metaphilosophy

Some philosophers consider metaphilosophy to be a subject apart from philosophy, above or beyond it, while others object to that idea. Timothy Williamson argues that the philosophy of philosophy is "automatically part of philosophy", as is the philosophy of anything else. Nicholas Bunnin and Jiyuan Yu write that the separation of first- from second-order study has lost popularity as philosophers find it hard to observe the distinction.{{cite book |author1=Nicholas Bunnin |author2=Jiyuan Yu |name-list-style=amp |chapter= Metaphilosophy |title=The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |year=2009 |pages= 426–427 |isbn=978-1405191128 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0HyNPwAACAAJ}} As evidenced by these contrasting opinions, debate persists as to whether the evaluation of the nature of philosophy is 'second-order philosophy' or simply 'plain philosophy'.

Many philosophers have expressed doubts over the value of metaphilosophy.

{{cite book |title=An introduction to metaphilosophy |chapter=Introduction: What good is metaphilosophy? |page=[https://archive.org/details/introduction_over_xxxx_000_10716446/page/6 6] |author1=Søren Overgaard |author2=Paul Gilbert |author3=Stephen Burwood |year=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0521193412 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zr6sOHSa1aoC&pg=PA6 |url=https://archive.org/details/introduction_over_xxxx_000_10716446/page/6 }}

Among them is Gilbert Ryle: "preoccupation with questions about methods tends to distract us from prosecuting the methods themselves. We run as a rule, worse, not better, if we think a lot about our feet. So let us ... not speak of it all but just do it."

{{cite book |title=Collected Essays 1929-1968: Collected Papers Volume 2 |author=Gilbert Ryle |page=331 |chapter=Chapter 23: Ordinary language |isbn=978-0415485494 |year=2009 |publisher=Routledge |edition=Reprint of Hutchinson 1971 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k1G1NAAACAAJ |author-link=Gilbert Ryle }} Quoted by {{cite book |title=An introduction to metaphilosophy |chapter=Introduction: What good is metaphilosophy? |page=[https://archive.org/details/introduction_over_xxxx_000_10716446/page/6 6] |author1=Søren Overgaard |author2=Paul Gilbert |author3=Stephen Burwood |year=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0521193412 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zr6sOHSa1aoC&pg=PA6 |url=https://archive.org/details/introduction_over_xxxx_000_10716446/page/6 }}

The designations metaphilosophy and philosophy of philosophy have a variety of meanings, sometimes taken to be synonyms, and sometimes seen as distinct.

Morris Lazerowitz claims to have coined the term 'metaphilosophy' around 1940 and used it in print in 1942.{{cite journal |author=Lazerowitz, M. |year=1970 |title=A note on "metaphilosophy" |journal=Metaphilosophy |volume=1 |issue=1 |page=91 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-9973.1970.tb00792.x}} see also the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy article by Nicholas Joll: [https://www.iep.utm.edu/con-meta/#SH1b Contemporary Metaphilosophy] Lazerowitz proposed that metaphilosophy is 'the investigation of the nature of philosophy'. Earlier uses have been found in translations from French.e.g. Clemenceau G., In the evening of my thought (Au soir de la pensée, Paris: Plon, 1927), Houghton Mifflin company, 1929, Vol. 2, p. 498: "this teratological product of metaphilosophy"; Gilson E., Christianity and philosophy, Pub. for the Institute of Mediaeval Studies by Sheed & Ward, 1939, p. 88 The term is derived from Greek word meta μετά ("after", "beyond", "with") and philosophía φιλοσοφία ("love of wisdom").

The term 'metaphilosophy' is used by Paul Moser{{cite book |author=Paul K. Moser |chapter=Metaphilosophy |editor= Robert Audi |title= The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy |publisher= Paw Prints 2008-06-26 |year=2008 |edition=Paperback reprint of 2nd |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0bVXPwAACAAJ |isbn=978-1439503508 |pages= 561–562}} in the sense of a 'second-order' or more fundamental undertaking than philosophy itself, in the manner suggested by Charles Griswold:

{{Blockquote|"The distinction between philosophy and metaphilosophy has an analogue in the familiar distinction between mathematics and metamathematics."|Paul K. Moser|Metaphilosophy, p. 562}}

