nature and value of his own activities. For not only is
What is philosophy? tacitly (THIS is essential to be done explicitly by meta- and self-
cognition) in play whenever we are doing philosophy, being reflective about what
philosophy is constitutes a basic philosophical responsibility. That is to say, What is
philosophy? is not only a legitimate philosophical question, it belongs to philosophy in a
way that, for example, What is science? does not belong to physicists, chemists, or
biologists. While the latter do sometimes ask these reflexive sorts of questions about their
respective modi operandi, only in philosophy are such meta questions part and parcel of the
discipline (see Sayre 2004, 24243). Indeed, even where we think it appropriate to begin
philosophical inquiry is inextricably bound up with our more-or-less tacit metaphilosophical
commitments. There are then at least three things that distinguish philosophy from other
academic disciplines: (i) When the latter do examine their own background aims,
assumptions, and methods (this is essential and every philosopher must do this and this is
what meta-philosophy does) we commonly describe them as doing something
philosophical. (ii) As previously suggested, there is no specific range of phenomena
constituting the proper object(s) of philosophical inquiry. Accordingly, What is philosophy?
is unavoidably one of philosophy's own questions. (iii) As philosophers we often pride
ourselves on our ability to critically interrogate those things routinely taken for granted both
in ordinary life and in other academic domains. What philosophers take for granted is
therefore an unavoidable question for philosophers themselves (though perhaps not only for
philosophers). Mindful of all this, deep and sometimes acrimonious philosophical diversity is
only to be expected in a discipline that lacks shared aims, methods, communicative norms,
and subject matter. It is also unsurprising that philosophy is often taught outside departments
of philosophy, much to the chagrin of many professional philosophers.
If [p]hilosophy has a way of being at home with itself that consists in not being at home with
itself (referring to two totally different aspects or items concerning philosophi, doing
philosophy and philosophers anxiety caused by their discipline) (Derrida 2001, 55), then
metaphilosophy is poorly understood as one philosophical sub-discipline alongside others.5
This is not to deny that only a minority of contemporary philosophers would include
metaphilosophy in their designated areas of specialisation, (MINE as this is how I naturally
think, my socialization, my attitudes and conception of philosophy, my personality-type, etc)
competence, or even interest. (After all, we generally prefer to go directly to the issues
without a lot of agonised navel-gazing (really? Is it only original- and creative-thinking
philosophers, artists, scientists etc who suffer from this anxiety?) [Couture and Nielsen 1993,
2].) Nevertheless, while the explicit question What is philosophy? arises relatively
infrequently in the history of philosophy, how philosophers have variously practiced their
trade reveals a great deal about what they took philosophy to be. And the same is true of
contemporary professional philosophers. Let me be clear: my aim in this article is not to
defend a thoroughgoing institutional theory of philosophy (see Harries 2001, 51), or indeed
any particular theory of philosophy. I do, however, want to question the assumption that
thinking seriously about what philosophy is means thinking about philosophy in terms that
are philosophical rather than sociological (Sayre 2004, 243). It seems to me that sociological
considerations (broadly construed) bear upon metaphilosophical issues in highly significant
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ways (see Morrow and Sula 2011, 29798). Certainly, the social-institutional dimension of
contemporary philosophy can sometimes be disheartening; there is, after all, no shortage of
unbridled careerism, abuses of power, cults of personality, gender bias, intellectual
bandwagon jumping, sexual harassment, and other vices. But this too might tell us
something about how philosophers understand their own activities (self-reflection, meta- self,
institutional, socio-cultural, sub-cultural, academic, department, school, movement and other
forms of meta-cognition or the lack thereof) , and how particular metaphilosophical views are
instilled, disseminated, and sustained. In the next section, therefore, I want to explain why
philosophical institutions (philosophy departments, research centres, and so on) are not
wholly external to philosophy proper (see Bourdieu 1983, 4).
