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(Meta-Philosophy) Why read philosophy?


(of original and creative thinking rather than derivative, academic,
professional philosophers)
Ulrich de Balbian
Director
Meta-philosophy Research Center

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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Why read philosophy, why write philosophy, why do philosophy, why


philosophy. It is the need to struggle to get hold of some of the meaning of
life, the passion to make some sense of the fleeting moments I, we, one spend
on this planet, earth confined, in a seemingly vast, endless, often hostile reality
and universe.

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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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of the new philosophical vision organizes his pre-conceptual intuitions, arrange


and develop them theoretically, so as to constitute his new theoretical point of
view, his new explanatory perspective to re-interpret the world, humans, their
existence and their realities or reality for them in his eyes in more contemporary
relevant, more meaningful, more intelligible ways.
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See this article where I deal with details of Strawson s notions of speculative
(revisionary) and descriptive metaphysics.
https://www.academia.edu/31692986/Intra-
Philosophical_Norms_and_other_Limits
It is fairly easy to see why P F Strawson refers to and label traditional doing of
philosophy as speculative metaphysics. His own kind of philosophy passes his
evaluation as the appropriate doing of philosophy because, according to him,
what he is doing is not philosophy, or rather metaphysics, of and in the way of
traditional speculative philosophizing, but a mere description type of doing it.
To clarify further what he means by descriptive metaphysics and characterize it
I wish to include the kind of philosophy or metaphysics that Gilbert Ryle did in
his behaviorism-style as falling under the same label as that of Strawson on
which I happen to have written a masters degree thesis.
Metaphysical philosophy or the styles and way of doing philosophizing in the
Philosophical Investigations (of Wittgenstein) I have referred to in the text link
above as Explorative, and possible as a hard type of explorative metaphysics or
doing philosophy. The reason for this hard typification of the explorative kind is
that that book has a number of typical, traditional philosophical aims in mind. It
for example aims at clarifying all sorts of traditional philosophical problems
by exploring, investigating or analysing them away by analysis and clarification
of linguistic or conceptual practices or usages. These methods of philosophizing
by concentrating on linguistic practices or malpractices and conceptual usage or
misuse and abuse is of course different and has different aims and make all sorts
of different assumptions than traditional metaphysical doing of philosophy.
In contrast with the methods, principles, values and aims of the hard explorative
metaphysics of philosophizing of the Philosophical Investigations I characterize
the objectives and doing of philosophy in the Socratic method/s as a type of soft
explorative metaphysics, if it is metaphysics, in the traditional sense of the
term, at all. The reason for this characterization is that the dialogue-style of
Socrates concentrates on the language usage or misuse and abuse and the
conceptual and semantic ideological misunderstanding and ism influenced
linguistic and conceptual practices of the participants in the dialogue. The focus

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is on the so-called giving birth of meaningful and appropriate usage of words,


ideas and concepts and straight, non-fallacy thinking, understanding, reasoning
and expression or communication. In other words it has very little to do with
the exploration and solving of traditional metaphysical problems or their
explicit investigation in terms of some theoretically fabricated speculative
system. If this also occurs during the dialogue, the dissolution of traditional
philosophical problems, then it is of merely secondary importance and even
quite accidental, unintentional and almost irrelevant. At most it is just another
secondary effect of clarification by means of the communicative processes of
the dialogue-styles and their clarifying effects of this kind of conceptual and
linguistic clarification.
This type of clarification also leads to the exploration and identification of all
sorts of socio-psychological phenomena for example attitudes, values, norms,
believes, world views, life-worlds, constructions of reality, assumptions and
pre-suppositions. Some of these phenomena may or may not be directed
relevant to philosophical subject-matter but they do play a part in the
socialization, behaviour, cognition, thinking and understanding of society,
communities, cultures, sub-cultures, institutions and individuals. All sorts of
things concerning the participants, or rather the partner in the dialogue are being
revealed and made explicit during the dialogical process. This makes explicit
and enables the identification, exploration, clarification, investigation and the
modification of the participants cognition, beliefs, attitudes, values, mind sets
and many other social, psychological, cognitive and all sorts of other concerns
and practices, for example assumptions, pre-suppositions, cognitive biases and
fallacies of thinking and reasoning. With the making explicit of these variables
that influence the behaviour, thinking, cognition, understanding, constitution of
self and realities, by means of the so-called conceptual or linguistic midwifery
or a kind of philosophical investigation these individual, intra-individual, inter
individual and inter-subjective, socio-cultural variable and factors can both be
identified, modified and transformed or replace by more appropriate, rational,
relevant, reasonable and meaningful ones.
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A professor friend of mine once commented on the fact that I think, speak and
write in the form of independent (and when written numbered) paragraphs (my
words) perhaps, superficially resembling the style, or presentation of the PI
and that of the individual Socratic dialogues. The latter in so far as Socrates did
not construct one, absolute dialogue or conversation, but he instead constituted
and participated in many individual, independent, different, unconnected and/or
isolated ones. The reason for this, my isolated paragraphs, my independent and

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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

1. Some Pre-Twentieth Century Metaphilosophy

2. Defining Metaphilosophy

3. Explicit and Implicit Metaphilosophy

Explicit metaphilosophy is metaphilosophy pursued as a subfield of, or attendant


field to, philosophy. Metaphilosophy so conceived has waxed and waned. In the early
twenty-first century, it has waxed in Europe and in the Anglophone (English-
speaking) world. Probable causes of the increasing interest include Analytic
philosophy having become more aware of itself as a tradition, the rise of
philosophizing of a more empirical sort, and a softening of the divide between
Analytic and Continental philosophy. (This article will revisit all of those topics in
one way or another.) However, even when waxing, metaphilosophy generates much
less activity than philosophy. Certainly the philosophical scene contains few book-
length pieces of metaphilosophy. Books such as Williamsons The Philosophy of
Philosophy, Reschers Essay on Metaphilosophy, and What is Philosophy? by
Deleuze and Guattari these are not the rule but the exception.

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.

4. The Classification of Metaphilosophies and the Treatment that


Follows

Analytic Metaphilosophy

The Analytic Pioneers: Russell, the Early Wittgenstein, and Moore

Logical Positivism

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Ordinary Language Philosophy and the Later Wittgenstein

Three Revivals

1. Normative Philosophy including Rawls and Practical Ethics

2. History of Philosophy

3. Metaphysics: Strawson, Quine, Kripke

iii. Metaphysics: Strawson, Quine, Kripke


Positivism, the later Wittgenstein, and Ordinary Language Philosophy suppressed Analytic
metaphysics. Yet it recovered, thanks especially to three figures, beginning with Peter
Strawson.

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.

Connective analysis seeks to elucidate concepts by discerning their interconnections, which is


to say, the ways in which concepts variously imply, presuppose, and exclude one another.
Strawson contrasts this connective model with the reductive or atomistic model that aims
to dismantle or reduce the concepts we examine to other and simpler concepts (all Strawson
1991: 21). The latter model is that of Russell, the Tractatus, and, indeed, Moore. Another way
in which Strawson departs from Russell and the Tractatus, but not from Moore, lies in this: a
principal method of connective analysis is close examination of the actual use of words
(Strawson 1959: 9). But when Strawson turns to descriptive metaphysics, such examination
is not enough.

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.).

Descriptive metaphysics is considerably Kantian (see Kant, metaphysics). Strawson is


Kantian, too, in rejecting what he calls revisionary metaphysics. Here we have the element
of Kantian humility within Strawsons enterprise. Descriptive metaphysics is content to

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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.

1. A revisionary metaphysic is apt to be an overgeneralization of some


particular aspect of our conceptual scheme and/or

2. to be a confusion between conceptions of how things really are with some


Weltanschauung.

3. Revisionary metaphysics attempts the impossible, namely, to depart from


the fundamental features of our conceptual scheme. The first point shows
the influence of Wittgenstein. So does the third, although it is also (as
Strawson may have recognized) somewhat Heideggerian. The second
point is reminiscent of Carnaps version of logical positivism. All this
notwithstanding, and consistently enough, Strawson held that systems of
revisionary metaphysics can, through the partial vision (1959: 9) that
they provide, be useful to descriptive 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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5. Naturalism including Experimentalism and Its Challenge to Intuitions

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.

Quine is an empirical philosopher in his approach to metaphysics and even more so in


his approach to epistemology. Quine presents and urges his epistemology thus: The
stimulation of his sensory receptors is all the evidence anybody has had to go on,
ultimately, in arriving at his picture of the world. Why not just see how this
construction really proceeds? Why not settle for psychology? (Quine 1977: 75). Such
naturalistic epistemology in Quines own formulation, naturalized epistemology
has been extended to moral epistemology. A naturalized moral epistemology is
simply a naturalized epistemology that concerns itself with moral knowledge
(Campbell and Hunter 2000: 1). There is such a thing, too, as naturalized aesthetics:
the attempt to use science to solve aesthetical problems (McMahon 2007). Other
forms of empirical philosophy include neurophilosophy, which applies methods from
neuroscience, and sometimes computer science, to questions in the philosophy of
mind.

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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intuitions, intuitions being something like seemings (inklings?) or spontaneous


judgments. Sometimes philosophers have employed intuitions in support of empirical
claims. For example, some ethicists have asserted, from their philosophical armchairs,
that character is the most significant determinant of action. Another example: some
philosophers have speculated that most people are incompatibilists about
determinism. (The claim in this second example is, though empirical, construable as a
certain type of second-order intuition, namely, as a claim that is empirical, yet made
from the armchair, about the intuitions that other people have.) Experimentalists have
put such hunches to the test, often concluding that they are mistaken (see Levin 2009
and Levy 2009). At other times, though, the type of intuitively-based claim that
experimentalists investigate is non-empirical or at least not evidently empirical. Here
one finds, for instance, intuitions about what counts as knowledge, about whether
some feature of something is necessary to it (recall Kripke, above), about what the
best resolution of a moral dilemma is, and about whether or not we have free will.
Now, experimentalists have not quite tested claims of this second sort. But they have
used empirical methods in interrogating the ways in which philosophers, in
considering such claims, have employed intuitions. Analytic philosophers have been
wont to use their intuitions about such non-empirical matters to establish burdens of
proof, to support premises, and to serve as data against which to test philosophical
theories. But experimentalists have claimed to find that, at least in the case of non-
philosophers, intuitions about such matters vary considerably. (See for instance
Weinberg, Nichols and Stitch 2001.) So, why privilege the intuitions of some
particular philosopher?

Armchair philosophers have offered various responses. One is that philosophers


intuitions diverge from folk intuitions only in this way: the former are more
considered versions of the latter (Levin 2009). But might not such considered
intuitions vary among themselves? Moreover: why at all trust even considered
intuitions? Why not think with Quine (and William James, Richard Rorty,
Nietzsche, and others) that intuitions are sedimentations of culturally or biologically
inherited views? A traditional response to that last question (an ordinary language
response and equally, perhaps, an ideal language response) runs as follows.
Intuitions do not convey views of the world. Rather they convey an implicit
knowledge of concepts or of language. A variation upon that reply gives it a more
naturalistic gloss. The idea here is that (considered) intuitions, though indeed
synthetic and, as such, defeasible, represent good prima facie evidence for the
philosophical views at issue, at least if those views are about the nature of concepts
(see for instance Graham and Horgan 1994).

2. Pragmatism, Neopragmatism, and Post-Analytic Philosophy

1. Pragmatism

2. Neopragmatism: Rorty

3. Post-Analytic Philosophy

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3. Continental Metaphilosophy

1. Phenomenology and Related Currents

1. Husserls Phenomenology

2. Existential Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Existentialism

2. Critical Theory

1. Critical Theory and the Critique of Instrumental Reason

2. Habermas

3. The Later Heidegger

4. Derrida's Post-Structuralism

4. References and Further Reading

1. Explicit Metaphilosophy and Works about Philosophical Movements


or Traditions

a. Explicit Metaphilosophy and Works about Philosophical Movements or


Traditions

Anscombe, G. E. M. (1957) Does Oxford Moral Philosophy Corrupt Youth?


in her Human life, Action, and Ethics: Essays, pp. 161168. Exeter, UK:
Imprint Academic, 2005. Edited by Mary Geach and Luke Gormally.

