Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction. Analytic versus continental: arguments on the methods and value of philosophy
- PART I FORMATIVE ENCOUNTERS: A SHORT HISTORY OF THE “DIVIDE”
- PART II METHOD
- 7 Introduction to philosophical method
- 8 Analytic philosophy and the intuition pump: the uses and abuses of thought experiments
- 9 Reflective equilibrium: common sense or conservatism?
- 10 The fate of transcendental reasoning
- 11 Phenomenology: returning to the things themselves
- 12 Genealogy, hermeneutics and deconstruction
- 13 Style and clarity
- 14 Philosophy, science and art
- PART III INTERPRETATION OF KEY TOPICS
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - Introduction to philosophical method
from PART II - METHOD
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction. Analytic versus continental: arguments on the methods and value of philosophy
- PART I FORMATIVE ENCOUNTERS: A SHORT HISTORY OF THE “DIVIDE”
- PART II METHOD
- 7 Introduction to philosophical method
- 8 Analytic philosophy and the intuition pump: the uses and abuses of thought experiments
- 9 Reflective equilibrium: common sense or conservatism?
- 10 The fate of transcendental reasoning
- 11 Phenomenology: returning to the things themselves
- 12 Genealogy, hermeneutics and deconstruction
- 13 Style and clarity
- 14 Philosophy, science and art
- PART III INTERPRETATION OF KEY TOPICS
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
At the broadest level, philosophical methods differ because people do philosophy in different ways (Tugendhat 1976: 3–4). Given that they also inevitably influence one another, as a result groups or lineages of philosophers do philosophy in similar ways and such broad methods can be typed to at least some extent. Giving the notion of philosophical method more precision – for instance, considering argument forms, heuristics, mandated starting places (first philosophy; common sense) or the like as matters of method – is rather more committal, but at least some of the standard questions of philosophical methodology can be put at this level. Are the methods of philosophy distinctively philosophical? If they are, are they remotely suitable to the tasks they are put to? If they are not, in virtue of what does philosophical work differ from other intellectual productions? Again, it is clear that analytic and continental philosophers differ in their ways of doing philosophy, even where ways are picked out fairly broadly. Philosophers working in each tradition are influenced by different work, communicate with different groups, distribute authority and trust differently, and so on. Indeed, questions of philosophical methodology are closely bound up with the largely separate development of each tradition.
Analytic philosophy began in something of a methodological revolution, as we have briefly outlined in Part I, and the method was that of logical analysis. In his 1914 lecture at Oxford, Russell characterizes (analytic) philosophy as “the science of the possible”, and in turn identifies this entirely with the deliverances of a particular a priori method, analysis directed at uncovering the logical forms of propositions:
By concentrating attention upon the investigation of logical forms, it becomes possible at last for philosophy to deal with its problems piecemeal, and to obtain, as the sciences do, such partial and probably not wholly correct results as subsequent investigation can utilise even while it supplements and improves them…. This possibility of successive approximations to the truth is, more than anything else, the source of the triumphs of science, and to transfer this possibility to philosophy is to ensure a progress in method whose importance it would be almost impossible to exaggerate.
(1917b: 112–13)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Analytic versus ContinentalArguments on the Method and Value of Philosophy, pp. 46 - 56Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2010