It is then natural for her, after she gets her Ph.D., to continue to think about and work on these
topics. And it is natural, furthermore, for her to work on them in the way she was taught to,
thinking about them in the light of the assumptions made by her mentors and in terms of
currently accepted ideas as to what a philosopher should start from or take for granted, what
requires argument and defence, and what a satisfying philosophical explanation or a proper
resolution to a philosophical question is like. She will be uneasy about departing widely from
these topics and assumptions, feeling instinctively that any such departures are at best
marginally respectable. (Plantinga 1984, 255) (This and the following in the same vein are
irrelevant they express one restricted ism, ideology, values, assumptions and ideas)
According to Plantinga, however, Christian philosophers should not feel obliged to follow
contemporary philosophical trends. For as Christians they will have their own salient
questions, problems, and guiding presuppositions. Indeed, they will sometimes have to reject
currently fashionable assumptions about the philosophic enterprise, including what are
widely regarded as the proper starting points and procedures for philosophical endeavour
(Plantinga 1984, 256). In doing this, the Christian philosopher is perfectly entitled to those
background assumptions she brings to her work (see 256). After all, we each come to
philosophy with a range of opinions about the world and humankind, and part of
philosophy's task is to clarify these pre-philosophical opinions (268). Plantinga is not
denying that Christian philosophers have something to learn from members of other
philosophical sub-communities. Rather, he is encouraging Christian philosophers to cultivate
greater self-confidence in pursuing their own philosophical interests in their own ways (see
255, 258, 268).
Plantinga's focus on the concrete academic environments in which philosophers are trained
and later employed is interesting. Unsurprisingly, however, this broadly sociological
emphasis has provoked explicit metaphilosophical criticism. Phillips thus objects that, just as
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3 Communicative Norms
For the most part, the contemporary professional philosopher is expected to present herself as
a member of an established working community, with designated interests, competencies, and
expertise in respected areas of the discipline. (Institutionalized forms, traditions, values and
types of philosophical intersubejctivity. Make them explicit and investigate them and their
implications and consequences. I wrote about this as well) Accordingly, one of her main
responsibilities is to publish in the most prestigioususually English-languagejournals,
and in doing so refer to recent literature in the relevant field(s). Here, then, the philosopher
views her research (and wants others to do likewise) as contributing to particular, well-
defined debates in which substantive progress can be made. Contemporary philosophy's
preoccupation with producing short, often highly specialised journal articles thus manifests a
conception of philosophers as what Danto terms vehicles for the transmission of an utterly
impersonal philosophical truth (1984, 7). This, in turn, implies a vision of philosophical
reality as constituted of isolable, difficult but not finally intractable problems, which if not
altogether soluble in fifteen pages more or less, can be brought closer to resolution in that
many pages (1984, 7). The journal article has therefore come to be seen as an impersonal
report of limited results for a severely restricted readership, consisting of those who have
some use for that result since they are engaged with the writers of the pages in a collaborative
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enterprise, building the edifice of philosophical knowledge (1984, 7). In Danto's estimation,
all this renders most contemporary philosophy abstract and distorted, with few tethers to
human reality beyond the dubious intuitions alleged to be universal (Danto 2001, 244).
While philosophers once employed a variety of literary forms (dialogue, aphorism,
meditation, confession, and so on), these are no longer viable modes of professional
communication.6 The prose of most academic philosophy is (mistakenly, one of the
institutionalzed norms of the philosophical, academic, professional discipline irrelevant to
creative, original philosophy and philosophizing) intentionally abstract, dispassionate, and
detached in its attempt to (wrongly) mimic the languages of science and mathematics (see
Nussbaum 1992, 3, 19; Rescher 1993, 723; Harries 2001, 53; McNaughton 2009, 12; Unger
2014).