Some other philosophers treat the prefix meta as simply meaning 'about...', rather than as referring to a metatheoretical 'second-order' form of philosophy, among them Rescher{{cite book |author=Rescher N. |year=2007 |title=Philosophical Dialectics, an Essay on Metaphilosophy |chapter=Chapter 1: Philosophical principles|page=1 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ju4rh20YqJIC&pg=PA1 |isbn=978-0791467466 |publisher= State University of New York Press }} and Double.{{cite book |author=Richard Double |year=1996 |title=Metaphilosophy and Free Will |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0195355413 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dbKQUpUWgmEC&q=metaphilosophy}} Others, such as Williamson, prefer the term 'philosophy of philosophy' instead of 'metaphilosophy' as it avoids the connotation of a 'second-order' discipline that looks down on philosophy, and instead denotes something that is a part of it.{{cite book |author=Williamson, Timothy |year=2007 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YN2KGBgKwOcC |title=The Philosophy of Philosophy |publisher= Wiley-Blackwell |chapter=Preface |isbn=978-1405133968}} Joll suggests that to take metaphilosophy as 'the application of the methods of philosophy to philosophy itself' is too vague, while the view that sees metaphilosophy as a 'second-order' or more abstract discipline, outside philosophy, "is narrow and tendentious".

{{cite journal |author=Nicholas Joll |title=Contemporary Metaphysics: Defining metaphilosophy |url=https://www.iep.utm.edu/con-meta/#SH1b |journal=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |date=November 18, 2010}}

In the analytic tradition, the term "metaphilosophy" is mostly used to tag commenting and research on previous works as opposed to original contributions towards solving philosophical problems.e.g. PhilPapers

Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote about the nature of philosophical puzzles and philosophical understanding. He suggested philosophical errors arose from confusions about the nature of philosophical inquiry.

C. D. Broad distinguished Critical from Speculative philosophy in his "The Subject-matter of Philosophy, and its Relations to the special Sciences", in Introduction to Scientific Thought, 1923. Curt Ducasse, in Philosophy as a Science, examines several views of the nature of philosophy, and concludes that philosophy has a distinct subject matter: appraisals. Ducasse's view has been among the first to be described as 'metaphilosophy'.Dommeyer F., (1961), A Critical Examination of C. J. Ducasse's Metaphilosophy, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 21, (Jun., 1961), No. 4 pp. 439-455

Henri Lefebvre in Métaphilosophie (1965) argued, from a Marxian standpoint, in favor of an "ontological break", as a necessary methodological approach for critical social theory (whilst criticizing Louis Althusser's "epistemological break" with subjective Marxism, which represented a fundamental theoretical tool for the school of Marxist structuralism).

Paul Moser writes that typical metaphilosophical discussion includes determining the conditions under which a claim can be said to be a philosophical one. He regards meta-ethics, the study of ethics, to be a form of metaphilosophy, as well as meta-epistemology, the study of epistemology.

Many sub-disciplines of philosophy have their own branch of 'metaphilosophy'. However, some topics within 'metaphilosophy' cut across the various subdivisions of philosophy to consider fundamentals important to all its sub-disciplines.

Some philosophers (e.g. existentialists, pragmatists) think philosophy is ultimately a practical discipline that should help us lead meaningful lives by showing us who we are, how we relate to the world around us and what we should do. {{Citation needed|date=February 2009}} Others (e.g. analytic philosophers) see philosophy as a technical, formal, and entirely theoretical discipline, with goals such as "the disinterested pursuit of knowledge for its own sake".Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy (2005) Other proposed goals of philosophy include discovering the absolutely fundamental reason of everything it investigates, making explicit the nature and significance of ordinary and scientific beliefs,Collins English Dictionary and unifying and transcending the insights given by science and religion.Mastering Philosophy by Anthony Harrison-Barbet (1990){{page needed|date=March 2013}} Others proposed that philosophy is a complex discipline because it has 4 or 6 different dimensions.Adler, Mortimer (1993), The Four Dimensions of Philosophy: Metaphysical-Moral-Objective-Categorical{{cite journal|author=Vidal, Clément|title=Metaphilosophical Criteria for Worldview Comparison|journal=Metaphilosophy|year=2012|volume=43|issue=3|pages=306–347|url=http://homepages.vub.ac.be/%7Eclvidal/writings/Vidal-Metaphilosophical-Criteria.pdf|doi=10.1111/j.1467-9973.2012.01749.x|citeseerx=10.1.1.508.631}}