Beaney, Michael (2007) The Analytic Turn in Early Twentieth-Century


Philosophy, in Beaney, Michael ed. The Analytic Turn. Essays in Early
Analytic Philosophy and Phenomenology, New York and London: Routledge,
2007.

o Good on, especially, the notions of analysis in early Analytic


philosophy and on the historical precedents of those notions.

Beaney, Michael (2009) Conceptions of Analysis in Analytic Philosophy:


Supplement to entry on Analysis, The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Summer 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).

Beauchamp, Tom L. (2002) Changes of Climate in the Development of


Practical Ethics, Science and Engineering Ethics 8: 131138.

Bernstein, Richard J. (2010) The Pragmatic Turn. Cambridge MA and


Cambridge.

o An account of the influence and importance of pragmatism.

Chappell, Timothy (2009) Ethics Beyond Moral Theory Philosophical


Investigations 32: 3 206243.

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Chase, James, and Reynolds, Jack (2010) Analytic Versus Continental:


Arguments on the Methods and Value of Philosophy. Stocksfield: Acumen.

Clarke, Stanley G. (1987) Anti-Theory in Ethics, American Philosophical


Quarterly 24: 3 237244.

Deleuze, Giles, and Guattari, Flix (1994) What is Philosophy? London and
New York: Verso. Trans. Graham Birchill and Hugh Tomlinson.

o Less of an introduction to metaphilosophy than its title might


suggest.

Galison, Peter (1990) Aufbau/Bauhaus: Logical Positivism and


Architectural Modernism, Critical Inquiry, 16(4[Summer]): 709752.

Glendinning, Simon (2006) The Idea of Continental Philosophy: A


Philosophical Chronicle. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Glock, Hans-Johann (2008) What Is Analytic Philosophy? Cambridge and


New York: Cambridge University Press.

o Comprehensive. Illuminating. Not introductory.

Graham, George and Horgan, Terry (1994) Southern Fundamentalism and


the End of Philosophy, Philosophical Issues 5: 219247.

Lazerowitz, Morris (1970) A Note on Metaphilosophy, Metaphilosophy,


1(1): 9191 (sic).

o An influential (but very short) definition of metaphilosophy.

Levin, Janet (2009) Experimental Philosophy, Analysis, 69(4) 2009: 761


769.

Levy, Neil (2009) Empirically Informed Moral Theory: A Sketch of the


Landscape, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 12:38.

McNaughton, David (2009) Why Is So Much Philosophy So Tedious?,


Florida Philosophical Review IX(2): 1-13.

Joll, Nicholas (2009) How Should Philosophy Be Clear? Loaded Clarity,


Default Clarity, and Adorno, Telos 146 (Spring): 7395.

Joll, Nicholas (Forthcoming) Review of Jrgen Habermas et al, An


Awareness of What Is Missing (Polity, 2010), Philosophy.

o Tries to clarify and evaluate some of Habermas' thinking on religion.

Papineau, David (2009) The Poverty of Analysis, Proceedings of the


Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume lxxxiii: 130.

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Preston, Aaron (2007) Analytic Philosophy: The History of an Illusion.


London and New York: Continuum.

o Argues, controversially, that Analytic philosophy has never had any


substantial philosophical or metaphilosophical unity.

Prinz, Jesse J. (2008) Empirical Philosophy and Experimental Philosophy in


J. Knobe and S. Nichols (eds.) Experimental Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2008.

Urmson, J. D. (1956) Philosophical Analysis: Its Development Between the


Two World Wars. London: Oxford University Press.

Rescher, Nicholas (2006) Philosophical Dialectics. An Essay on


Metaphilosophy. Albany: State University of New York Press.

o Centres upon the notion of philosophical progress. Contains


numerous, occasionally gross typographical errors.

Rorty, Richard ed. (1992) The Linguistic Turn: Essays in Philosophical


Method, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Second edition.

o A useful study of 1930s to 1960s Analytic metaphilosophy.

Rorty, Richard, Schneewind, Jerome B., and Skinner, Quentin eds. (1984)
Philosophy in History: Essays in the Historiography of Philosophy.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sorell, Tom, and Rogers, C. A. J. eds. (2005) Analytic Philosophy and


History of Philosophy. Oxford and New York: Oxford.

Stewart, Jon (1995) Schopenhauers Charge and Modern Academic


Philosophy: Some Problems Facing Philosophical Pedagogy,
Metaphilosophy 26(3): 270278.

Taylor, Charles (1984) Philosophy and Its History, in Rorty, Schneewind,


and Skinner 1984.

Williams, Bernard (2003) Contemporary Philosophy: A Second Look in The


Blackwell Companion to Philosophy, ed. Nicholas Bunnin and E. P. Tsui-
James, pp. 2537. Oxford: Blackwell. Second edition.

Williamson, Timothy (2007) The Philosophy of Philosophy, Malden


MA and Oxford: Blackwell.

o A dense, rather technical work aiming to remedy what it


sees as a metaphilosophical lack in Analytic philosophy.
Treats, among other things, these notions: conceptual truth;
intuitions; thought experiments.

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2. Analytic Philosophy including Wittgenstein, Post-Analytic Philosophy,


and Logical Pragmatism

Strawson, Peter (1959) Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics. London:


Methuen.
Strawson, Peter (1991) Analysis and Metaphysics. An Introduction to Philosophy. Oxford
and New York: Oxford University Press.
Also see his Bounds of Sense.(on Kant)

5. Both an introduction to philosophy and an introduction to Strawsons own


philosophical and metaphilosophical views.

1. Strawson, Peter (2003) A Bit of Intellectual Autobiography in Glock ed.


2003b

2. Pragmatism and Neopragmatism

3. Continental Philosophy

4. Other

Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1961) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Trans. D.F. Pears and B.F.
McGuinness. Routledge: London.

The title means schema of philosophical logic.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1966) Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and


Religious Belief. Oxford: Blackwell.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1969) The Blue and Brown Books. Preliminary Studies for the
Philosophical Investigations. Blackwell: Oxford.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2001) Philosophical Investigations. The German Text, with a
Revised English Translation. Malden MA and Oxford: Blackwell. Third edition. Trans. G. E.
M. Anscombe.

The major work of the later Wittgenstein.

13

Metaphilosophy Themes and Questions


A Personal List
Peter Suber, Philosophy Department, Earlham College

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

Self-reference and Self-application

Immanence and non-immanence

Disagreement and diversity

Primacy of the practical

Philosophy good and bad

Philosophy and expertise

Ends of philosophy

Death of philosophy

Anti-philosophies

Philosophy and assertion

Philosophy and exposition

Philosophy and style

Philosophy as literature

Literature as philosophy

Philosophical beauty

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Philosophy as science

Philosophy and related fields and activities

Philosophy and argument

Philosophy and wisdom

Philosophy and metaphilosophy

Philosophy and the folk

Philosophy and 'primitive' life

Philosophy and philosophers

Philosophy and pedagogy

Cognitivity

Does philosophy lead to knowledge (is it cognitive)? Can it be true or


false? (NO, meaningful or meaningless; do not confuse information, data
or knowledge with insights and understanding. Philosophers seek the
latter, that is what philosophy is about) (Unclear what you mean by
cognition, an umbrella word for many things for example: data,
information, insights, understanding...)

To be cognitive in this sense is to bear any truth-value, including


falsehood, as opposed to bearing none at all. Don't confuse
cognitivity with truth.

To bear a truth-value is not necessarily to be knowable with certainty, or


by any method. Don't confuse cognitivity with knowability. (a misleading,
secondary path, dont go there)

The question is not whether anything is knowledge or cognitive e.g.


science; but whether philosophy is (ever) knowledge. (never
information, but insights, understanding)

Does philosophy merely criticize or examine knowledge, (YES, philosophy


not concerned with data or information for their own sake, but to reveal
insights and philosophically relevant understanding) without itself being
(or becoming) knowledge? If so, then why should we trust it? What
warrants it? Can it be objective or corrigible? How should we evaluate it?
(meta-standards for evaluating philosophy)

Can philosophy be cognitive "in some sense" and non-cognitive "in


another sense"? If so, try to articulate those senses. Can we say that the
"highest" or "most important" philosophy is cognitive or non-cognitive? (as
long as you emphasize meaning, insights and understanding and not data
and information as knowledge, that is philosophically relevant)

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If philosophy is non-cognitive, would it follow that we should read it non-


immanently? (See section below on immanent and non-immanent
readings of philosophy .)

If philosophy is cognitive, (what do you mean by cognitive in this context,


unclear) does the apparently permanent character of disagreement in
philosophy become a sign of failure? (See the section below on
disagreement and diversity.)

In natural science even "negative results" are valuable. (A negative result


is the failure to confirm an hypothesis.) Is there anything comparable in
philosophy? What value might "mistaken"(??) philosophies have?

Can only non-cognitivist metaphilosophies find value in "great


mistakes"?

Can non-cognitivists have any concept of philosophical error? If so, how? If


not, is there a non-cognitivist equivalent? (meaning/understanding not
information/knowledge)

Is philosophical truth more like the truth of artworks or the truth of


science? (no, neither,not truth, but meaning).

Are philosophers who are committed to "reason" thereby committed to the


cognitivity of philosophy? Those who are committed to "inquiry"?
(irrelevant)

Can philosophy be cognitive "ultimately" and non-cognitive only


provisionally? Vice versa? Can you think of examples of each? (irrelevant)

Do some positions make their cognitivity depend on their certainty? (Can


you think of any examples?) If such positions don't quite attain the
certainty they need, what is the effect of relinquishing their cognitivity?
(You use science as measurement)

Is philosophy non-cognitive if its point or end is non-cognitive? (See list


below for some examples.) (clarify this please, you deal in misleading
ways with confusing, confused notions, that could mean many things.)

Or is it non-cognitive only if it refrains from claiming truth or


falsehood on the way to fulfulling the point, purpose, or end of
philosophy?

Is philosophy non-cognitive if it is prompted, inspired, or caused by


something non-epistemic, such as psychological insecurity, class struggle,
will to power, or feelings of pleasure and pain? (Now you look for socio-
psychological factors or causes of philosophy. Do the same for art, science
and other socio-cultural or intersubjective practices!)

Is all non-cognitivist philosophy fictionalist? (?)

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If you decide that philosophy is non-cognitive (ultimately, or in the


foreground), then how do you explain the apparent fact that most
(practically all) philosophers write as if philosophy were cognitive, claiming
that such-and-such is true, and thus-and-so false? (Do they? Then they are
misled about philosophy and its purpose meaning, not truth) (Really?
They talk about truth and false? They talk about more or less meaningful)

possible explanations:

They had secret doctrines, and did not publish their real
views. (True for the majority?)

They were self-deceived. (And we are so much wiser than


they?)

The way they wrote does not really imply cognitivity; truth
claims, refutations, arguments, etc. are moves in the game.
(Needs further explanation, justification.)

Is non-cognitivism in metaphilosophy plausible only to the extent that we


are already skeptical about the possibility of attaining knowledge? (NOT
knowledge as data or information but meaning so as to to attain or clarify
and develop insights and understanding! That is the possibility or potential
of philosophy) If not, why else might it be plausible?

What different ways are there to be non-cognitive and how do we decide


to favor some over others? Here are some to consider:

truth not propositional; philosophy propositional only as means, or


only sometime (Hegel)

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)

non-cognitive point to inquiry for truth (Stoicism, pragmatism, many


others)

cognitive criteria ultimately subordinate to ethical or aesthetic


criteria (Nietzsche)

self-conscious fictionalism (Nietzsche? Vaihinger)

(centrality of being meaningful/less)

centrality of regulative principles

philosophy as "stirring the compost"

philosophy as questions, not answers (and explorations of the


questions or problems)

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philosophy as search for comfort, solace, utility, beauty, ataraxia,


salvation

philosophy as literature or art

philosophy as expression of personality (minor aspect)

philosophy as expression of Zeitgeist, substructure, personality, etc.