One feature of this dominant form of philosophical communication is the way it suppresses
authorial individuality. Of course, how one evaluates this loss of voice (see Danto 1984, 7,
19; Nussbaum 1992, 20; Mason 1999, 119; Danto 2001, 241, 24445) depends on one's other
metaphilosophical commitments. Thus, according to Smith, Analytic philosophers have
rightly distanced themselves from the more literary associations of their disciplinenot
least from any aesthetic fascination with languages (1991, 157). For most contemporary
philosophers, language is either merely an instrument or a pre-packaged object of
investigation (157). Unsurprisingly, in the wake of such stylistic modesty, there is little room
for the philosopher to manifest himself in his peculiarity as an author (158). It is therefore
reasonable to suppose that most academic philosophers would consider that the main
objective of a philosophical education is to produce not engaging, imaginative, and eloquent
writers but sharp, clear, robust arguers who can produce, defend, and critique well-defined
theses (see Rorty 1982, 221). For not only is one's philosophical seriousness commonly
judged on the basis of the perceived quality of one's arguments, it is particularly damning to
accuse a philosopher of being unable (or unwilling) to argue. But while Smith judges the
voicelessness of philosophical writing to be a virtue, there is no metaphilosophically neutral
reason to share this view. Nussbaum, for example, criticises the prose of much recent
philosophy, describing it as an all-purpose solvent in which philosophical issues of any kind
at all could be efficiently disentangled, any and all conclusions neatly disengaged (1992,
19). In her estimation, there is a mistake made when one takes a method and style that
have proven fruitful for the investigation and description of certain truthssay those of
natural scienceand applies them without further reflection or argument to a very different
sphere of human life that may have a different geography and demand a different sort of
precision (1920). And as Nussbaum proceeds to note, part of the problem here is the way
increasing professionalization leads everyone to write like everyone else, in order to be
respectable and to publish in the usual journals (20). (I return to professionalization in the
next section.)
It is not difficult to see why the desire for optimal intelligibility generates anxieties about
more indirect, oblique, or literary modes of philosophical expression. But while most
philosophers feel able to recognise clarity when they see it, exactly what it consists in
remains elusive. It is not surprising that we often dismiss as intellectually suspectif not
patently unintelligiblethose authors and texts with which we are merely unfamiliar (see
Barnes 2008, 1011). But then, extracted from their broader intellectual contexts, the writings
of many philosophers would fail the test of modest plain speaking (see Culler 2003, 44
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45).7 In any case, it is all too easy to defend the obscurities in those texts we judge to be
grappling with deep philosophical issues, while accusing others of manifest nonsense. For
how one distinguishes between philosophers who are legitimately demanding and those who
are irresponsibly abstruse depends on our prior exposure toand metaphilosophical
sympathy forparticular authors, the sub-communities to which they belong, and the
specific audiences they are addressing. As such, there is little reason to suppose that members
of all philosophical sub-communities ought to be intelligible to one another simply in virtue
of being fellow philosophers.8
Given the widespread assumption that the function of style is merely decorative, it is
unsurprising that the writing of philosophy is of marginal interest to most contemporary
philosophers. As Magee remarks: If a philosopher writes well, that's a bonusit makes him
more enticing to study, obviously, but it does nothing to make him a better philosopher
(Magee 1982, 230). On this view, any philosophical work that could not be understood
independently of its specific mode of presentation would thereby have failed to communicate
in an appropriately philosophical way. But whatever the appeal of the minimalist, self-
effacing plain style (Mason 1999, 31), we cannot assume that the form and content of all
genuinely philosophical writing must be easily separable. Indeed, not only can plain
language be seen as a particular style, embodying a more-or-less specific conception of what
philosophy is, one might say that philosophers general disinterest in questions of style is
itself an expressive feature of philosophy (van Eck 1995, 2). Here, then, we are not faced
with a simple choice between either adopting a philosophical style or opting for no style
whatsoever. (In fact, one highly effective way of entrenching communicative norms is to
deny that they raise any questions of style [see van Eck 1995, 6].) If one sees oneself working
in a community ( creative- and original thinking philosophers are not part of this academic
community) of philosophical problem solvers, whose primary task is to contribute to
specialised, well-defined debates, then some conception of plain speaking will likely be
taken for granted. My worry here is not about the detached voiceless style per se but about
the assumed obviousness that this is the way serious, bona fide philosophy ought to be done.
Those who do not share the problem-solving conception of philosophical practice might
reasonably feel the need to adopt very different communicative strategies. Varying degrees
of stylistic experimentation might, for example, be seen as necessary by philosophers wary of
the distinction between literal and metaphorical language, or those who see plain or
ordinary language as a cause of philosophical befuddlement, or those who believe that
the clearest of utterances are already metaphysically and/or politically loaded. It is only to be
expected that readers unfamiliar with these more reflexive, even sometimes playful texts
judge their authors to be less than intellectually serious. But then, of course, to other
audiences, texts embodying the ideal of modest plain speaking will seem, at best,
metaphilosophically nave.