{{main|Definitions of philosophy}}

Defining philosophy and its boundaries is itself problematic; Nigel Warburton has called it "notoriously difficult".{{cite book |title=Philosophy: The Basics |author=Nigel Warburton |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jNotC2OQocIC |page=1 |isbn=978-0203202029 |year=2003 |publisher=CRC Press |edition=3rd|author-link=Nigel Warburton }} There is no straightforward definition, and most interesting definitions are controversial.{{cite book |title=The Oxford Companion to Philosophy |chapter= Philosophy |page=702 |author= The Rt. Hon. Lord Quinton |isbn= 978-0199264797 |year=2005 |edition=2nd |publisher= Oxford University Press |editor =Ted Honderich |title-link= The Oxford Companion to Philosophy }} As Bertrand Russell wrote:

{{quote|"We may note one peculiar feature of philosophy. If someone asks the question what is mathematics, we can give him a dictionary definition, let us say the science of number, for the sake of argument. As far as it goes this is an uncontroversial statement... Definitions may be given in this way of any field where a body of definite knowledge exists. But philosophy cannot be so defined. Any definition is controversial and already embodies a philosophic attitude. The only way to find out what philosophy is, is to do philosophy."

{{cite book |title= The Wisdom of the West: A Historical Survey of Western Philosophy in Its Social and Political Setting |page=[https://archive.org/details/wisdomofwesthis00russ/page/7 7] |year=1959 |publisher=Doubleday |url=https://archive.org/details/wisdomofwesthis00russ |url-access= registration |author=Bertrand Russell}}

|Bertrand Russell|The Wisdom of the West, p. 7}}

While there is some agreement that philosophy involves general or fundamental topics,

{{cite book

|title=Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy

|chapter=Philosophy

|pages=276–7

|isbn=978-0198610137

|author=Simon Blackburn

|edition =2nd

|year=2005

|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5wTQtwB1NdgC

|title-link=Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy

}} there is no clear agreement about a series of demarcation issues, including:

• that between first-order and second-order investigations. Some authors say that philosophical inquiry is second-order, having concepts, theories and presupposition as its subject matter; that it is "thinking about thinking", of a "generally second-order character";{{cite book |title=Oxford Companion to Philosophy New Edition |chapter=Conceptual analysis |isbn=978-0199264797 |editor= Ted Honderich |year=2005 |edition =2nd |publisher=Oxford University Press USA |quote="Insofar as conceptual analysis is the method of philosophy (as it was widely held to be for much of the twentieth century), philosophy is a second-order subject because it is about language not the world or what language is about. |page=154 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F9oAomj2IIwC}} that philosophers study, rather than use, the concepts that structure our thinking. However, the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy warns that "the borderline between such 'second-order' reflection, and ways of practicing the first-order discipline itself, is not always clear: philosophical problems may be tamed by the advance of a discipline, and the conduct of a discipline may be swayed by philosophical reflection".
• that between philosophy and empirical science. Some argue that philosophy is distinct from science in that its questions cannot be answered empirically, that is, by observation or experiment.

{{cite book |title=The Philosophy of Simone De Beauvoir: Critical Essays |author=Sara Heināmaa |editor=Margaret A. Simons |quote=The important difference between the scientist and the philosopher is in the radically critical nature of philosophy. Husserl characterizes this difference by saying that the task of philosophy is to ask the ultimate questions...The philosophical questions can not be answered in the same way that empirical questions can be answered. |chapter=Phenomenology: A foundational science |page=22 |isbn=978-0253218407 |year=2006 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Abooxr14nCwC&pg=PA22 |publisher=Indiana University Press}}

{{cite book |title=Continental Philosophy of Science |editor=Gary Gutting |author=Richard Tieszen |page=94 |chapter=Science as a triumph of the human spirit and science in crisis: Husserl and the fortunes of reason |quote=The sciences are in need of continual epistemological reflection and critique of a sort that only the philosopher can provide. ...Husserl pictures the work of the philosopher and the scientist as mutually complementary. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W6RVSDUG9acC&pg=PA94 |isbn=978-1405137447 |year=2008 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons}} Some analytical philosophers argue that all meaningful empirical questions are to be answered by science, not philosophy. However, some schools of contemporary philosophy such as the pragmatists and naturalistic epistemologists argue that philosophy should be linked to science and should be scientific in the broad sense of that term, "preferring to see philosophical reflection as continuous with the best practice of any field of intellectual enquiry".

