Category: Metaphilosophy
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Inconclusive
The conclusions of the philosopher are — inconclusive.
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Is the Christian the True Philosopher?
Steven Nemes makes two main points in his Christian Life as Philosophy. The first I agree with entirely: Jesus Christ is not a philosopher. The philosopher is a mere lover of wisdom. His love is desirous and needy; it is eros, the love of one who lacks for that which he lacks. But Jesus Christ…
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Continental Philosophers I Respect and the ‘Continental-Analytic Divide’
From the mail bag: I'm a new reader of your blog and about two years into my own layman's study of philosophy. By that I mean I'm just reading whatever strikes my fancy as best as I can and building up a sort of mental repertoire. It's equally exciting and frustrating. Are there any so-called…
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Why a Philosopher Should Meditate and Why it is Difficult for a Philosopher to Meditate
If a philosopher seeks the ultimate truth about the ultimate matters, then he should do so by all available routes. Qua philosopher he operates in the aether of abstract thought, on the plane of discursive reason, but he cannot consistently with his calling ignore other avenues of advance. It is after all the truth that…
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In a Philosophical Conversation, Three’s a Crowd
Yesterday I wrote: When philosophy is done with others it takes the form of dialog, not debate. It is conversation between friends, not opponents, who are friends of the truth before they are friends of each other. Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas. Ideally speaking, of course. Pushing a bit further into the Ideal: In a…
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Can Philosophy be Debated?
Can philosophy be debated? In a loose sense, yes, but not in a strict sense. Debate is a game in which the interlocutors attempt to defeat each other, typically before an audience whose approbation they strive to secure. Hence the query 'Who won the debate?' which implies that the transaction is about attacking and defending,…
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Some Philosophical Positions Valuable Only as Foils: Extreme Nominalism and Eliminative Materialism
By a philosophical foil I mean a view or position that contrasts with other positions in such a way as to highlight the often superior qualities of the other positions. Foils are useful for mapping the spaces of theories and as termini of theoretical spectra. Consider the spectrum of positions stretching from extreme nominalism to…
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Philosophy as High Ground
Philosophy is the high ground from which to survey the dismal and contentious scene, the bellum omnium contra omnes. One retreats to the high ground for three reasons. To contemplate and understand the passing scene, to escape from it, and to be in a position to transcend toward what is neither passing nor a scene.
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The Task of Philosophy: To Conceptualize the Absolute
Wolfgang Cramer, Gottesbeweise und Ihre Kritik, Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann 1967, p. 19: So lange noch gewusst wird, was Philosophie ist, solange Philosophie noch ist, wird sie die Aufgabe, einen gesicherten Begriff vom Absoluten zu entwickeln, nicht zur Ruhe kommen lassen. The task of developing a secure concept of the Absolute will never come…
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Philosophy Bakes No Bread, but Man does not Live by Bread Alone
This from a reader: I wanted to bring to your attention a passage I came across in Nicholas Rescher’s Philosophical Standardism (Pittsburgh, 1994): “The old saying is perfectly true: Philosophy bakes no bread. But it is also no less true that we do not live by bread alone. The physical side of our nature that…
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Peter van Inwagen on Burden of Proof in Philosophy
Andrew Bailey sends the following quotations for our delectation: "(When a philosopher says, "The burden of the proof lies on you", he means, "You must deduce your conclusion from the truths of immediate sensory experience by means of an argument that is formally valid according to the rules of elementary logic; I on the other…
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Are Burden-of-Proof Considerations Relevant in Philosophy?
1. The question this post raises is whether it is at all useful to speak of burden of proof (BOP) in dialectical situations in which there are no agreed-upon rules of procedure that are constitutive of the 'game' played within the dialectical situation. By a dialectical situation I mean a context in which orderly discussion…
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What Drives Your Philosophizing?
Is it a purely theoretical interest? Or is it an existential need? And if an existential need, is it one that is also a religious need, or one that is secular? Gustav Bergmann, Blaise Pascal, Albert Camus.
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A Reader Poses Some Political-Philosophical Questions, Part I
From a reader: I have been and continue to be an avid reader of your wonderful blog ever since I stumbled upon your post on Wittgenstein’s anti-philosophy some years ago. And I must say that your assorted musings and reflections – even your polemical jabs – have given me many valuable lessons, even if I…
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Genuine Inquiry and Two Forms of Pseudo-Inquiry: Sham Reasoning and Fake Reasoning
In Philosophers Who Compartmentalize and Those Who Don't, I drew a distinction between 1. Philosophical inquiry pursued in order to support (defend and rationally justify) an antecedently held thesis or worldview whose source is extraphilosophical and 2. Philosophical inquiry pursued in order to support (by generating) a thesis or worldview that is not antecedently held…