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professional literature, widely certified distinction in the profession, and other quantifiable
measures of an impressive resume (2001, 30). Cottingham likewise bemoans the
fragmentation of philosophical inquiry into a host of separate specialisms, and the associated
development of swathes of technical jargon whose use is largely confined within
hermetically sealed sub-areas, which he believes represents a disintegrated conception of
philosophising (2009, 254; see also Norris 2012, 9). Whether one agrees with these specific
diagnoses, the continual demand for publications does facilitate a certain type of
philosophical outputnamely, short, narrowly focussed journal articles that make relatively
minor moves in a current live debate. Indeed, it is reasonable to think that many
philosophers primarily publish not because they have interesting things to say but because
they recognise the professional expectation to publish. For some, no doubt, this expectation
provides a motivation to find something genuinely interesting to say. But there is little reason
to think that, as a general strategy, this engenders philosophical work of deep and lasting
significance.
For good or ill, then, philosophy has become an industry with thousands of operatives
(factors and variables) and a prolific and diversified range of products (Rescher 1993, 722
23). If philosophy's professionalization constitutes the fact that distinguishes the discipline
of philosophy at the dawn of the 21st-century from the prior two millennia (Leiter 2008, 28),
then we should not underestimate the extent to which our differing conceptions of what
philosophy is are shaped by concrete social-institutional features of everyday
philosophical practice. After all, as professional philosophers, we routinely prioritise
specific methods and forms of argumentation over others, draw on particular authors and
texts, consider only some issues worthy of attention, adopt and endorse particular modes of
oral and written communication. Likewise, operating within institutes of higher education, we
decide which courses to offer our undergraduate and graduate students, which should be
mandatory and which optional, which topics and authors can be safely ignored, and which are
essential to maintaining philosophical integrity. (I return to integrity in the final section.) As
Mason rightly notes, there is a close connection between what philosophy is considered to
be and the given curriculum of a philosophy department (1989, 13). Through a variety of
activitiesincluding teaching, curriculum design, internal and external examining,
conference organisation, refereeing articles, editorial and committee workmembers of
philosophy departments and research centres sustain metaphilosophical norms throughout a
population of students, teachers, and researchers. In promoting their philosophical
merchandise to the wider academic world, these institutions compete for international
prestige and funding. And, of course, these institutions are seen to possess the requisite
expertise and authority to evaluate the intellectual competences and potential of
students and professional practitioners by means of peer review, teaching assessments,
and research evaluation exercises. There are, no doubt, many things that bind a
philosophical community together; a shared collection of texts, salient issues, preferred
methods, forms of argument, and modes of communication play a crucial part in this. But
members of philosophical communities also share professional familiarity rooted in
meetings and seminars attended together, journals read in common, extra-curricula
socialising, and myriad other seemingly external factors. It would therefore be mistaken to
think that these so-called extra-philosophical factors have no direct bearing on what
philosophers think (Mandt 1991, 99)including, of course, what philosophers think
philosophy is and should be.
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While there is much to say both for and against the philosophy industry,9 it is not my aim to
weigh the relative costs and benefits of philosophy's professionalization. I simply want to
highlight how much of what wea we that is always more or less local and transient
consider to be philosophy is formed and sustained by a host of contingent background
conditions. Accordingly, what lies, respectively, inside and outside philosophy cannot, in
good metaphilosophical conscience, be taken for granted. Although immersion in a particular
philosophical sub-community is near unavoidable, our subsequent tendency to lose critical
distance on our mundane philosophical practice is worth reflecting on. For this immersion
diminishes our ability and willingness to see how the borders of philosophy, for historical,
economic, cultural, and professional reasons, have changed. We therefore need to take
seriously the variety of external factors that shape our understanding of what philosophy is.
Mindful of this, let me return to the question with which I began: What is philosophy?
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determinants of philosophical practice, not only because they form part of the
metaphilosophical terrain philosophers actually inhabit, but also because we cannot assume
that the question What is philosophy? must be answered in the abstract before it can be
answered in the concrete (see Janz 2004, 106). In short, failure to acknowledge philosophy's
entanglement in sociology, psychology, and history (among other things) can only hinder our
understanding of what we are really doing when doing philosophy.