• that between philosophy and religion. Some argue that philosophy is distinct from religion in that it allows no place for faith or revelation: that philosophy does not try to answer questions by appeal to revelation, myth or religious knowledge of any kind, but uses reason, without reference to sensible observation and experiments". However, philosophers and theologians such as Thomas Aquinas and Peter Damian have argued that philosophy is the "handmaiden of theology" (ancilla theologiae).Gracia, J.G. and Noone, T.B., A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages, London: Blackwell, 2003, p. 35

{{main|Philosophical method}}

Philosophical method (or philosophical methodology) is the study of how to do philosophy. A common view among philosophers is that philosophy is distinguished by the ways that philosophers follow in addressing philosophical questions. There is not just one method that philosophers use to answer philosophical questions.

C.D. Broad classifies philosophy into two methods, he distinguished between critical philosophy and speculative philosophy. He described critical philosophy as analysing "unanalysed concepts in daily life and in science" and then "expos[ing] them to every objection that we can think of". While speculative philosophy's role is to "take over all aspects of human experience, to reflect upon them, and to try to think out a view of Reality as a whole which shall do justice to all of them".{{cite book |last=Broad |first=C. D. |url=https://archive.org/details/contemporarybrit0000unse_m4z2 |title=Contemporary British Philosophy Personal Statements · Volume 20 |date=1953 |publisher=London, Allen & Unwin |pages=87-100 |chapter=Critical and Speculative Philosophy |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.46370/page/n73/mode/1up |url-access=registration}}

Recently, some philosophers have cast doubt about intuition as a basic tool in philosophical inquiry, from Socrates up to contemporary philosophy of language. In Rethinking IntuitionRethinking Intuition: The Psychology of Intuition and its Role in Philosophical Inquiry ,(Studies in Epistemology and Cognitive Theory) by Michael DePaul, William Ramsey (Editors), Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. (1998) {{ISBN|0-8476-8796-1}}; {{ISBN|978-0-8476-8796-1}} various thinkers discard intuition as a valid source of knowledge and thereby call into question 'a priori' philosophy. Experimental philosophy is a form of philosophical inquiry that makes at least partial use of empirical research—especially opinion polling—in order to address persistent philosophical questions. This is in contrast with the methods found in analytic philosophy, whereby some say a philosopher will sometimes begin by appealing to his or her intuitions on an issue and then form an argument with those intuitions as premises. However, disagreement about what experimental philosophy can accomplish is widespread and several philosophers have offered criticisms. One claim is that the empirical data gathered by experimental philosophers can have an indirect effect on philosophical questions by allowing for a better understanding of the underlying psychological processes which lead to philosophical intuitions.Knobe, J. and Nichols, S. (eds.) (2008) Experimental Philosophy, §2.1, {{OCLC|233792562}} Some analytic philosophers like Timothy Williamson{{Citation|last=Williamson|first=Timothy|chapter=Philosophical Criticisms of Experimental Philosophy|date=2016-04-29|pages=22–36|publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Ltd|isbn=9781118661666|doi=10.1002/9781118661666.ch2|title=A Companion to Experimental Philosophy}} have rejected such a move against 'armchair' philosophy–i.e., philosophical inquiry that is undergirded by intuition–by construing 'intuition' (which they believe to be a misnomer) as merely referring to common cognitive faculties: If one is calling into question 'intuition', one is, they would say, harboring a skeptical attitude towards common cognitive faculties–a consequence that seems philosophically unappealing. For Williamson, instances of intuition are instances of our cognitive faculties processing counterfactuals{{Citation|last=Pust|first=Joel|title=Intuition|date=2019|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2019/entries/intuition/|encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|editor-last=Zalta|editor-first=Edward N.|edition=Summer 2019|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|access-date=2020-01-18}} (or subjunctive conditionals) that are specific to the thought experiment or example in question.