(ideology) (the negative aspect of it)

philosophy as sheer choice (no there exist more objective norms


for philosophy)

philosophy as cultural action (secondary)

philosophy as liberation (in the Socratic manner, insights,


understanding)

philosophy as self-creation (yes, secondary and personal to the


philosopher thinking the philosophy)

philosophy as preparation for death

philosophy as meditation (it contains contemplation or rather


reflection,secondary tools)

philosophy as criticism

philosophy as prescription

philosophy as play

philosophy as worship, celebration (Plato, the good, the true etc)

philosophy as therapy (for the thinker and some readers perhaps)

philosophy as clarification of language

philosophy as (a certain kind of) living (yes, is a total role like that of
a monastic or contemplative solitary/hermit)

philosophy as (seeking insights, understanding to enhance and


arrive at greater insights and wisdom) wisdom

philosophy as "gadflight" (linguistic/conceptual clarification one


aspect, step on the way to insights and understanding)

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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Cognitive Function of Philosophy, Open Court, 1959; James F. Peterman,


Philosophy as Therapy: An Interpretation and Defense of Wittgenstein's
Later Philosophical Project, SUNY Press, 1992; Joseph Wayne Smith, The
Progress and Rationality of Philosophy as a Cognitive Enterprise: An Essay
on Metaphilosophy, Avebury, 1988.

Systematicity

Should philosophy be systematic? (yes so as to be intersubjectively


meaningful)

What is a philosophical system? (an ism and ideology of ideas)

What virtues have been claimed for doing philosophy non-systematically


or anti-systematically? (irrelevant)

Why is beginning,( a course of questioning of ideas, etc) a problem for


(all!! Either you have questions, insights or you dont inspiration, writers
block etc) systematic philosophy?

Compare a few philosophers on their actual beginnings and on their


theoretical solutions to the problem of beginning.

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 license their proponents to


interpret disagreement as error? If so, is this regrettable?

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?

Compare a few systematic philosophers on how they would respond to one


who felt herself to stand outside the system. (the social system, syetm or
institution of philosophy or the philosophers theoretical,
speculative/revisionary metaphysical system?)

Kant said (KdrV, B.502) that "Human reason is by nature architectonic.


That is to say, it regards all our knowledge as belonging to a possible
system." (reject this unfounded assumption or ism) If Kant is right about
this, does it follow that philosophy should be done systematically? Or only
that reason hopes that a complete system exists in principle?

Kant's quotation continues: "That is to say, it regards all our


knowledge as belonging to a possible system, (no, field,
domain or discourse or discipline or kind of intersubejctivity) and
therefore allows only such principles as do not at any rate make it
impossible for any knowledge that we may attain to combine into a
system with other knowledge."

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In any case, is Kant right? (no)

Should we decide how to do philosophy in light of the nature of


reason (supposing we could know it)? (what does this mean?)

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)

Can the philosophical and metaphilosophical demands of system-building


distort doctrine? (doctrine?) For example, if logic or ethics ought to say
such-and-such in truth, could the problem of beginning or similar problem
leads us in a different direction? (yes) Are the demands of truth and of
systematic coherence compatible?

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.

See Everett W. Hall, Philosophical Systems: A Categorical Analysis,


University of Chicago Press, 1960; George Lucas Jr. (ed.), Hegel and
Whitehead: Contemporary Perspectives on Systematic Philosophy, SUNY
Press, 1986; Adriaan Theodoor Peperzak, System and History in
Philosophy, SUNY Press, 1986; Jules Vuillemin, What Are Philosophical
Systems?, Cambridge University Press, 1986.

Methodology

Are there methods peculiar to philosophy? (yes)

Do we need a method to discover, examine, or justify (no explore) a


method? Do we need a certified method (contextually relative standards,
norms) to certify a method? If so, how do we escape this apparent
dilemma of circularity and infinite regress? (explore not certify methods
and their implications)

How does philosophy justify its methods? (it does not, they are merely
taken for granted)

Do (should) we acquire a method before claiming knowledge, or after? Is


knowledge certified by the method that discovered or established it, or is
method certified by the knowledge it discovers or establishes?

What is the relationship between method and result in philosophy? (the


methods reveal the sense being argued and reasoned for)

What is, and what ought to be, the role of argument in philosophy?
(revealing sense, meaning)

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How rigid is the distinction between argument to convince and


argument to prove? (rigid and obvious) Does argument have a bona
fide epistemic function or is it entirely social/political? (an aspect of
our intersubjective tools or means for expression, communication,
etc)

See section on philosophy and argument below.

What are the tenable solutions, if any, to the problem of beginning?


(context for this beginning please, many meanings)

What is the role of criteria in philosophy? How are they discovered? Do we


need criteria to validate our criteria? (intersubjective standards, norms)

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?)

Is it true (according to Descartes) that all differences of result among


philosophers may be traced to differences of method? (method in context,
relevant method to the questions being explored0 method is only one
aspects of the processes of the different stages of philosophical thinking
and theorizing)

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

Is a philosophy determined, or limited, by conditions in the philosopher's


time and place? (yes, socio-cultural, institutional and other factors)

Are some philosophies impossible to understand from certain other


historical positions? (we read across or beyond/passed those
factors)

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?

For a given philosopher who disclaims eternal truths and asserts


that all assertions are historically situated, how does she cope with
the apparent self-refutation of her position? (circular fallacy there
are more universal and less socio-cultural, historically determined
contexts, eg as in mathematics 1+1=2, )

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Is the history of philosophy the history of error? (partly not absolute)

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)

What is the relation between philosophy itself and the history of


philosophy?

How does this relation differ from those between mathematics,


chemistry, literature, or religion and their histories? (the other
disciplines create the history and develop beyond the past,
philosophy repeats the same questions and b=never goes beyond
its history of past juts implodes it repeatedly something like the
big-bang, the same thing just implded repeatedly)

If "philosophy is the history of philosophy" (Hegel), then are all


philosophical claims historically conditioned and liable to
reevaluation (including this one, only in one sense)?

Can philosophy progress? If so, has it actually progressed? (irrelevant)

Can philosophy regress? Can you cite any examples? (irrelevant terms in
this context progress and regress)

Compare the values of writing the history of philosophy immanently and


non-immanently. (?)

What metaphilosophical questions are typically answered (at least by


display) in writing the history of philosophy? (subject-matter and methods)

How have philosophers used the history of philosophy for non-historical or


doctrinal purposes? (Marx and his followers, Habermas, etc)

See Aristotle's historical remarks at the beginning of the


Metaphysics.

Can bad history make good philosophy? (See e.g. Russell and Heidegger
on the pre-Socratics.) (irrelevant, not directly related, intervening,
intermediate factors involved)

How do philosophers typically use their predecessors? How should


they? (insights and tools or data collection to develop their own
theorizing) what would you think of a philosopher who had read
virtually none of his predecessors? (See. e.g. Herbert Spencer.)
(meaningful to certain thinkers and personalities, as in art a painter
who does or does not take notice of other painters)

Hobbes said that if he wasted his time reading the books of his
predecessors, then he'd never know more than they did.
(meaningful)

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Would you expect such philosophers to ask different kinds of


questions and come to different kinds of results? If so, try to
describe the difference. (no, not really put in context and
show the philosopher and specific points)

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 any view of the history or historicity of philosophy displayed by


philosophies that claim to be "philosophies of the future"(meanings?)
rather than of the present or past? Cf. Feuerbach, Nietzsche.

Why, and how, would a philosopher seek to "overcome" the history of


philosophy? (impossible, contextual, situated)

Is a "merely antiquarian" interest in the history of philosophy


unphilosophical? (yes)

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)

What has happened when a philosophical question is no longer asked, or is


greatly reduced in urgency or centrality? (Can you think of examples?)
(fashion, fads of the time)

What has happened when a position or answer is passed by without being


refuted? (fashion)

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 Husserl be right when he says that we understand all previous


philosophers better than they understood themselves? (Crisis of the
European Sciences and Transcendental Philosophy, Northwestern
UP, 1970, at 73.) (YES, because we view them in a larger context,
big pictue, with distance in hindsight)

What is historical distance such that this kind of understanding


becomes possible? (placing the ideas in context by removing
contemporary features and concerns that are irrelevant)

Can you recognize the historical strata in the list of questions, for
example, in this hand-out?

See: Darrel E. Christensen, "Philosophy and Its History," Review of


Metaphysics, 18 (1960) 58-83; Dauenhauer, Bernard P. (ed.), At the Nexus
of Philosophy and History, University of Georgia Press, 1987; W.B. Gallie,

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Philosophy and the Historical Understanding, Schocken, 2d ed., 1968;


Jorge J.E. Gracia, Philosophy and Its History: Issues in Philosophical
Historiography, SUNY, 1991; Peter Hare (ed.), Doing Philosophy
Historically, Prometheus Books, 1996; Frank E. Manuel, Shapes of
Philosophical History, Stanford University Press, 1965; Adriaan Theodoor
Peperzak, System and History in Philosophy, SUNY Press, 1986; Richard
Rorty et al. (eds.), Philosophy in History: Essays on the Historiography of
Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, 1984; V. Tejera and Thelma Lavine
(eds.), History and Anti-History in Philosophy, Kluwer Academic Publishing,
1989; Craig Walton, "Bibliography of the Historiography and Philosophy of
the History of Philosophy," International Studies in Philosophy, 9 (1977);
reprinted Torino: Filosofia, n.d.

Self-Reference and Self-Application

Are a given philosopher's criteria of truth (knowledge, meaning) true


(knowable, meaningful) by their own terms? Must they be? (there will
always be an element of this in philosophy, try to be aware of them,
identify them and explore their implications; part of cognitive bias leading
to creation and employment of fallacies in thinking)

Is self-referential inconsistency as objectionable as other kinds of


inconsistency? (unavoidable but be aware of them as one kind of cognitive
bias)

Many philosophies have implications for the nature or use of argument,


proof, language, method, and philosophy itself. Must philosophies always
comply with their own strictures on these subjects, or can they work at a
'different level' and exempt themselves? (if possible they will, but the
suggestions will be coloured by cognitive bias and even fallacies)

Are there interesting or significant philosophical positions that cannot be


expounded except with some self-referential problem or paradox? Can you
think of examples? (yes there will be)

Compare the metaphilosophies of a few philosophers on their self-


referential consistency.

Some scholars have distinguished philosophical reasoning from


formal logical reasoning (and scientific and legal reasoning), and found
that some self-referential methods are peculiar to philosophy. What uses of
self-reference are peculiar to philosophical reasoning?

Find examples of self-justification and self-refutation.

Does the search for first principles, or presuppositions,


(explore them, identify them and make them explicit) part of the
process of theorizing) require frequent encounters with vicious and
benign self-reference?

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?

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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?

If we cannot 'get outside' philosophy to judge philosophies,


should we regret or rejoice? (that must be accepted and used
explicitly as as one aspect of the philosophical discourse, discipline
and socio-cultural practice) What does it show about the cognitivity
( please specify too vague) of philosophy?

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)

See: Steven J. Bartlett and Peter Suber, Self-Reference: Reflections on


Reflexivity, Martinus Nijhoff, 1987 (contains a large bibliography).

Immanence and Non-Immanence

Should philosophy be explained as the intellectual (meaning?) response to


philosophical questions, arguments, living problems, and prior
philosophers? (These would be immanent INTERNAL to doing philosophy,
explanations.)

Should philosophy instead be explained as the upshot, byproduct,


epiphenomenon, or side-effect of something else, such as economic or
political forces, class struggle, will to power, individual psychology, cultural
determinism, or linguistic confusion? (These would be non-immanent or
reductive explanations; they are sometimes called "external critique".)
(both immanent EXTERNAL FACTORS INVOLVED)

If you prefer an immanent explanation, how do you explain the role of


the historical and psychological conditions of the philosopher in
the development of her philosophy? Does philosophy reflect the material
conditions of its time and place at all? (yes as some factors and variables,
but certain insights are more universal and eternal transcending personal,
social, cultural, historical conditions and factors)

If you prefer a non-immanent explanation, 'ultimately', then is your


favored explanation subject to philosophical criticism? (YES, but you do
not FAVOR it, that is one aspects to be explore, external factors must also
be explored and considered) If so, what is the effect of this circle on the
strength of your explanation?

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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)

Can non-immanent analysis of a philosophy avoid "reduction"? (specify)

What is reduction? If it is objectionable, why is it objectionable?


What metaphilosophy is displayed by the view that it is
objectionable?