I said earlier that the question What is philosophy? belongs to philosophy because what
philosophy is, is always an issue for philosophy. I now want to suggest further that What is
philosophy? is better understood as the concrete question Is that philosophy?a
question particular philosophers (and groups of them) ask about particular authors,
texts, issues, methods, and communicative norms. Understanding the question in this way
captures important features of ordinary philosophical practice obscured by the more abstract
formulation What is philosophy? The first thing to note here is that responding to the
concrete question Is that philosophy? does not presuppose that we have an answer to the
abstract, essentialist question What is philosophy? (see Janz 2004, 106). For answering the
former is a practical matter that requires an ability (what I will call metaphilosophical know-
how) to distinguish between what does and does not qualify as bona fide philosophy, what
does and does not count as being of genuine philosophical interest, and so on. This know-
how is acquired within, and sustained by, particular philosophical sub-communities. It is
doubtless true that one's awareness of belonging to a particular tradition comes with time
(Davidson 1994, 42). But what also comes with time is the ability to recognise philosophy
when we encounter it. Early on in our philosophical training, most of us happily include
works of literature, anthropology, and many other things under the umbrella term
philosophy. But the more academic philosophy (and professional philosophers) we
encounter, the sooner we come to see these as not being works of philosophy written by
philosopherswhatever indirect philosophical insights they might offer. This practical skill
of discriminating between bona fide philosophy and what falls outside its boundaries (or
somewhere on the periphery) operates more at the level of engrained habit than rational
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reflectionthough, of course, reasons can often be found after the fact. Nobody provides us
with explicit metaphilosophical criteria to sort the philosophical wheat from the chaff.
Rather, we gradually, and for the most part unreflectively, develop a sense of what properly
philosophical texts look like, what sorts of topics are of genuine philosophical concern, what
issues and debates are live, what institutions, authors, journals, and publishers are
respectable, and what modes of expression are appropriate to serious philosophical work. For
example, demarcating between so-called Analytic and Continental traditions does not require
the ability to produce a checklist of defining characteristics for each (see Mandt 1991, 8788;
Sluga 1998, 107; Crane 2012, 2223). All that is needed is the practical ability to distinguish
between the sorts of books, journals, authors, communicative styles, and topics members of
each favouran ability acquired and sustained during one's training and everyday
philosophical practice.11 We should not, therefore, be surprised that professional
philosophers are able to recognise philosophy when they see it, though unable to provide
widely acceptable criteria for their being able to, or to offer an informative and plausible
response to the question What is philosophy? It is not that there are no standards in
operation here; contemporary philosophy is not an anarchic free-for-all. Rather,
metaphilosophical standards are embedded in local practice, and so feel entirely natural to
those working within a given philosophical sub-community but at best optional to those
working elsewhere. Before I conclude, let me briefly return to the question of
meta/philosophical integrity.
6 Meta/Philosophical Integrity
We often assume that our membership of the philosophical community ought to ensure a
high degree of mutual intelligibility between us. As noted earlier, alongside our general
intolerance for the unfamiliar, we tend to avoid metaphilosophical anxieties in order to go
straight to the philosophical issues without detour or delay. All of this is perfectly
understandable in what has become a highly competitive professionalised industry. As I have
suggested, however, in all of this we are prone to trivialise the way sub-communities are
divided from the rest by different priorities as to what the really interesting and important
issues are (Rescher 1993, 719). Immersed within specific philosophical sub-communities,
we rarely ask whether there is such a thing as the philosophical community or if there is
some underlying philosophical solidarity between us simply in virtue of sharing the same
profession. (Even if philosophers share an ineliminable backward reference to Plato's
dialogues [MacIntyre 1995, 45], how much metaphilosophical cohesion this actually
sustains is unclear.) Of course, we should not over-dramatize the fragmentation of
contemporary philosophy; philosophical sub-communitiesincluding departments and
research centresare generally not discrete islands of intellectual activity (see Rescher 1993,
719). But neither should we forget that we rarely engage with philosophical communities
much different from our own. Indeed, often we only become aware of their existence when
confronted with conference announcements and book releases on topics we barely recognise
as philosophical by authors we have never heard of.
