Meta-philosophy Meta-philosophy List of male tennis players Category="Philosophy"Meta-philosophy (philosophy of philosophy) is the study of the subject, matter, methods and aims of Philosophy. It is the "philosophy of philosophy". Many people consider the recursive study of philosophy to be a part of any philosophical enterprise—i.e. that it is intertwined with all branches of philosophy as is logic or epistemology. Philosophy is, however, commonly understood to encapsulate meta-philosophy, so the distinction is seldom made.

The primary question for meta-philosophy is, "What is Philosophy?," and because different philosophers have offered different answers, it is the task of meta-philosophy to adjudicate. Prior to adjudication, however, the metaphilosopher must identify, clarify, and understand the alternative conceptions of the nature of philosophy.

Taxonomy of philosophical problems

What is not controversial are the general types of problem branches which are included in philosophy. These are the major branches: Metaphysics, Epistemology, Axiology, and Logic. Philosopher and encyclopedist Mortimer Adler, however, excludes logic and includes all second-order problems (i.e. questions pre-supposing the existence of abstract ideas and subsequently trying to understand them). Second-order problems are often found arranged under various branches of philosophy which start with the phrase "philosophy of...." Adler (1994) divides these second-order philosophical problems into two branches. The first branch addresses the objects of thought, such as Being, Cause, Change, Infinity, Fate, Love. The second branch addresses the subjects, or procedural domains, of thought, e.g. Philosophy of religion, Philosophy of history, Philosophy of language, Philosophy of science. Metaphilosophy also attempts to understand both branches of second-order thought aided by the other major branches, e.g. metaphysical knowledge in religion, epistemology in religion, axiology in religion. In any case, one problem in meta-philosophy is to provide such a taxonomy.

Skepticism about philosophy

From a theoretical perspective, the most radical approach to the nature of philosophy is to take a skeptical stance, and proclaim that philosophy as such is impossible, deluded, worthless—even evil or dangerous. A milder skepticism would make similar claims about one or more of the major or minor branches of philosophy, e.g. that metaphysics (or epistemology, axiology, logic, etc.) is either impossible, deluded, worthless, or dangerous. For each of these skeptical approaches one can find historical representatives; the logical positivists, one seminal example, rejected axiological statements as neither true nor false and, therefore, meaningless.

Progress in philosophy

Whether or not there is progress in philosophy depends on one's assumptions about the nature of philosophy and the criteria of progress.

Meta-philosophical writings

Many philosophers have written on meta-philosophy. The tradition goes back to Plato, whose dialogues are directly concerned with ethics, but constantly raise questions concerning

Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations directly address Logic, the Philosophy of language, and the Philosophy of mind, but the nature of philosophical puzzles and philosophical understanding is central to all of the discussions. Wittgenstein frequently diagnoses philosophical errors as involving confusions about the nature of philosophical inquiry.

C. D. Broad is known for distinguishing Critical from Speculative philosophy. See his "The Subject-matter of Philosophy, and its Relations to the special Sciences," in Introduction to Scientific Thought, 1923. "Critical and Speculative Philosophy," in Contemporary British Philosophy: Personal Statements (First Series), ed. J. H. Muirhead (London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1924): 77-100. "Some Methods of Speculative Philosophy", Aristotleian Society Supplement 21 (1947): 1-32. "Philosophy," Inquiry I (1958): 99-129.

Curt Ducasse, in ( Philosophy as a Science(1941)), examines several views of the nature of philosophy, and concludes that philosophy has a distinct subject matter: appraisals. Whether Ducasse is correct or wrong about this, is a matter for meta-philosophy, i.e., philosophy of philosophy, to decide.

Reference

Adler, Mortimer (1994). The Four Dimensions of Philosophy. New York: MacMillan.

See also

External link