For a given philosopher, ask whether she wants to be examined


solely on the basis of the arguments and conclusions in her book?

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 of philosophical interest might be (in Wittgenstein's terms)


displayed but not depicted (ineffable, concepts and ideas do, not yet,
exist or are not yet available, to express those intuitions, notions, ideas)
by a work of philosophy?

Is it necessary, or artificial, to distinguish the grounds of a theory


according to the author (the immanent argument) from the causes of the
theory according to the reader (the non-immanent explanation)? If they
are distinct, which is more essential in understanding the nature of a
philosophy? (this varies with philosophical systems, if necessary use or
explore both)

Marxists hold that immanent histories of philosophy presuppose idealism.


Is this true? (no, MarxISM suggests this bias) Conversely, is it true that
idealist histories must be immanent histories? (no nothing to do with each
other, many intervening variables) Must materialist histories be non-
immanent? (no, no direct cause or effect, intermediate variables) Must
non-immanent histories or analyses be materialist? (too general as
statement or notion)

If Marx is right, would it follow that teaching philosophy to


emphasizing the immanent arguments would presuppose idealism?
(too general a notion)

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)

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Is immanent philosophy bad faith? "Just academic"? If philosophy must


address one's situation to be authentic, how far can it then address the
tradition and continue the immanent dialogue of the tradition? (too
general, specify)

Can philosophy be done non-immanently, or only viewed non-immanently?


(too general)

Disagreement and Diversity

Why have philosophers not agreed as often as scientists? (too general)

Have philosophers agreed more than at first appears? Less? (too general)

Can the apparent disagreement be reinterpreted as misunderstanding? as


development? (give specific cases, too general and meaningless)

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?

If philosophy is cognitive (this author employs the word cognitive in


many different way and contexts. This is misleading and confusing. For
example one is unsure what exactly he means, from several different
possible meanings, when he employs this notion. Often it is unclear what
exactly he means, which meaning or meanings of cognitive, and he
frequently conflates several different meanings of this umbrella-notion. It
could refer to: of or relating to the mental processes of perception,
memory, judgment, and reasoning, as contrasted with emotional and
volitional processes. www.dictionary.com/browse/cognitive), then is the
spectacle of disagreement a sign of failure? (too general, specify)

Similarly, if one takes the spectacle of disagreement to be a sign of


health, then is one thereby displaying one's view that philosophy is
non-cognitive? (too general and speculation)

Is the apparently permanent character of philosophical


disagreement of philosophers a sign of success or failure? (Both?
Neither?) (too general, speculative)

How can we conceive "success" (or health) such that philosophy is


successful (or healthy) despite the perennial disagreement? (too general
and too many assumptions for all of these, identify your assumptions and
specify your questions)

Can philosophy be a "practical" success and a "speculative" failure?

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Can philosophy be functional for good in its culture and for its
individual practitioners (even if its theories are false or uncertain)?

Can philosophy show the connections among ideas, so that we


understand the issues better and better (even if its theories are
false or uncertain)?

Can philosophy provide tools for understanding (even if its theories


are false or uncertain)?

How much of the historical disagreement in philosophy can be attributed


to: ((too general and too many assumptions for all of these, identify your
assumptions and specify your questions)

the fact that philosophers are asking different questions?

the fact that individual philosophers differ from each other in some
combination of race, class, gender, personality, language, century,
and culture?

exaggerated or polarized statements that describe different but


largely compatible philosophies?

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)

Is disagreement in and of itself a ground of doubt? Does disagreement


prevent certainty? If so, is certainty impossible? Do any philosophers take
disagreement into account in "setting" the "assertiveness level" of their
assertions? (give specific cases, too general and too many assumptions for
all of these, identify your assumptions and specify your questions, for all of
these)

Is disagreement a sufficient sign of uncertainty, obliging us to doubt


or hesitate, or is it compatible with certainty (i.e. if all but one are
simply wrong)?

If disagreement is taken as a sufficient sign of uncertainty, and if


one of the positions fighting for recognition in the choir of
disagreement is actually true, then we will miss our chance to affirm
truth waiting for the disagreement to disappear.

If this is so, are we stupid, or is this tragic?

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?

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If epistemology (through questions like "how do you know?") does


not do this, are there other forces? (factors?) that do? If so, what are
they?

Are some philosophical disagreements "incommensurable"? If so, how are


they adjudicated, if at all? (give specific cases, too general and too many
assumptions for all of these, identify your assumptions and specify your
questions)

What about disagreements about the true logic, the concept of


judgment, the function of disagreement, or other parameters of
debate and adjudication itself?

What about disagreements on the nature or place of


incommensurability?

If you incline to an Hegelian or developmental view of disagreement, how


do you explain the fact that a very large majority of philosophers think
they are giving the truth once and for all? Are they all self-deceived?
(misled by truth, should be meaning) If so, how can this be explained? Or
is it not in fact true that most philosophers think they are giving the truth
once and for all?

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)

Is agreement a goal of philosophy? Would agreement be a sign of the


success of philosophy? (give specific cases, too general and too many
assumptions for all of these, identify your assumptions and specify your
questions)

If agreements can be false or ideological, then what is the value of


agreement as a goal for philosophy?

Is agreement a more reasonable goal for philosophy if we mean


agreement in Habermas' ideal speech situation?

From Charles Peirce: Is agreement (ultimate unanimity of all reasonable


inquirers) a criterion of truth?

If you are inclined to say no, do your criteria ultimately reduce to


this one? Do your criteria either use agreement as a sign of truth, or
imply that agreement is desirable?

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

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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?

For a philosophy without an exclusivity clause, explore the question


whether that philosophy and its attitude toward disagreement are
self-subverting or self-justifying.

Can cognitive philosophies not have an exclusivity clause? Can


coherent philosophies? Can the attempt to rid oneself of an
exclusivity clause depend on the use of one?

Can a philosophy be refuted for relying on a metaphilosophy belied by the


fact of disagreement? (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)

If disagreement can damage (some) philosophical positions, then would it


matter if all human beings agreed on everything starting tomorrow? Or
would the rich history of past disagreement suffice to cause whatever
damage disagreement could cause?

Is there any place in philosophy for the argument from consensus


gentium? If it has even a limited role, what is it?

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?

Is disagreement symmetrical? ? (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)

Fichte said he agreed with Kant on the theory of freedom; before he


died, Kant said he disagreed with Fichte on the theory of freedom.
H.L.A. Hart and Hans Kelsen also disagree on whether they disagree
(Hart thinks they agree on some points, Kelsen doesn't).

What is happening when disagreement appears to be


asymmetrical?

What is the relation between a philosopher's attitude toward disagreement


and diversity, and her theory of error? Must philosophers apply their
theories of error to all philosophers who disagree? If not, when and why
not? ? (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 is it so very rare to read words to the effect, "I am right, everyone
else is wrong, and I can prove it..."?

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Do philosophers commonly have this attitude but timidly or


courteously refrain from voicing it? Or do they have this attitude
only rarely?

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)

Compare a few philosophers on how they actually regard critics and


dissenters (e.g. as mistaken, underdeveloped, self-deceived,
blameworthy, stubborn, pitiable, unintelligent, uninspired,
unfortunately born in wrong sex, culture, or century, true in the
untrue form,...).

What is displayed about one's metaphilosophy, and about one's


epistemology and ethics, by how one regards critics and dissenters?

What features of a philosophy and a metaphilosophy permit one to


use the "tarbaby defense", that is, to embrace and envelope all
critics and dissenters, saying they are explained by the system and
even confirm the truth of the system? Are these features
objectionable in themselves, or desirable?

See Frank Brown Dilley, "The Nature of Philosophical Disagreement," in his


Metaphysics and Religious Language, Columbia University Press, 1964;
Frank Brown Dilley, "Why Do Philosophers Disagree?" Southern Journal of
Philosophy, 7 (1969) 217-28; Henry Alonzo Myers, Systematic Pluralism,
Cornell University Press, 1961; George Kimball Plochmann, "Metaphysical
Truth and the Diversity of Systems," Review of Metaphysics, 15 (Oct.
1959-Jan. 1960) 51-66; Nicholas Rescher, The Strife of Systems: An Essay
on the Grounds and Implications of Philosophical Diversity, University of
Pittsburgh Press, 1985; Wilmon Henry Sheldon, Strife of Systems and
Productive Duality, Harvard University Press, 1918; Joseph Wayne Smith,
"Against Orientational Pluralism in Metaphilosophy," Metaphilosophy, 16,
2-3 (April-July, 1985) 214-20 (against Rescher).

Primacy of the Practical

Is 'the practical' (the ethical) primary in 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)

Do we do non-ethical philosophy ultimately for the sake of ethics, and all


philosophy ultimately for the sake of action or living?

Is philosophy essentially a kind of inquiry? ? (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) (One aspect of it)

Is philosophy essentially a kind of action or life? (One aspect of it)

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What is the relation between 'the speculative' and 'the practical' in


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)

Do we hold one philosophy rather than another solely by virtue of


intellectual criteria or at least partially by sheer choices? ? (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)

Explore what Fichte, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre have said


on this question.

Is it legitimate to judge (say )(evaluate?) epistemological doctrines by


their implications for ethics?

Is it legitimate to judge (say) ethical doctrines by their implications for


epistemology?

What kind of philosophy should we do if we hold that ethics is morally prior


to everything, but that some kinds of knowledge are temporally prior to
ethics?

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)

Hume said (Treatise at p. 272) that errors in religion are dangerous


while those in philosophy are only ridiculous. Are there no
dangerous errors in philosophy? (If so, why?)

Can philosophy be useful for social or political ends? (might be as


Marxism, but not its main purpose) if so, how and which ends? If so, is
service (no, minor function) toward those ends the "point" of philosophy? If
not (if philosophy is not useful for social and political ends), is that a
criticism?

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?)

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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)

Let us say that "primary" philosophy tries to answer the important


questions that actually arise in life, (NOT SO) and that "secondary"
philosophy tries to answer the questions that arise in doing primary (and
secondary) philosophy. Secondary philosophy may address questions of
methodology or systematicity, consistency, try to head off paradoxes of
self-reference, and so on. If we grant primacy to the practical, what is the
value of secondary 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)

Should we avoid it? Do it quickly and get back to primary


philosophy? Spend as long as we must at it in order to be sure that
our primary philosophy is well-founded, even if we spend most of
our lives at it?

Should we expect the study of philosophy to help us decide in specific


cases how to act? (NO)

Are philosophers moral experts? Are moral experts (if any) philosophers?
(NO)

Should we expect the study of philosophy to make us better people?


(NO) ? (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)

If so, exactly how?

If not, then what is the value of studying philosophy? (NONE, merely


secondary)

What does a philosopher expect from a good reader? (nothing, remain


open minded and discover this as you go along) Scholarship and
understanding? Or some more authentic reflection or action? Does it
depend on the philosopher or work?

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Identify a philosopher who expected the latter. How effective was


his/her book in eliciting or inviting that reflection or action?

Philosophy good and bad

How do we distinguish good (meaningful) or great philosophy from lesser


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)

How have philosophers done it?

Do our criteria come from the philosophies we are judging to be


good or great? (What are the paradoxes of saying yes, or no, here?)

Is it an objection to some non-immanent readings of philosophy that they


ignore excellence and look at all works, good and bad, as equally
representative of a certain underlying cause, or as symptoms of some
syndrome?

Is the evaluation of philosophy, as Northrop Frye says of literature, much


less important than its interpretation? ? (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 there a dimension of quality in philosophy beyond its truth or


plausibility? Can true philosophy be badly done, or false philosophy well
done? If so, what kind of quality is this and what are its criteria? (not true
or false, meaningful/less)

Call this dimension of quality the "craft" dimension. Can attention to


craft ever distort doctrine, (much of contemporary, academic,
professional suffers from this, especially the Anglophone varieties)
or suggest paths that 'pure' epistemology, metaphysics, or ethics
(etc.) would not have suggested?

See also section on philosophical beauty, below.

Philosophy and expertise

What talents or skills are required for "good" philosophizing? (meaningful,


identify cognitive biases, fallacies, good, sound reasoning and arguments
and clear, use of concepts and other cognitive features and deal with
philosophizing as if doing through the different steps and stages of
theorizing, producing approximate, to be modified, insights)

Is familiarity with the history of philosophy required? (in some


cases, too vague, specify)

Is mastery of formal logic (or argumentation more loosely) required?