Given all of this, it is tempting to think that when one philosopher accuses another of not
being a real philosopher, such charges are merely a rhetorical gambit (Rorty 1990, 370),
demonstrating nothing more than the accuser's failure to appreciate the diversity of
philosophical practice. Sometimes, no doubt, that is all there is to it. But these accusations are
not always mere posturing. For as I discussed earlier, it is significant that the practical
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concerns of (for example) curriculum design and implementation manifest the desire of
philosophers to draw disciplinary and sub-disciplinary boundariesnot least between
authentic and counterfeit philosophy. Identifying oneself as belonging to a particular
philosophical sub-community inevitably involves the sort of narrowing Putnam speaks of.
Sometimes, specific authors, texts, problems, methods, and communicative norms are openly
ridiculed as not real philosophy. More commonly, particular authors and texts simply do
not find their way into university curricula or onto the shelves of university libraries and
bookshops. Either way, these exclusions are important to the extent that we identify who we
are, philosophically speaking, by differentiating ourselves from those in other sub-
communities. Williamson therefore maintains that for anyone who acknowledges certain
advances in philosophical standards in recent Analytic philosophy, there would be a
profound loss of integrity involved in abandoning them in the way that would be required to
participate in continental philosophy as currently practised (2002, 151). If the implication
here is that these are standards all bona fide philosophers should at least attempt to meet, then
that seems a highly questionable bit of metaphilosophical stipulation. Still, Williamson's
allusion to integrity highlights something of broader significance. For being a member of any
philosophical sub-community presumably requires (i) a common heritage of recognised (by
a certain institution, school, movement) authors, texts, issues, methods, attitudes and
communicative norms, (ii) that this heritage be embedded in one's current practices, and
(iii) a shared conception of what is possible for maintaining the future integrity of one's
community. This third point is crucial. For at any given time some future possibilities will be
significantly unthinkable for members of a particular philosophical sub-community. To
exclude, inhibit, or even explicitly caution against specific authors, methods, styles (and
so on) need not therefore be an expression of bare intellectual parochialism. Rather,
respecting these perceived limits is part of what constitutes community membership.12
7 Conclusion
Philosophers have never achieved widespread consensus regarding what philosophy is.
Notwithstanding the fact that philosophers themselves sometimes talk of philosophy being in
one crisis or another, and while the contemporary philosophical landscape is in many ways
fragmented, philosophy has thus far managed to avoid total collapse. I have suggested,
however, that philosophy's relative stability is not due to it possessing some essential core, a
set of defining characteristics, or even a unifying genealogy. Rather, it is because members of
different sub-communities congregate around specific collections of authors, texts, debates,
and issues, and employ more-or-less unquestioned methods and communicative norms. In
short, the boundaries of philosophy are secured locally by philosophers everyday activities.
If that is right, then metaphilosophical inquiry needs to extend beyond questions of
methodology and encompass the wider background conditions of philosophical practice
(see Morrow and Sula 2011, 312).
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Joe Morrison, Gerry Hough, Paula Sweeney, and Carrie Jenkins for helpful
comments on an earlier draft of this article.
Footnotes
1. 1
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I will assume that this difficulty does not arise because philosophy is uniquely
demanding.
2. 2
On what many contemporary philosophers believe, see Bourget and Chalmers 2013.
3. 3
Recent discussions of women in philosophy (see Saul 2012; Hutchinson and Jenkins
2013) have started to open up metaphilosophy to sociological and psychological
questions.
4. 4
For extremely negative assessments of philosophy, see Lycan 1996, 149; Unger 2014.
5. 5
6. 6
Today, podcasts, blog posts, and tweets play an increasingly significant role in the
daily practice of professional philosophers.
7. 7
8. 8
Even when we understand what a philosopher is saying, we may not understand why
she is saying it, or saying it in that particular way.
9. 9
See Rescher 1993, 725, 727; Harries 2001, 52; Sayre 2004, 249; Nolan 2007, 12;
Leiter 2008, 28; Saul 2012; Hutchinson and Jenkins 2013.
10.10
11.11
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12.12
New members of a philosophical community cannot simply till the philosophical soil
already laid. To advance in the profession one must find more-or-less novel and
provocative things to say within the terrain mapped out by the generation who
supervised one's doctoral work, and who now sit on the boards of funding bodies,
promotion panels, research centres, and academic publishers.
References
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