Questions tagged [metaphilosophy]
Metaphilosophy is the philosophical study of philosophy itself — its goals, methods, scope, and relationship to other intellectual disciplines or human projects.
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Is there a quantitative measure for a philosopher's skill?
Obviously, the property you should be interested in here is fame.
Below a ranking of the philosophers included in Leiter's list, sorted
by fame (measured in dBHa, the international logarithmic unit of ...
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Is the synthetic/analytic distinction about metaphysics?
Is the distinction between synthetic/analytic a claim about epistemology, ontology or something else altogether?
Where can one read more about the stakes of the relevant arguments?
I did read the The ...
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Why isn't the dictum "something can't come from nothing" a matter of consensus?
Isn't it obvious that from nothing (in the philosophical sense, i.e. absolute nonexistence) comes nothing? Isn't it also clear that physics has absolutely no saying on this dictum, as physics only ...
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What are strong and contemporary arguments for rejecting scientism?
Introduction
I read this article by Hietanen, J., Turunen, P., Hirvonen, I., Karisto, J., Pättiniemi, I. and Saarinen, H. (2020), How Not to Criticise Scientism.
From the article, there are various ...
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Is there no such thing as rigorous and formal in philosophy?
I once asked a question on a rigorous and formal definition of conceivable, and was told that there is no such thing as rigorous and formal in philosophy or science. Is this really true? I thought ...
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What is the difference between western and other philosophies?
Is western philosophy simply based on scientific knowledge. Is is only about scientific or Academia knowledge? Why is it called western? Because it has its roots in ancient Greece where western ...
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Would philosophy be useless if there were a box of answers?
All of the ideas are mine, I don't know a lot about philosophy's terms, I'll be clear and I'll speak in human's terms.
Imagine someday everything is normal, kids going to schools, doctors going to ...
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When philosophers argue about "definitional questions," what exactly are they arguing about?
By "definitional question," I mean questions like what is knowledge, what is justice, what is love, etc - questions that relate to the definition of certain abstract concepts.
Take the ...
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Is there a clear cut distinction between Philosophy and Philology?
I’ve been recently mulling over semantic and linguistic issues and I realized that my understanding of these fields may not correspond to the commonly accepted wisdom, so to speak.
Although the ...
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Is there a taxonomy of disagreement types?
In philosophy, is there any type of taxonomy of types of disagreements? For example, I want students to look at varying takes on a subject. What I want them to focus on is, Why do such smart people ...
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Do philosophers ever admit to arguing for things they themselves don't believe? [closed]
Do philosophers ever admit to arguing for things they themselves don't believe, without that meaning the former is not really the case, but merely explicative or similar of something they do believe.
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Is this outline typical of the organization of academic analytic philosophy?
After doing some research I came up with the following classification of analytic philosophy. Do certain branches overlap or worse, are there any inclusions that I have missed?
Axiology
Æsthetics
...
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Metaphilosophy and the nature of philosophical disagreement
I have a question on how “disagreement” generally occurs in philosophy. It seems that in the various traditions of Western philosophy, much work concerns a quest to externalize our human intuitions, i....
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Why is it that philosophers use terms that aren't literally true in their literature?
In lectures and talks that I have attended/watched, I've noticed a propensity to use the term "move" when describing the primary driving force behind an argument. In context, it might sound ...
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Is philosophy all about asking 'what' questions?
Everytime we ask 'what is' questions we hit the road to philosophy? Why?? are there another ways to start phılosophıcal debate?
Why Whatness questions are about the conceptual things only? Why ...
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Deductive methodology in philosophy
Introduction
Mathematics uses deductive methodology to produce results called theorems that are indisputable truth by logical necessity, with respect to the axioms of the starting axioms and ...
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Why is first-order logic interesting to philosophers?
This site had a question: Is First Order Logic (FOL) the only fundamental logic?
Let me ask the opposite: Why is FOL still interesting or useful to philosophers? For example, the "ancestor" ...
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Identity of concepts' intentional content
I have recently read some articles about (lexical) concepts. Philosophers tend to think that, in order for two speakers to be able to communicate successfully, they must associate the exact same ...
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Why do we call "A or B Theories of Time" instead of "A or B Hypotheses of Time"?
Why do we call "A or B Theories of Time" instead of "A or B Hypotheses of Time" when the concepts are not yet proven by empirical evidence?
We know,
hypothesis: a supposition or ...
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Concepts possession conditions
As a consequence of my growing interest in epistemology, I recently read some articles about concepts. The authors were originating from different fields, such as philosophy of mind, language and ...
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Why do many attach great significance to having read the original writings by philosophers?
Many of my conversations go like this. I express an opinion on a philosopher, and my friends ask, have you read the original work? I say no, but I have read many discussions and interpretations by ...
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Are there philosophical problems for which there's only a trivial solution?
I can't really think of a philosophical example, but in mathematics, it would be something like 'find the x where f(x) = 0 given that f(x) = x', and the solution would be 'x = 0', which is trivial. Is ...
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A material-constitution model of truth
On one end, let there be the correspondence model of truth, that S is true if and only if S corresponds to the appropriate fact.
On the other, let there be the identity model, that S is true if it IS ...
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Which aspects of consciousness are most often addressed by philosophers of mind?
What are the most discussed parts of consciousness according to philosophers?
Epistemologists cite perception, memory, reason, and testimony as frequent objects of philosophical discourse in respect ...