(NO!!!)

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Is skill at exegesis required? (partly)

Is acquaintance with the other arts and sciences, including history,


required? (only partly)

Is wide experience, or "life", required? (partly)

Can philosophy be "expertly" done and remain exoteric? (meaning?)

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. Hegel on the foot as standard of shoemaking, reason as the standard of


philosophizing; not all who have feet are expert cobblers; not all who have
reason are expert philosophers; Lesser Logic, 5; Phenomenology, 67.
(specify)

What else is required beyond "reason"? (many things!!!)

Cf. Kant on the "genteel tone" that had recently arisen in philosophy.

Cf. C.E.M. Joad on "Bunkumismus"; there are no "stigmata of competency"


in philosophy; Return to Philosophy, Dutton, 1936, p. 36; also see 23-24,
35-37.

Ends of philosophy

Do we, or should we, do "philosophy for philosophy's sake"? (yes,


secondary functions will appear by themselves if the philosophizing is
meaningful) If so, what becomes of the pursuits of truth, justice, and good
life? If not, what is the purpose of philosophy?

Is there a single "point" to the practice of philosophy? (no, specify) Or


could it be a mixture of (add your own...) moral improvement, inquiry for
truth, solace, salvation, diversion, celebration, puzzle-solving, aesthetic
enjoyment, worship, zestful living, and wonder?

In what sense are the ends of philosophy therapeutic for the philosopher
and for the readers? (clarification in Socratic ways)

In its ends or goals, is philosophy closer to art, religion, or the sciences?


(NONE)

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?

If philosophy is worth doing, is it worth doing forever? Or is it worth doing


only until it is "finished" (whatever that would be)? (meaningless
questions, not about these things, issues, at all)

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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?

Compare this self-cancellation in Sextus Empiricus, Hume, Emerson,


Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, and Feyerabend.

Feuerbach and Wittgenstein (among others) want to stop doing


philosophy. What would justify stopping? (something personal and perhaps
socio-cultural factors, like someone stops doing science, painting etc)

Wittgenstein and some other analytic philosophers believe that (good)


philosophy "leaves everything the way it was". (no makes explicit
misleading uses and their associated attitudes, etc) Describe a
perspective that would make this a virtue, and another that would make it
a vice.

What is certainty? Does philosophy seek or need certainty? (no)

Is the conquest of doubt overrated (YES) in importance by the


tradition? What important ends require it?

Marx protested that previously philosophers merely tried to interpret the


world, but that the point is to change it. Which pre-Marxian philosophers
deserve this criticism? How would some reply to Marx? (ideology, false,
meaningless generalization)

If a philosophy makes the philosopher miserable, is it thereby failing to


achieve the ends of philosophy? ( is part of the process of making
problems explicit, by intuition and conceptualization, when the problem
has been conceptualized the feeling miserable, as in the case of painting,
temporarily stops)

See James F. Peterman, Philosophy as Therapy: An Interpretation and


Defense of Wittgenstein's Later Philosophical Project, SUNY Press, 1992;
Harry Redner, The Ends of Philosophy: An Essay in the Sociology of
Philosophy and Rationality, Rowman and Allanheld, 1986;

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Death of philosophy

Why have analytic philosophers claimed that philosophy is or ought to be


finished? (as all philosophy has and are in the process of disappearing,
usurped by other discourses, and philosophical methods are abused for
mere academic, professional concerns those are not the purpose of
philosophy)

Why have continental philosophers? (see above)

What is philosophy such that it might well be finished? What is it such that
it is clearly still alive? (see above)

Are there good philosophical reasons for wanting to cease doing


philosophy, or to abolish it? (see above. I wrote many articles and books
on this see Academic.Edu for my work for FREE)

See Kenneth Baynes et al (eds.), After Philosophy: End or Transformation?


MIT Press, 1987; Daniel Brudney, Marx's Attempt to Leave Philosophy,
Harvard University Press, 1998; Ian Hacking, "Is the End in Sight for
Epistemology?" Journal of Philosophy, 77 (1980) 579-88; Jaegwon Kim,
"Rorty on the Possibility of Philosophy," Journal of Philosophy, 77 (1980)
588-97; Kai Nielsen, After the Demise of the Tradition: Rorty, Critical
Theory, and the Fate of Philosophy, Westview Press, 1991; Quentin
Skinner, "The End of Philosophy," New York Times Review of Books, 23, 4
(March 19, 1981) 46-48; Peter Suber, "Is Philosophy Dead?" Earlhamite,
112, 2 (Winter 1993) 12-14; Meredith Williams, "Transcendence and
Return: The Overcoming of Philosophy in Nietzsche and Wittgenstein,"
International Philosophical Quarterly, 28, 4 (December 1988).

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:

the ancient Greek skeptics

Marxists on ideology

some existentialists on the role and absurdity of choice

American pragmatists

radical empiricists

naive realists

some natural scientists on the exclusivity of sound method

religious fundamentalists on faith

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those believing that thinking is a disease

anti-intellectuals (even intellectual anti-intellectuals)

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)

Philosophy and assertion

Do all philosophies "take positions" or "make assertions"? (YES, but that


says something about cognitive bias as a factor in philosophizing but is
not essential to philosophizing) If not, what have some philosophies done
in place of these? (try to identify cognitive bias and fallacies in thinking
and other assumptions made explicit)

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)

What of philosophical significance have philosophies done in addition to


taking positions or making assertions? (clarify meaning and making
explicit associated biases, attitudes, etc)

What are we missing if we read works of philosophy only for their


assertions? (too vague and general, speficy)

What modes of assertion have philosophers used? (the things mentions


here are merely aspects or features of theorizing, the philosophers deal
with only certain, selected steps, stages and contexts of theorizing and
should deal with the entire process and all steps and stages)

hypothesis (Fichte's idealism? Leibniz on non-contradiction?)

faith

reason: proved, non-hypothetical (Kant's apodeictic certainty)

subjunctive mood (some Kierkegaard)

moral certainty (Kant on god, freedom, and immortality)

non-assertion (Greek skeptics' "aphasia")

sheer assertion, as in some aphorists and some existentialists;


essentially without argument

non-cognitive: sheer choice

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cognitive: sheer dogmatism

presuming on readers' agreement or introspective certification


(much of Locke)

questioning, not (or more than) answering

doubting, not (or more than) affirming

"my view from here now"

"view from nowhere" (Thomas Nagel)

as reflection of Zeitgeist, personality etc.

mischievous, misleading

instrumental to see truth (Hegel? Wittgenstein?)

important to be misunderstood in certain way (Kierkegaard?


Nietzsche?)

concealment of secret doctrine (Plato? Descartes?)

Skeptics challenge the right of anyone to make assertions. What is the


value of a philosophy that does not meet the skeptical challenge explicitly
and successfully? (too vague, specify)

Does assertion per se presuppose finality, objectivity, exclusivity, or


cognitivity? (too vague and general) If not, what "logical space" is left
open by assertion? If so, how can a philosopher who wishes to deny
philosophy one of these things (finality, objectivity, exclusivity, objectivity)
expound her position without self-referential inconsistency?

What would be the point of making and revoking philosophical assertions


in the same work? (too vague, look at the specific caes in detail)

See Wittgenstein's proposition 6.54 in the Tractatus and its


antecedents in Sextus Empiricus (Outlines of Pyrrhonism) and
Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript).

Philosophy and exposition

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)

Do different genres communicate in different ways such that some are


inappropriate for philosophy or for particular philosophical positions? (yes,
but specify)

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Are there philosophical positions that can only or that can best be
expounded in the genres of literature? (too general)

What is the relation between the order in which a position is expounded


and the logical order of inference? (too general) Compare a few
philosophers on what guides the expositional order.

Compare and contrast the orders of proof, time, exposition, and


discovery. (place these in the contexts of the different steps and
stages of theorizing and it will be clarified and made meaningful)
How do they interact in works of philosophy? (see previous
comment)

Why do philosophers write books? Compare the motivations of a few


philosophers. ? (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)(Many personal and socio-
cultural reasons, in my case aspects of both sets of factors, especially
personal, my personality-type, but also socialization and cultural the
discourse has been made available to me by my socialization)

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?

Can a doctrine imply that its promulgation is unimportant, or even


unwise? Can you think of any examples? (?)

Can exposition per se distort or belie the substance of a philosophy? Can


you think of examples? (?)

Are there any serious philosophical positions that would be falsified


or undermined by the existence of an exposition of them? ? (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 would a philosopher write a work with the intention of being difficult
to understand, or of being misunderstood by some? (many reasons)

See Descartes, Discourse on Method, Part 6; Nietzsche, The Gay


Science, 190, 371, 381; Beyond Good and Evil, 27, 43;
Johannes Climacus, Philosophical Fragments and Concluding
Unscientific Postscript.

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?

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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)

Is exposition essential to philosophy?

What is lost if philosophy is done silently? (nothing, merely not


intersubjectively shared)

Do philosophers have any kind of obligation to publish their


thoughts, enter dialogue, respond to critics, or enlighten the rest of
us? (NO NO NO)

If so, is there a correlative obligation to expound clearly? non-


fictionally? systematically? (NO)

Is philosophy inherently a public or social enterprise? a dialogue or


conversation? (a bit of all these and other factors)

What is the relation between utterance and contemplation? (?? Meaning)

Is argument essential to philosophy or only to its public exposition and


audience (or both or neither)? (essential aspect of the process of
philosophical theorizing)

Philosophy and style

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)

Are style and substance inseparable? Or can every substance


(doctrine, position) be expressed in other styles? (YES)

Does style itself convey substance?

Why would a philosopher ever use irony? (several reasons)

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?

See e.g. Aristotle on systematic equivocation; Locke on general


terms; Kant on definition (or examples, or prosaic language); Hegel
on picture-language; (tools in stages of theorizing)

Compare a philosopher's metaphorical and non-metaphorical expressions


for their contribution to the vision and integration in the position. (use of
metaphors in theorizing, I wrote on this)

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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?)

Some have suggested that opacity is a philosophical style, adopted in


order to mystify and avoid the burden of precision. Is this just cynical?
(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)

Are technical vocabularies justified in philosophy? (partly, but if the


philosopher is clear about what he thinks he can express it in simple
terms and words, not contrive neologisms and new isms)

Are new ways of using language needed by some philosophies? Or


are those who think so just insufficiently agile with common
language? (occasionally, but see above)

What is clarity? (too vague, specify in specific contexts and examples)

Is it reasonable to demand that all philosophy be written clearly?


(YES)

Is clarity always doctrinally neutral? (meaning?)

Does "clarity" mean the same thing to different philosophical


paradigms?

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

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University Press, 1954; Robert Ginsberg (ed.), The Philosopher as Writer:


The Eighteenth Century, Susquehanna University Press, 1987; Berel Lang,
The Anatomy of Philosophical Style: Literary Philosophy and the
Philosophy of Literature, Basil Blackwell, 1990; Berel Lang (ed.),
Philosophical Style: An Anthology about the Writing and Reading of
Philosophy, Nelson-Hall, 1980; special issue of The Monist on Philosophy
as Style and Literature as Philosophy, 63, 4 (October 1980); John J.
Richetti, Philosophical Writing: Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Harvard University
Press, 1983; Richard Rorty, "Philosophy as a Kind of Writing: An Essay on
Derrida," in Rorty's Consequences of Pragmatism, University of Minnesota
Press, 1982, pp. 90-109.

More under Literature as Philosophy, below.

Philosophy as literature

Are there perspectives that make it fruitful to see philosophy as a sub-


genre of literature? (NO!!!) ? (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)

See for example:

Collingwood, section of Essay on Philosophical Method

Lewis White Beck, essay, "Philosophy as Literature"

Juan Marias, Philosophy as Dramatic Theory

Kenneth Burke, essay, "Dramatistic Introduction to Kant" (mostly on


Kant's ethics)

If philosophy is non-cognitive,(meaning? Assumptions to make explicit


please) does it then acquire the same value and epistemic standing as
literature (whatever those are)? Why or why not? (too vague)

If we read the history of philosophy non-immanently as the reflection of


personality, how could we distinguish philosophy and literature? (why?
Does it require being distinguished?)

