metaphilosophy
TagWhy Is Philosophy Important?
Often times when I tell people that my major is philosophy I am met with a confused stare followed by a series of questions asking why and of what use philosophy will be. Many have made jokes about my choice of major and not taken it or myself seriously. This response and the lack of outreach within the field has prompted me to want to show people why philosophy is ..
Poetry and Philosophical Thinking
I still hold that there is an important and significant role for traditional forms of philosophy but the question remains, is there something more to philosophical thinking that we can access through engagement with poetry which is filled with rich images, emotional sensitivity and attention to language? (more…)
The “New Questions of Philosophy”
“What subjects are now being confronted at the frontiers of philosophical inquiry, breaking from the familiar philosophical concerns of canonical figures like Plato, Locke, and Descartes?” That was a question raised recently by the editors of “The Masthead,” a new member-based media program at The Atlantic.
How Philosophy Makes Progress (guest post by Agnes Callard)
Instead of gauging progress by asking what “we” philosophers agree about, one should ask whether someone who wants to do philosophy is in a better position to do so today than she would’ve been 10 or 100 or 1000 years ago? The answer is: certainly. (more…)
Philosophy’s Progress, If You Don’t Care Whether It’s Called Philosophy
Over at Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen (GMU) asks, “has there been progress in philosophy?” His answer: “there is significant and ongoing progress in philosophy, we just don’t always name it as such.” (more…)
The Absurdity of Philosophy
“There’s something especially absurd about philosophers.”
That’s Helena de Bres, associate professor of philosophy at Wellesley College and comic author, writing about absurdity and philosophy at Aeon.
What Should African Philosophy Be?
“For African philosophy to be taken seriously it has to find some sort of foundation within the African thought-world rather than in the Greek or European thought-world.” (more…)
The Apologetics Charge Against Philosophy of Religion
Dean Zimmerman (Rutgers) and Paul Draper (Purdue) discuss their views on the relationship between philosophy of religion and religious apologetics in a pair of recent posts at Philosophy of Religion.
Whether Philosophical Questions Can Be Answered
“How do you respond to those who wonder whether philosophy questions can ever be really answered once and for all and who therefore conclude it’s a waste of time?” (more…)
Why Is Philosophy So Hard?
Daniel Kodsi, an undergraduate at Oxford and founding editor of the Oxford Review of Books, writes about his interview of Amia Srinivasan, philosophy lecturer in the UCL Philosophy Department and fellow of All Souls College, Oxford: “I start the interview with a question I feel strangely silly for having, but which I cannot help but blurt out: why is philosophy so ..
Philosophy: Not Just About Argumentation
We are no longer able to detect the philosophical unless it comes to us in the form of the peer-reviewed academic article, published (preferably in English) in a journal with a stellar ranking and a top-notch editorial board. No wonder philosophy has become so irrelevant today. Why should anyone need philosophers, if philosophy limits itself so radically? (more…)..
How Philosophy Makes Progress (guest post by Daniel Stoljar)
Does philosophy make progress?
Daniel Stoljar, professor of philosophy at Australia National University, thinks it does, and he defends that idea in his new book, Philosophical Progress: In Defence of a Reasonable Optimism.
In the following guest post,* he presents one kind of argument for his view. (more…)
The Intellectual Achievement of Creating Questions
A commonly recognized form of intellectual achievement is the correct answering of questions. This kind of achievement is not a matter of mere quantity—one doesn’t get much credit for answering easy questions or trivial ones—but also quality. What counts is providing answers that add to the store of human understanding, understood broadly. (more…)
Philosophers, Neighbours, and Tartars (Guest Post by Justin E. H. Smith)
What Are Philosophers Supposed To Do?
The summer issue of The Hedgehog Review is out and features a symposium, “On the Business of Philosophy.” The main element of the symposium is Richard Rorty’s Page-Barbour Lectures at the University of Virginia, with responses from Susan Haack (Miami), Robert Pippin (Chicago), and Matthew Crawford (Virginia). (more…)
Intuitive Bedrock and the Philosophical Enterprise (guest post by Dale Dorsey)
The following guest post* is by Dale Dorsey (Kansas) and appears here via a special arrangement with Oxford University Press and the OUP Blog, at which it is also posted.
Intuitive Bedrock and the Philosophical Enterprise
by Dale Dorsey
Imagine a person who spends their entire life sitting on the couch watching and rewatching Clive Barker’s Hellraiser. He..
Metaphysics as Intellectual Ergonomics (guest post by Elijah Millgram)
This is the fifth in a series of guest posts* by Elijah Millgram (Utah) based on themes from his new book, The Great Endarkenment: Philosophy for an Age of Hyperspecialization. (Here are the first, second, third, and fourth entries.) (more…)
Metaphysics by Forgetting (guest post by Elijah Millgram)
This is the fourth in a series of guest posts* by Elijah Millgram (Utah) based on themes from his new book, The Great Endarkenment: Philosophy for an Age of Hyperspecialization. (Here are the first, second, and third entries.) (more…)
Doing It All By Yourself (guest post by Elijah Millgram)
This is the third in a series of guest posts* by Elijah Millgram (Utah) based on themes from his new book, The Great Endarkenment: Philosophy for an Age of Hyperspecialization. Earlier posts are here and here. (more…)
Serial Hyperspecializers and How They Think (guest post by Elijah Millgram)
This is the second in a series of guest posts* by Elijah Millgram (Utah) based on themes from his new book, The Great Endarkenment: Philosophy for an Age of Hyperspecialization. The first post appeared here last week. (more…)
The Endarkenment at Home: Benchmarking Academics (guest post by Elijah Millgram)
The Great Endarkenment: Philosophy for an Age of Hyperspecialization is a new book by Elijah Millgram (Utah). In the book, Professor Millgram looks at the implications of our becoming, more and more, “a society of specialists” in which “communication across the barriers between the professions and disciplines is our own very pressing problem,” a problem that “threat..
Unger’s New Critique of Analytic Philosophy
Except when offering perfectly parochial ideas, mainstream philosophy still offers hardly anything except for just so many concretely empty ideas.
Peter Unger has a new book coming out entitled Empty Ideas: A Critique of Analytic Philosophy. You can get a sense of what he means by “concretely empty idea” from the blurb on about the book on his website. You can also ..