A prominent question in metaphilosophy is whether philosophical progress occurs and, moreover, whether such progress in philosophy is even possible.Dietrich, Eric (2011). [https://commons.pacificu.edu/work/sc/292c2488-3e73-4ae5-abf4-0c26c29dea7c There Is No Progress in Philosophy] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210302202652/https://commons.pacificu.edu/work/sc/292c2488-3e73-4ae5-abf4-0c26c29dea7c |date=2021-03-02 }}. Essays in Philosophy 12 (2):9.

David Chalmers divides inquiry into philosophical progress in metaphilosophy into three questions.

1. The Existence Question: is there progress in philosophy?
2. The Comparison Question: is there as much progress in philosophy as in science?
3. The Explanation Question: why isn't there more progress in philosophy?{{cite journal|last1=Chalmers|first1=David|title=Why Isn't There More Progress in Philosophy?|journal=Philosophy|date=2015|volume=90|issue=1|pages=3–31|doi=10.1017/S0031819114000436|url=http://consc.net/papers/progress.pdf|access-date=18 December 2017|hdl=1885/57201|s2cid=170974260|hdl-access=free}}

Ludwig Wittgenstein, in Culture and Value remarked, "Philosophy hasn't made any progress? - If somebody scratches the spot where he has an itch, do we have to see some progress?...And can't this reaction to an irritation continue in the same way for a long time before the cure for an itching is discovered?".{{cite book |last1=Hutto |first1=D. |title=Wittgenstein and the End of Philosophy Neither Theory Nor Therapy |date=2003 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |page=218}}

According to Hilary Putnam philosophy is more adept at showing people that specific ideas or arguments are wrong than that specific ideas or arguments are right.{{cite book |last1=Putnam |first1=Hilary |title=Renewing Philosophy |date=1995 |publisher=Harvard University Press |page=134}}

{{Portal|Philosophy|Religion|Science}}

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• Unsolved problems in philosophy
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{{Reflist|30em}}

• Double R., (1996) Metaphilosophy and Free Will, Oxford University Press, USA, {{ISBN|0-19-510762-4}}, {{ISBN|978-0-19-510762-3}}
• Ducasse, C.J., (1941) [http://www.ditext.com/ducasse/ducasse.html Philosophy as a Science: Its Matter and Its Method]
• Lazerowitz M., (1964) Studies in Metaphilosphy, London: Routledge
• Overgaard, S, Gilbert, P., Burwood, S. (2013) An Introduction to Metaphilosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
• Rescher N., (2006), Philosophical Dialectics, an Essay on Metaphilosophy, Albany: State University of New York Press
• Rescher, Nicholas (2001). Philosophical Reasoning. A Study in the Methodology of Philosophizing. Blackwell.
• Williamson T., (2007) The Philosophy of Philosophy, London: Blackwell
• Wittgenstein Ludwig, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. David Pears and Brian McGuinness (1961), Routledge, hardcover: {{ISBN|0-7100-3004-5}}, 1974 paperback: {{ISBN|0-415-02825-6}}, 2001 hardcover: {{ISBN|0-415-25562-7}}, 2001 paperback: {{ISBN|0-415-25408-6}};
• Philosophische Untersuchungen (1953) or Philosophical Investigations, translated by G.E.M. Anscombe (1953)
• {{cite book

| last = Wittgenstein

| first = Ludwig

| author-link = Ludwig Wittgenstein

| title = Philosophical Investigations

| publisher = Blackwell Publishing

| year = 2001

| isbn = 978-0-631-23127-1}}

{{Commons category}}

• {{PhilPapers|category|metaphilosophy}}
• {{cite IEP |url-id=con-meta/ |title=Metaphilosophy|last=Joll|first=Micholas}}
• [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14679973 Metaphilosophy, journal published by Blackwell]
• {{cite SEP|url-id=lvov-warsaw/ |title=Lvov-Warsaw School}}
• Peter Suber: [http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/meta/topics.htm Metaphilosophy Themes and Questions – A Personal List]

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