Are theories (philosophical and scientific) and literary plots (meaning?)


variations on a single structure, the story? What would a general theory of
stories look like, and how would it force us to reinterpret the nature and
history of philosophy?

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?

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55

Can we interpret Kierkegaard's "authorship" (his term), with its many


pseudonyms and histrionics, as a gigantic work of literature? What is
gained and lost by such a reading?

Can we interpret Platonic dialogues as dramas? (if you wish? What


purpose will that serve for philosophizing?) What is gained and lost by
such a reading?

Are philosophy and literature different (insofar as they are different)


primarily in genre or primarily in substance? (obviously!!!)

Was Aristotle (in the Poetics) right to locate the difference in


literature's use of particulars and philosophy's use of universals?
What similarities does such a theory recognize or permit?

See the bibliography at the end of the next section.

Literature as philosophy

Can philosophy be written in the genres of literature? Can we say (as


Santayana does) that Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe are philosophers?
(certain, more personal philosophical in the everyday sense of the terms,
personal ideologies)

Why might a philosopher occasionally expound her ideas in the genres of


fiction? (just one way of expression, nothing profound behind that tool)

Obvious examples are Rousseau's Emile, Nietzsche's Zarathustra,


and some works of Lucretius and Voltaire. Can we say the same of
the novels of Dostoevsky, Sartre, de Beauvoir, or Iris Murdoch? the
poetry of Milton, Blake, or Wordsworth?

How would you characterize the boundaries between philosophy and


literature today?(different disciplines and tools with different purposes and
functions) In the past, e.g., in the generation of Goethe? Shakespeare?
Plato? Hesiod?

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?

Is it unfair to literature, or to philosophy, to see literature as "empirical


philosophy" that makes its position known through concrete particulars?
(pointless question)

Why is the novel a genre more commonly used by existentialists than by


other kinds of philosophers? (existentialism deals with a certain kind of
philosophy of the more concrete situations of the human condition than
what abstract thinking philosophy enables it to do)

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See Anthony J. Cascardi, The Bounds of Reason: Cervantes, Dostoevsky,


Flaubert, Columbia University Press, 1986; Anthony J. Cascardi (ed.),
Literature and the Question of Philosophy, John Hopkins University Press,
1987; Albert Cook, The Stance of Plato, Rowman & Littlefield, 1995;
Richard Eldridge, On Moral Personhood: Philosophy, Literature, Criticism,
and Self-Understanding, University of Chicago Press, 1990; Ethan Fishman,
Likely Stories: Essays on Political Philosophy and Contemporary American
Literature, University of Florida Press, 1989; Hans-Georg Gadamer,
Literature and Philosophy in Dialogue: Essays in German Literary Theory,
trans. Robert H. Paslick, SUNY Press, 1993 (on Goethe, Hlderlin, Rilke, and
others); Jill Gordon, Turning Toward Philosophy: Literary Device and
Dramatic Structure in Plato's Dialogues, Penn State University Press, 1999;
Thomas Gould, The Ancient Quarrel Between Poetry and Philosophy,
Princeton University Press, 1991; Jrgen Habermas, The Philosophical
Discourse of Modernity, MIT Press, 1990 (contains a section called
"Excursus on Leveling the Genre Distinction Between Philosophy and
Literature," pp. 185-326); Everett W. Knight, Literature Considered as
Philosophy: The French Example, Collier Books, 1962; Richard Kuhns,
Structures of Experience: Essays on the Affinity Between Philosophy and
Literature, 1970; Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, The Subject of Philosophy,
University of Minnesota Press, 1993; Berel Lang, The Anatomy of
Philosophical Style: Literary Philosophy and the Philosophy of Literature,
Basil Blackwell, 1990; Bernd Magnus et al, Nietzsche's Case: Philosophy
as/and Literature, Routledge, 1992; Donald G. Marshall (ed.), Literature as
Philosophy, Philosophy as Literature, University of Iowa Press, 1987;
Martha Craven Nussbaum, Love's Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and
Literature, Oxford University Press, 1990; Mark Taylor, Deconstruction in
Context: Literature and Philosophy, University of Chicago Press, 1986
(interplay of lit. and philosophy from Kant to Derrida); Samuel Weber,
Demarcating the Disciplines: Philosophy, Literature, Art, University of
Minnesota Press, 1986. Also see the journal, Philosophy and Literature,
published by Johns Hopkins University Press.

Interpreting Philosophy

When we read a philosophy text, must we assimilate the position we find


to our own terms in order to understand it?(yes) Does understanding
always require assimilation? (NO, ) ? (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)

If so, then is understanding always distorted? (too vague)

If not, how can understanding occur without assimilation? (too


vague, speficy)

If understanding requires assimilation, then could there be


incommensurable disagreements that we simply never notice? ? (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

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We might not notice them because we assimilate the


incommensurable other and it seems commensurable to us, or
because the incommensurable other never comes into focus (our
understanding) sufficiently for us to acknowledge its existence or
content.

If understanding requires assimilation, then must we be unfair to positions


in conflict with our own? ? (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

Do we beg the question to judge positions we read by our own


standards rather than judging our own position by the standards of
the position we are reading?

What if our own position explains away the position we are reading,
as opposed to explaining it?

Can we avoid judging a conflicting paradigm from the partisan


position of our own paradigm?

If not, what does this imply about the permanency of


disagreement, the fairness of judgments, and the nature of
interpretation and debate?

Does fairness require commensurability?

What follows for the ethics of argument from that fact that we can
demand fairness but cannot demand commensurability?

If there is incommensurability, or simply assimilation without


incommensurability, then the ideal speech situation is violated. ? (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)

Does this mean that "logical rudeness" is unavoidable, and non-


ideological agreement foreclosed?

Do philosophers intend a single meaning that her readers can discover


with due diligence? Is 'good' interpretation 'accurate' interpretation that
uncovers the historical intention of the author? Or is this model of textual
understanding simply inadequate?

What can the interpretation of philosophy learn from literary theory


on this question? Does it matter that philosophy is "non-fiction"?

Philosophical beauty

Can philosophy be beautiful? If so, how does philosophical beauty differ


from literary, scientific, and mathematical beauty? ? (give specific cases,
too general and too many assumptions for all of these, identify your

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assumptions and specify your questions, and applies to all of the


following) (Meaningless notions, irrelevant to philosophy)

Is philosophical beauty linked in any way to the content of the philosophy?


For example, is the harmony of form and content beautiful? Is truth an
element of beauty? Were Shaftesbury and Keats right to identify truth and
beauty?

Do we often use beauty as an unacknowledged criterion of truth? Can we


acknowledge and justify this practice?

Is the distinction between the beauty of expression (language and


organization) and the beauty of ideas (content) easier to make, or harder,
in philosophy than in literature?

What are some beautiful works or theories of philosophy?

Are there "great" works of philosophy that are not beautiful? Are there
beautiful works that are not great?

What are the elements of philosophical ugliness?

Philosophy as science

Is philosophy a science, as so many philosophers have claimed? If so, how


can we explain the wide and deep disagreements in philosophy? (NO) ?
(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

Compare the visions of philosophy as a science of two or more


philosophers, e.g. Kant, Hegel, Husserl. What model of science was used?
How appropriate was it? If inappropriate, what dimensions of philosophy
did it violate or ignore?

What features of science have led so many philosophers to try to emulate


it? (specify)

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)

Do philosophers who believe that philosophy is capable of discovering


truths (misleading notion) thereby believe that philosophy is some kind of
science? Can philosophy be cognitive and unscientific? (meaning?) If so,
how?

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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.

Philosophy and related fields and activities

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.)

Ditto with a scientific philosopher; with an artistic philosopher; with


a literary philosopher....

What are the most important similarities and differences between


philosophy and the Glass Bead Game?

If all knowledge is a seamless web, and only artificially divided into


"fields", then what is the place and function of philosophy?

It is often said that philosophy synthesizes the insights or principles of the


different sciences and humanistic disciplines. Is this true?(NO!!) If so, how
are these syntheses made and what is their intellectual value? To what
extent is philosophy parasitic on the other disciplines?

Must good philosophers be well-acquainted with many other fields?

What are the sources of philosophical inspiration? (TOO VAGUE, specify


factors, examples and variables) How much philosophy could be done
without the results of other disciplines? How much philosophy is
stimulated by other philosophy, and how much by science or art, and how
much by "life itself"?

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?)

Can philosophy make a contribution to the solution of problems within the


natural or social sciences? If so, how? Can you think of possible or actual
cases.

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Thomas Kuhn believes that when scientific paradigms are tottering,


scientists turn more often to philosophy,(meaning?) which provides
fresh creative insights. When paradigms are stable, one of their
beneficial functions is to protect scientists from the need to ask
foundational questions so they can do necessary detail-work. This
view makes philosophy useful, alluring, and dangerous all at once.
Is this view historically correct?

What plays the role for philosophy that philosophy plays for
science? (NONE)

Recall how Mill and James were both cured of severe


depressions that halted their philosophical work by
immersion in poetry (Wordsworth for Mill, Whitman for
James). Music seems to have played a similar role for
Socrates and Schopenhauer. Wittgenstein was a gardener in
a monastery, and watched American westerns from the front
row, when he needed distraction from philosophy, (correct,
momentary to try and stop the dread of having no clear, or
not yet clear or clarified, intuitions when they arrive, the
philosopher will begin to conceptualize them and their
implications, before they arrive the philosopher experiences
his state of mind, life as lost, meaningless, pointless,
confused so watch westerns, have sex, eat, sleep,
whatever) or a fresh wind in the doldrums. (so? All sorts of
things awaken intuition in different people. Some will paint,
play or compose music, watch films, DVDs, watch or rather
look at cricket, sport, rugby, football, cycling, athletics,
plays, films on television without the sound and merely the
visuals, cook and eat. All activities to still the mind when the
stage of the intuitive brooding aspect or pre-conceptual stage
of the appearing in the mind or brain of new, not yet
conceptualized philosophical problems, almost but not yet
clear questions and issues.)

Is philosophy essentially playful? (no, too general)

See Huizinga on philosophy and play; Richard Hofstadter on


intellectualism as piety and play; Schiller on centrality of play to
being human; Kant on play and reason in third Critique; Gadamer on
play; play in Glass Bead Game; Socratic method.

Has the relation between philosophy and other academic disciplines


changed over time? If so, it is more a function of changes within
philosophy or changes within the other disciplines? (no)

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

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absence of philosophy in terms of philosophy? Use other ways to


conceptualize that state or situation or condition) Why? How did it
differentiate itself from proto-science, religion, and myth?

Why do we think Thales was the first philosopher? If not Thales but
x, then why x?

See Alasdair MacIntyre, "Philosophy, the 'Other' Disciplines, and Their


Histories," Soundings, 65 (1982) 127-45.

Philosophy and argument

Are there forms of argument peculiar to philosophy? How is "philosophical


reasoning" unlike other kinds of reasoning? (too general) ? (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)

Consider the charge of infinite regress, self-referential inconsistency.

Must philosophy be argued? (yes in certain contexts and certain


stages/steps of theorizing)) What is the value of philosophical works that
are not at all argued, e.g. some aphoristic works, Wittgenstein's Tractatus?

What is the role of argument in philosophy? To prove? To persuade without


necessarily proving? To show the linkage of ideas without necessarily
persuading or proving? Something else? (many functions)

If abstruse arguments are not persuasive, even when sound (Hume), then
what are the chances that a sophisticated philosophy can be "lived"?
(meaning?)

If argument is not essential to philosophy, could it still be essential to a


philosophical curriculum? What is the value to philosophers of learning to
analyze and compose arguments? (it is essential to certain contexts of
philosophy)

Must different genres of philosophy use argument differently? (specify) Do


systems encounter special problems in supporting themselves by
argument not encountered by essays? Vice versa?

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"

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In general is contemporary philosophy more rigorous in its arguments than


prior philosophy? More self-conscious in making arguments? More
demanding that arguments be made in works 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)

Is it the other way around? Is the importance of argument cyclical


instead?

What drives the fortunes of argument in the history of philosophy?