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When did philosophers decide philosophy was not useful, and why? [closed]
Academics treat philosophy like more of a discipline one does simply because one can. If you were to ask an academic what the purpose of philosophy is, they're likely to be confused by the question.
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Why all the dismissal for Circular Reasoning? [duplicate]
In my studies of Mathematics and (mostly) Theoretical Computer Science I've encountered what is known as Munchhausen's Trilemma which purports to demonstrate nothing can be actually be proved because ...
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Do philosophers generally reject that philosophical reasoning relies on axioms?
The way I've always thought that philosophy worked is that philosophers have a certain set of tools (deduction, laws of thought, basic sources of knowledge) which they use to come to reasoned answers ...
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How does one determine if killing an evil creature is an evil act?
I wanted to ask you in my D&D game, we fought some goblins. They attacked us first. We killed most of them; my character gave the rest a chance to surrender and said he may let them go. He ...
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Which philosophers have left sucessful academic careers to pursue other work?
I'm looking for (names of) philosophers who had successful careers in academia but, for whatever set of reasons, chose to leave and pursue work outside of academia, even if only temporarily.
For this ...
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Are there any points of convergence between analytical and traditional concept based philosophy?
In many questions, answers and in comments, there appear to be differences in the type of answers and comments which fall into two roughly delineated trains of thought and exemplify the fault line ...
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Wittgenstein and theology
Wittgenstein noted that we engage in language games and quite often we borrow words from different games and misuse them such as using words with scientific connotations in religious discourse or ...
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Is philosophy primarily about proving things to the best of our ability?
I would have assumed that philosophy is in the business of proving things, or doing so as best as the philosopher can.
But Ryle 1959 says
Obviously both can't be true, unless Ryle is talking about ...
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Is human thought a Continuum?
Plato probably would not have existed had it not been for Pythagoras and Socrates. Augustine would not have produced his writings had it not been for Plotinus and Aristotle. Einstein would not have ...
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Has science ever disproved philosophical theories?
I am aware that science and philosophy, in their modern guise, are two separate beasts that never cross the same domains but sometimes it happens that philosophy influences science and that science ...
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Philosophy of concepts - can it be (gradually) expressed in type theory?
Reasoning in mathematics is simple and subject to automation and discipline/system, because every concept (e.g. integer number, real number, derivative, integral, differential equation and its ...
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Is the concept of Aporia the same as the Zen concept of A Beginners Mind?
Is the concept of Aporia the same as the zen concept of A Beginners Mind, or related to it, or a completely different concept?
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Are some expressions such as 'In my opinion', 'I think', 'In my view' philosophical?
All of us went through some periods where he philosophized. When we philosophise, we use normally, and naturally, expressions like: In my opinion, In my point of view, I think, I propose, I suppose ...
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What is the logical distinction between “the same” and “equal to?”
We all understand that
Given A = C, and B = C,
Then A = B.
However, A is not “the same as” B.
Example:
A is the question, “What animals have feathers and can fly?”
B is the question, “What was the ...
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Which books do you recommend for me?
I read a lot about philosophy but it’s so huge that I stand confused. I am not sure which branch of philosophy suits me. I request your help.
I don’t believe in god or spirituality.
I want to live ...
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Trichotomy in philosophy
In many philosophical works and ideas*, it seems like the number 3 gets a major, unexplained emphasis (mostly as a trichotomy).
One of the major ideas that uses trichotomy is the Thesis-Antithesis-...
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How does contemporary analytic philosophy reply to the late Wittgenstein's injunction against theory?
In the In Our Time episode on Wittgenstein philosopher Ray Monk says the following:
It's a central view of the later Wittgenstein that there can be no such thing as a philosophical theory. I think ...
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Extent of hypotheticals in applied philosophy?
It is not uncommon to find a huge emphasis on thought experiments in applied philosophy.
Much of the hypotheticals thrown around in applied philosophy are usually an extreme hypothetical similar to ...
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What are some examples of x=f(x) type questions
I was wondering of examples where authors examine their own framework using their framework. I'm especially interested in 'larger' examples where an author may put their reasoning for creating a ...
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Why has modern physics not permeated throughout all of philosophy?
Modern physics seems to agree that both time and space are not really fundamental - they are emergent properties. This is articulated well in the IEP article on time.
However, it seems that much of ...
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What is the goal and toolset of philosophy?
I'm beginning to realize that I might have misconseptions about philosophy in general.
Is it to question and contend indefinitely or is there a goal?
I thought the goal was truth.
While I'm at it, ...
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Why doesn't philosophy have higher standards for its arguments?
Mathematical systems are an excellent model for organizing and conducting thought:
In the mathematics community, any argument in support of a conjecture, that deviates from "sound argument" never ...
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Is there a word for the type of rhetorical strategy where you distract from the point in order to seem authoritative?
Is there a word for distracting someone from the topic of the argument, and using the authority they have established in the mean time to (fallaciously) prove their original point?
An example
I ...
user38026
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Can mathematics and physics be thought of as branches of philosophy?
I think that they can be viewed like that, with some suitable definition of philosophy.
Then mathematics could be defined as one of the branches of philosophy in which theories are built on ...
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What does it mean to have an "account" of something?
It seems like many of the papers I've read and the goal of many fields in Philosophy is to come up with an "account" for something.
For example, one of the goals of Epistemology is to come up with an ...
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What properties does "intuition" need in order to be counted as philosophical evidence?
Timothy Williamson (2008) has argued that we should not construe
philosophical evidence as consisting of intuitions.
Do intuitions generate philosophical evidence? And, if so, what sort of evidence ...
user38026