Philosophy and wisdom

What is wisdom? How does it differ (if at all) from knowledge? from virtue?
(specify)

Is wisdom non-cognitive?

Was Socrates right that wisdom is compatible with, or even the


same as, ignorance?

Can philosophy bring us closer to wisdom? If so, how?

Is philosophy better or worse at bringing us to wisdom than other


kinds of study or practice? (no, one way, one tool)

Compare the visions of wisdom in a few philosophers.

Does philosophy still love wisdom? (too general)

If it has other ends, what might they be?

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?

How does a work of philosophy that is not explicitly about wisdom


reveal or betray its vision of wisdom? (?)

How does a work of philosophy that ostensively argues for certain


conclusions and articulates a doctrine promote wisdom?

May we properly object if a work of philosophy has no intention to


promote the wisdom of its readers?

What is the place of play and humor in philosophy? How are they related
to wisdom?

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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?

Philosophy and metaphilosophy

What is the relation of philosophy and metaphilosophy? (many relations,


the latter explores the subject-matter, methods, assumptions of
philosophy. See my many articles etc on meta-philosophy at
Academic.Edu)

Compare the envelopment of metaphilosophy by philosophy in a few


philosophers. That is, how has reflection on metaphilosophical problems
affected (for better or worse) answers to philosophical questions?

Can metaphilosophical reflection help solve philosophical problems? (yes,


it is essential)

Is there any philosophical point in deciding the scope, nature, or value of


philosophy? (yes, clarify it and making misleading notions explicit)

Is "philosophy" a descriptive or normative term? (descriptive and


explorative, rather than reviosnary and speculative)

If the distinction between philosophy and metaphilosophy makes sense


(even provisionally), then is there an infinite series of meta-meta-meta...-
philosophical questions and perspectives? (NO)

If metaphilosophy is a "branch" of philosophy, is it one like ethics that is


done in one book while epistemology is done in another book? If not, just
how is metaphilosophy assimilated to (absorbed by, subordinated to)
philosophy? (not assimilated second-order in relation to philosophizing)

Is the metaphilosophical self-consciousness of philosophy increasing with


time?(YES, because of growing self and meat cognition and awareness
of philosophers) If so, why? Is this a sign of progress?(no, merely a
function) If so, what kind? regress? (no)

Compare a few philosophers on how they distinguished (in theory and in


practice) between bad philosophy and non-philosophy.

How do these methods shed light on those philosophers' views of


the nature of philosophy?

If there are interesting disparities between the theory and practice


of philosophers in making this distinction, what does that say about
their metaphilosophy?

Philosophy and the folk

Does everyone "have a philosophy"? (yes, wrong, mistaken use of the


word)

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How important is it to think about philosophical questions explicitly, e.g.


by studying the books of philosophers? (none)

Can all good philosophy be exoteric? If not, why not? (meaning?)

Is it an objection that a philosophy is not as exoteric as it could be?

Is Kant right that philosophy need not be popular, (YES) that is, accessible
to non-professionals? (obviously)

Are argumentative rigor and technical terminology dispensable from


philosophy? At what price? (depends on the context and stage of
theorizing)

What about conceptual difficulty and complexity?

Is "common sense" the ultimate criterion of philosophy, as John Kekes


suggests? Or does (good) philosophy routinely violate common sense?
(too vague, specify)

Is Nicholas Rescher correct to suggest that the origin of philosophy lies in


the attempt to make consistent the endoxa (ordinary beliefs) that we
inherit from our culture? (nonsense as usual from Rescher)

Aristotle's methodological remarks in the Nichomachean Ethics


suggest that we should consult and juxtapose inherited moral
beliefs as the first step of moral philosophy.(specify) Why is this
likely to be helpful?

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?)

In Buddenbrooks Thomas Mann shows the disastrous effect on a


businessman of picking up a volume of Schopenhauer. Philosophy was
once read by the educated lay public as commonly as literature was.
(Does it matter who reads philosophy or literature, listen to music, etc
for leisure when they have nothing better to do to fill their free time? This
does not affect philosophy, the creative-thinking philosopher, the novelist
or the composer) What happened, and was it (entirely) regrettable?
(irrelevant)

When was philosophy commonly read by the general educated


public? Does the history of the esoteric and exoteric pendulum in
philosophy shed any light on the value and possibility of reaching a
general audience, or on the kinds of philosophy that may do so?
(Why should philosophy, sciences, classical music, Fine Art, etc
reach a general audience?)

What happened to the nature of philosophy as it became a special field, an


academic department, a profession? (what are you trying to say?)

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And what happened to its practice and popularity? (specify)

If we distinguish philosophical beliefs from ordinary beliefs, how do (and


how should) philosophers live ordinary lives? To what extent must
philosophical beliefs be put aside to take part in ordinary life (Hume,
Fichte)? (nothing to do with philosophy, seems like morality?)

Is there a presumption in favor of "common sense", or agreement with


"the folk", such that philosophers must explain their departures from
(more than their agreement with) these norms? What is the nature of the
pressure to explain these departures? (nonsense)

Do philosophers assume too hastily that there is a "natural consciousness"


or non-philosophical mind? What are the differences between the
disagreements among philosophers and the disagreements among other
folk? (meaning? Specify)

The term "natural consciousness" is used in Hegel, "natural


standpoint" in Husserl and other phenomenologists.

Find philosophers who use folk consciousness as a paradigm of error, and


as a test or criterion of truth. What are the fundamental epistemological
and political disagreements among such philosophers?

Philosophy and 'primitive' life

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)

How do Socrates and Plato use myth for philosophical purposes?

What is the subsequent history of this use?

What is the prehistory of this use? Can philosophy fruitfully be seen


as originating in myth?

Cf. Schelling's call for a new mythology at the end of his System of
Transcendental Philosophy.

What kind of philosophy can precede a scientific consciousness and what


kinds can follow it?

Is there a stage in the history of culture when philosophy is


indistinguishable from religion? from shamanism?

See Paul Radin, Primitive Man as Philosopher, D. Appleton, 1927


(reprinted, Dover, 1957); John Sallis (ed.), Philosophy and Archaic
Experience, Duquesne University Press, 1982.

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66

Philosophy and philosophers

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?)

Compare the autobiographies of a few philosophers on their relation to


their philosophies. (Try Croce, Mill, Collingwood, Jung, Quine, Rescher.)

Why have so few philosophers written autobiographies, compared, say, to


novelists or diplomats? (is this philosophically relevant? How?)

To what extent is philosophy autobiographical? (yes, a biography of certain


aspects of the consciousness, stream of consciousness, of the individual)

See Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 6: "...every great philosophy


so far has been...the personal confession of its author and a kind of
unconscious memoir".

See Ernest Campbell Mossner, "Philosophy and Biography," in his


Hume, Doubleday, 1966.

See de Beauvoir's many-volume autobiography where, if anywhere,


she expounds her philosophical position.

The psychological motives, economic interests, and personal animosities


of a philosopher may all be sources of his/her work. (correct) How relevant
are they to our evaluation of that work? (NOT RELEVANT)

Does the recognition of causes for belief undermine the recognition of


reasons for belief? (specify the relation, too vague, many intermediary
variables and factors)

When we say that the life-and-times of a philosopher "illuminate" her


work, or that her life situation "influenced" her work, can we make sense
of these claims without reducing philosophy a complex effect of blind
causation? Is there a slippery slope from influence to reduction? If not,
what is the "snag" that keeps reasons from sliding to causes? (no relevant
to philosophy)

Do non-immanent reductions of philosophy necessarily entail relativism


and determinism? (no) Must they be self-referentially inconsistent? (no)

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?)

Steven Bartlett has written that philosophers as a group are typically


individualistic and even narcissistic, more concerned to develop their own

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67

thought than to share or understand the thought of others. How true is


this? (yes very true)

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)

Which came first, psychological tendencies or philosophical


positions? (psychological)

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)

Should we always explain the latter through the former instead of


sometimes the former through the latter? (depends on your aim)

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.

Do these failings contaminate all the writings by that philosopher,


perhaps on a theory that(speculation) a philosophical position
comes from the whole person?

Can we compartmentalize, and hold a philosopher benighted on


questions of gender or politics, but profound on epistemology,
metaphysics, or perhaps even other topics within ethics? (YES, that
is how it works)

Do we deliberately ignore such failings on the ground that to let


them diminish our assessment of the writings would commit the
genetic fallacy? (no)

In answering this question, how do we factor in our belief that


everyone has moral failings, including we ourselves? (specify and
investigate)

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)

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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?

See e.g. Hume. (two different questions, judge a life, judge a


philosophical system, theory or model)

See: William Earle, "Philosophy as Autobiography," in his Public Sorrows


and Private Pleasures, Indiana University Press, 1976, pp. 161-75; C.E.M.
Joad, "Thought and Temperament," pp. 218-52 of his Essays in Common
Sense Philosophy, George Allen & Unwin, 2d ed. 1933; Jean-Jacques
Lecercle, Philosophy Through the Looking Glass, Open Court, 1985; Albert
W. Levi, "The Mental Crisis of John Stuart Mill," Psychoanalytic Review, V,
xxxii (1945) 86-101; Fay Horton Sawyier, "Philosophy as Autobiography:
John Stuart Mill's Case," Philosophy Research Archives, 11 (1985) 169-79;
Ben-Ami Scharfstein, The Philosophers: Their Lives and the Nature of Their
Thought, Basil Blackwell, 1980.

This is a selective bibliography; see my longer bibliography in a


separate handout.

Philosophy and pedagogy

How should philosophy be taught? (too vague, specify, taught to whom


and for what purpose? Children, teanager, students of other disciplines,
philosophy majors, to become academic professional philosopher or
taught to the very few creative-original-thinking philosophers who will
be/come philosophers in spite of being taught and even if they were never
taught!!!!)

What metaphilosophical questions must be answered before we can


decide how philosophy should best be taught? (specify, see above taught
to whom, for what reasons, etc)

Compare the following approaches: (all relevant depending on the


contexts of teaching, see above)

emphasis on topics, doctrines, texts, questions, periods, figures

lecture, discussion, dialogue, questioning, answering, reading

waiting for questions to arise in life

What background should one have prior to the study of philosophy? (none,
have a brain and be seriously interested)

Should philosophy be taught academically to 18 year olds? (perhaps,


depends on the individuals)

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Most philosophers were not addressing readers so young. Most


philosophical questions arise naturally in life, but not necessarily by
age 18.

Fichte thought it preferable to address young people who had not


already committed themselves to a philosophical position.

Can philosophy be taught to elementary school children? (if you have to,
to some pupils)

Can philosophy, responsibly taught, "corrupt youth"? In the Athenian


sense of this phrase, can it avoid "corrupting youth"? (nonsense)

Has the nature or direction of philosophy changed since most philosophers


became professors of philosophy (academics, that is, middle class
professionals with lower class incomes) roughly during the lifetime of
Kant? (YES, unfortunately and sadly so. Distinguish between those with
qualifications in philosophy like academic philosophers and professionals
AND original-, creative-thinking real philosophers)

See David W. Hamlyn, Being a Philosopher: The History of a


Practice, Routledge, 1992.

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)

Even if so, should "the classics" be given a large slice of the


curriculum simply because they have moulded, and do comprise,
the actual tradition? (specify)

If we say 'no', are we substituting wishful thinking for


historical fact?

If we say 'yes', are we perpetuating an injury?

Are we more justified, or less justified, in following this path if our


curriculum is limited to the Western (European) tradition?
(meaning?)

What time should be allotted to contemporary works that have not


had the chance to be "tested by time"? (specify)

What time should be allotted to heterodox works that challenge the


traditional canon? (specify)

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Is this kind of challenge a good idea in philosophy even if the


classics are classical because they are actually great and universal?
That is, is it part of good philosophy teaching to challenge even
great works, even with flimsy works? (specify)

If some mix of classical and non-classical works seems best, what


specific criteria should we use when it is painfully clear that every
non-classical work will squeeze out a classical work (some work
"that every philosophy student should know")? (specify)

Return to the Metaphilosophy course home-page.

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

On the Domain of Metaphilosophy

First published: 16 January 2017 Bob Plant

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)

SEE APPENDIX for full article

15

http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195396577/obo-
9780195396577-0074.xml

Metaphilosophy

70
71

Yuri Cath

LAST REVIEWED: 08 October 2015

LAST MODIFIED: 29 June 2011

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.

Alexander, Joshua, and Jonathan M. Weinberg. Analytic Epistemology and


Experimental Philosophy. Philosophy Compass 2.1 (2007): 5680.

E-mail Citation

A good survey article on experimental philosophy. Distinguishes two importantly


different views of the relationship between experimental philosophy and traditional
philosophy, responds to criticisms of experimental philosophy, and suggests future
directions for research in this area.(restrictive)

Braddon-Mitchell, David, and Robert Nola. Introducing the Canberra Plan. In


Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism. Edited by David Braddon-
Mitchell and Robert Nola, 120. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009.

E-mail Citation

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A useful introduction to the project in philosophical methodology and conceptual


analysis known as the Canberra Plan, associated most closely with the work of
Frank Jackson and David Lewis. Describes the origins of the Canberra Plan in work
by Ramsey, Carnap, and Lewis on theoretical terms. (very restrictive)

Daniels, Norman. Reflective Equilibrium In The Stanford Encyclopedia of


Philosophy. Edited by Edward N. Zalta. 2009.

E-mail Citation

A good introduction to the method of reflective equilibrium, focused primarily on the


extensive literature on this subject in moral philosophy.

Eklund, Matti. Metaontology. Philosophy Compass 1.3 (2006): 317334.

E-mail Citation

A good survey article of some of the central issues in recent metametaphysical


debates about the status and methodology of disputes in ontology.

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.

Manley, David. Introduction: A Guided Tour of Metametaphysics. In


Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology. Edited by David J.
Chalmers, David Manley, and Ryan Wasserman, 137. Oxford: Clarendon, 2009.

E-mail Citation

An excellent first introduction to debates in metametaphysics on the question of what,


if any, metaphysical disputes are trivial or merely verbal disputes.

Nagel, Jennifer. Epistemic Intuitions. Philosophy Compass 2.6 (2007): 792819.

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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Papineau, David. Naturalism In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited


by Edward N. Zalta. 2009.

E-mail Citation

This article contains a very good introduction to methodological naturalism. It clearly


explains the difference between methodological and ontological versions of
naturalism and examines the relation of methodological naturalism to conceptual
analysis and the use of intuitions in philosophy.

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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.

(I) Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy


74
(S) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

(M) Dictionary of the Philosophy of Mind

(B) The Ism Book

(C) The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)

(N) A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names

16

Many notions such as consciousness, mind, body, the embodied person,


intersubjectivity of communities, minds, groups, sub-cultures, consciousness,
and embodied selves and problems related to them such as mind-body
problem, must be explored and these umbrella terms be differentiated as more
specific and meaningful concepts. In these ways the present seemingly
ineffable will become more meaningfully conceptualized and therefore no
longer not verbalized, baffling problems.
Another so-called philosophical problem, in fact an umbrella-word or notion for
many different, even unrelated problems is that of free-will. Specify what you
mean by notions such as these in a particular context or situation. Then you will
notice that it concerns someones choice to perform a certain behaviour or nor
and/or to make a certain decision such as: shall I go to sleep or stay awake and
read or watch, shall I drink (more) or not, shall I walk or drive, go out or stay in.
Then one could identify the factors and attitudes that are involved in the case of
particular individuals who make such decisions or choices. A generalized
question like this is meaningless and only lead to speculations and attempts at
meaningless responses such as generalizations. There exist no such thing as
free will (in general), only specific instances of making a choice or taking a
decision in particular contexts or situations concerning specific things, actions,
behaviour etc. No one ever sits down and decides: now I will act out of free will
or from now on I will act as if all my activities or behaviour, thoughts, choices
and actions are determined by certain factors. The lesson to be learned from
this: do not fabricate or accept the fabrications no matter how persuasive of
others concerning such generalized, meaningless, irrelevant problems or
problems that are invented by means of or in terms of them.
Much of epistemology, metaphysics, and ontology and notions such as the
mind-body problem, consciousness, the connection between consciousness,
mind, mental things, thinking or thoughts in general and the brain are
conceived and fabricated in these generalized ways (and by means of fallacies
in thinking) and manner. Identify and name the fallacies leading to them or that
play a role in the conceiving of so-called philosophical problems this is one, of
many, sure way to shortcut and prevent the development of such problems.
In the following section, do NOT let your thinking be determined and controlled
by mistaken conventions and misleading thinking or restricted ideas and
concepts.
17
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_philosophy
This is a list of some of the major unsolved problems in philosophy. Clearly,
74
unsolved philosophical problems exist in the lay sense (e.g. "What is the
meaning of life?", "Where did we come from?", "What is reality?", etc.).
However, professional philosophers generally accord serious philosophical
problems specific names or questions, which indicate a particular method of
75

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

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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!!

See my articles on these issues: hare


https://independent.academia.edu/UlrichdeBalbian/Papers

And here

https://independent.academia.edu/UlrichdeBalbian/Books

and here

https://independent.academia.edu/UlrichdeBalbian/Drafts ) (see Edmonds and Warburton


2012, xiiixxiv). (Some of the survey's participants were unsure how to respond to What is
philosophy?, two laughed, and one replied with a joke [xiv, xix, xxi].)2 It is striking just
how unhelpful these responses are. Allusions to the love of knowledge, search for
wisdom, and pursuit of truth are far from enlightening, for it is not as if historians,

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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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84

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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85

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).

2 Inside (intra, internal to the discourse, discipline, socio-cultural


practice and/or to the institution/s) and /Outside (external to the
institution, discipline and/or the discourse or socio-cultural practice
of) Philosophy
Plantinga invites us to imagine the following scenario. Having completed her first degree in
philosophy, a Christian student decides to pursue a career as a professional philosopher.
While attending graduate school she soon learns how mainstream philosophy is currently
practiced, and what academic philosophers consider the pressing issues of the day:

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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[t]he nature of philosophy is itself a philosophical question, so too is Can there be a


Christian philosophy? (1993, 223). Accordingly, he maintains, this question cannot be
answered by saying, Of course there can be, and we have regional meetings to prove it
(223). That sort of response would be misguided in its attempt to answer, by an appeal to
external considerations, what ought to be discussed philosophically (223). Phillips's
demarcation between what is inside and outside philosophy reflects a more pervasive desire
among philosophers to keep properly philosophical questions uncontaminated by
contingent, external, or merely empirical considerations. Indeed, this is part of a more
general tendency of philosophers to forget that they are situated human beings, and thereby
inheritors of (amongst other things) a specific historical, economic, and cultural context. And
we need reminding of this seemingly obvious fact if we are to avoid confusing philosophers
aspirations with the reality of philosophical practice. I do not want to paint an unduly bleak
picture here. But as philosophers we do habitually underestimate that, for example, changes
in the status, reputation, and influence of specific philosophical texts are formed and
sustained by a variety of external contingencies. (Consider the fractious relationship
between the so-called Analytic and Continental traditions. Although the nature of this alleged
division remains contentious [see Glendinning 2006, 7; 2011, 71], it is surely relevant that
studying the history of Western philosophy is central to many European education systems
[see Gutting 2001, 382; 2011, 723]. For as Schrift notes, the orientation of twentieth-century
French philosophy was shaped by which historical figures appeared on the agrgation exam
in the late 1950s, when many of the prominent names in recent French thought were either
students or just beginning their professional careers [see Schrift 2006, 188ff.; 2008].) Despite
the fact that the history of Western philosophy is a history of particular texts with often very
different aims, methods, styles, and audiences, philosophers often treat this as incidental to
the real business of doing philosophy. This attitude is both reflected in, and perpetuated by,
the sorts of expectations we commonly have of contemporary philosophers. In the next
section, therefore, I want to consider those expectations pertaining specifically to
communicative norms.

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.

4 The Philosophy Industry


Nussbaum's aforementioned concerns about philosophy's professionalization are not new.
In the early twentieth century, James complained about the dreariness, over-technicality, and
cultish appeals to authority of the younger generation of philosophers of his time (see 1920,
1517). More recently, Stroud laments how increasing professionalization has rendered
much more of philosophy sterile, empty, and boring, and how this is encouraged (explicitly
or otherwise) by demands for quantity of publications, frequency of citation in the

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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?

5 Is That Philosophy? (original- and creative-thinking philosophers


represent philosophy, not the derivative, secondary, minor,
academic professionals!!!)
Thus far I have argued that social-institutional factors play an important, albeit often
neglected, role in the formation, development, and sustenance of individual philosophers and
the sub-communities to which they belong. Accordingly, these broadly sociological
considerations ought to figure more prominently in metaphilosophical inquiry. Because the
background conditions of everyday philosophical practice are not wholly external to the
philosophical issues philosophers concern themselves with, it is a mistake to ignore what
causes particular positions, arguments, and methods to dominatealbeit temporarily (see
Morrow and Sula 2011, 298, 301). As Gross reminds us, each professional philosopher must
decide which substantive areas of philosophy to specialize in and thereby select one or
more intellectual traditions in which to situate their work (1984, 53). After all, these sub-
communities help define the kind of intellectual problem thinkers see as significant, the style
and approach of their solutions to those problems, and the range of other thinkers with whom
they are in conversation (53). Of course, most often we do not consciously choose an
intellectual tradition in which to work but rather find ourselves already situated within
particular philosophical sub-communities as a result of numerous contingent factors
not least when, where, and from whom we received our philosophical training. Taking these
social-institutional factors into account thus raises important questions about what is
unreflectively embedded in our philosophical practice, including the more-or-less tacit
agreement of group members regarding which topics, authors, and texts are worthy of
transmission to the next generation of philosophers. In emphasising this, I do not want to
trivialise the role played by rational persuasion and argument in ordinary philosophical
practice. As I said earlier, I am not proposing a thoroughgoing institutional theory of
philosophy. (After all, that the distinction between internalphilosophicaland external
non-philosophicalfactors cannot be maintained with absolute precision does not mean that
there are no workable distinctions available.) But we should not exaggerate the part that
rational persuasion plays in philosophical practice, or indeed what argument can reasonably
be expected to achieve. It would be pretty odd to think that philosophers are immune to
sociological, psychological, and other non-philosophical forces. And while it is possible
that philosophers qua philosophers are especially resistant to such external influences, this
is an empirical claim, not something we can intuit from the comfort of our armchairs. It is
important that we take seriously the sociological, biographical, psychological, and historical

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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.

As previously suggested, of the aforementioned background conditions that shape our


meta/philosophical preferences and aversions, institutes of higher education in particular play
a crucial role (see Nolan 2007, 23; Kitcher 2011, 25960).10 Of his own graduate studies,
Putnam recalls how he soon learnt what not to consider philosophy, as his training involved
a more-or-less explicit process of metaphilosophical narrowing (1994, 5758). Schacht
likewise recalls how the guardians of orthodoxy of his early philosophical development did
not look kindly upon the interest of many of us in the likes of Hegel, Nietzsche, and
Heideggerindeed, even uttering their names could get one in very serious trouble (1993,
432). Desanti similarly recollects that for his generation of French philosophers,
mathematical logic was simply not part of their heritage. As a result, Desanti and his peers
struggled to forge a relationship to mathematical logic for ourselves on the basis of what our
traditionwhich was basically historicizinghad already made of us (Desanti 1983, 5455;
see also Bouveresse 1983, 1011, 22; Engel 1987, 1). What interests me here is the general
sense of narrowing Putnam refers to. For we should not conclude that exclusions and
prioritisations of particular authors, texts, styles, and methods are a wholly negative or
destructive part of philosophical training. Rather, this sort of narrowing plays an important
role in sustaining philosophical communities. Let me explain what I mean.

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

On Derrida and metaphilosophy, see Plant 2012b.

6. 6

Today, podcasts, blog posts, and tweets play an increasingly significant role in the
daily practice of professional philosophers.

7. 7

On the numerous deplorable styles in academic philosophy, see McNaughton 2009,


34.

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

Sula's Phylo project (http://phylo.info/) usefully charts the web of influencesnot


least between supervisors and doctoral studentsthat shape an individual's
philosophical profile. See also Healy 2013.

11.11

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On a related point, see Rorty 2007, 120.

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
Related content

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