4 Philosophical Methodology

2021 ◽  
pp. 33-46
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Methodology

Aboutness

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Yablo
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Library Science ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Major Advance ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Ways Of Being ◽  
Made In

Aboutness has been studied from any number of angles. Brentano made it the defining feature of the mental. Phenomenologists try to pin down the aboutness features of particular mental states. Materialists sometimes claim to have grounded aboutness in natural regularities. Attempts have even been made, in library science and information theory, to operationalize the notion. However, it has played no real role in philosophical semantics, which is surprising. This is the first book to examine through a philosophical lens the role of subject matter in meaning. A long-standing tradition sees meaning as truth conditions, to be specified by listing the scenarios in which a sentence is true. Nothing is said about the principle of selection—about what in a scenario gets it onto the list. Subject matter is the missing link here. A sentence is true because of how matters stand where its subject matter is concerned. This book maintains that this is not just a feature of subject matter, but its essence. One indicates what a sentence is about by mapping out logical space according to its changing ways of being true or false. The notion of content that results—directed content—is brought to bear on a range of philosophical topics, including ontology, verisimilitude, knowledge, loose talk, assertive content, and philosophical methodology. The book represents a major advance in semantics and the philosophy of language.

Merleau-Ponty, Hegel, and the Task of Phenomenological Explanation

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-52
Author(s):  
Dimitris Apostolopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Circular Structure ◽  
Phenomenological Reflection ◽  
Phenomenological Methodology

This paper provides an analysis of Merleau-Ponty’s view of philosophical explanation. Some commentators stress his indebtedness to the transcendental tradition, but this influence does not extend to his viewof explanation. I argue that Merleau-Ponty gives up on the transcendental ideal of explanatory completeness, shared by Husserl and Kant. Motivated by a distinctive understanding of transcendental expression, he argues that phenomenological reflection, and the explanations that issue from it, must both have a circular structure if they are to provide a persuasive account of experience. This circular view of phenomenological methodology is further developed in later texts, which stress the openness and incompleteness of both reflection and explanation. Merleau-Ponty’s reliance on the concept of circularity testifies to the increasing importance of Hegel for his viewof phenomenological explanation and philosophical methodology.

Collingwood and Russell on Philosophical Method

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-52
Author(s):  
Timothy C. Lord
Keyword(s):  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Philosophical Method ◽  
Dialectical Method ◽  
Logical Atomism ◽  
History Of

Collingwood’s An Essay on Philosophical Method provides an insightful critique of Russell’s analysis and metaphysics of logical atomism, proposing an unduly neglected neo-idealist alternative to Russell’s philosophical method. I summarize Collingwood’s critique of analysis and sympathetically outline the philosophical methodology of Collingwood’s post-Hegelian dialectical method: his scale of forms methodology, grounded on the overlap of philosophical classes. I then delineate Collingwood’s critique of the metaphysics of logical atomism, demonstrating how the scale of forms methodology is opposed to Russell’s logical atomism. Finally, I reflect on the reasons Collingwood’s Essay aroused little interest upon publication and the importance of continually rethinking the history of philosophy.

Indeterminancy, Ethnophilosophy, Linguistic Philosophy, African Philosophy

Philosophy ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 70 (273) ◽  
pp. 377-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Hallen
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
African Philosophy ◽  
Academic Philosophy ◽  
Linguistic Philosophy

This is a paper about philosophical methodology or, better, methodologies. Most of the material that has been published to date under the rubric of African philosophy has been methodological in character. One reason for this is the conflicts that sometimes arise when philosophers in Africa attempt to reconcile their relationships with both academic philosophy and so-called African '‘traditional’ systems of thought. A further complication is that the studies of traditional African thought systems that become involved in these conflicts are themselves products of academia– of disciplinary methodologies.

Intuitions

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan M. Weinberg
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Philosophical Practice ◽  
Sources Of Error ◽  
Key Aspects

This article examines the philosophical methodology of intuitions beginning with an argument developed by Max Deutsch and Herman Cappelen over the descriptive adequacy of what Cappelen calls “methodological rationalism”, and their own preferred view, “intuition nihilism”. Based on inadequacies in both accounts, it offers a descriptive take on intuition-deploying philosophical practice today via what it calls “Protean Crypto-Rationalism”. It then describes the epistemic profile of the appeal to intuition, listing four key aspects of the basic shape of intuition-deploying philosophical practice: primacy of cases, flexibility of report format, freedom of stipulation, and interpretation-hungry. It also considers several sources of error for intuitions featured in at least the informal methodological lore of philosophy, namely: misconstruals, modal confusions, pragmatics/semantics confusion, and “tin ear”. Finally, it explores the problem of methodological ignorance and inferential demand, particularly the typical practices of philosophical inference that operate on the premises delivered by appeal to intuitions.

AQUINAS AND PHILOSOPHICAL METHODOLOGY

1970 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 300-317
Author(s):  
James F. Ross
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Methodology

scholarly journals Cultural interaction paradigms

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (18) ◽  
pp. 9-19
Author(s):  
Natalya Belova ◽  
◽  
Olena Popovich ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Cultural Interaction ◽  
Community Group ◽  
Changing Environment ◽  
Philosophy Of Culture ◽  
Cultural Systems ◽  
Intercultural Adaptation ◽  
Analytical System ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Negative Factors

Consistent design of the conceptual-analytical system of philosophical knowledge about the essence of interaction of cultures faces the problem of absence of «mono-object» (or single object), because the subject of study is interaction of systems or system complexes. In view of this, the article substantiates the need to enhance the integrative status of the philosophy of culture, in particular by including in its subject some specific problems of cultural studies and proposes to consider the interaction of cultures as a system complex containing cultural systems of different levels of generality (community, group, personality). Consideration of a number of systems (system complexes) allows us to understand the two-vector nature of adaptation and to see the positive and negative factors influencing the development of personality consequences of the interaction of cultures. Taking into consideration, that analysis of the process of socio-cultural adaptation of an individual is complicated by the presence of levels, the number and difference of which are determined by the understanding of the individual not only as a creature acting in the physical but also in the socio-cultural plane,the need of search for mechanisms to preserve the individual's self in the conditions of rapid renewal of all spheres of social lifeIt is tmphasized. Sociocultural adaptation as the process of active adapting of an individual or group to a changing environment through cultural mechanisms ( not only the changing environment itself, but also the changes of the individual or group itself) in the process of adaptation was reviewed. It is emphasized that synonymous use of the terms "acculturation" and socio-cultural or intercultural adaptation is inappropriate. The development of the theory of acculturation, its levels and additions to the theory of strategies of acculturation are traced. It was suggested by to consider the theory of acculturation (including supplementing dimensions) and the theory of strategies of acculturation as the complex of acculturation. The multi-quality of the interaction of cultures is revealed. Some reconciliation of existing paradigms of cultural interaction are proposed, since in the current conditions of accelerating the processes of globalization the use of philosophical methodology will help to understand the common problems of human being, and will create the basis for the combination of a bunch of systems (system complexes) of interaction of cultures.

scholarly journals M. Mandelbaum and Historiography of Philosophy

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 222-244
Author(s):  
Marina N. Volf
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Philosophical Position ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Holistic Approaches ◽  
History Of

The views of M. Mandelbaum on the historiography of philosophy have undergone a certain evolution. The paper shows the epistemological foundations of Mandelbaum’s historical and philosophical position. From the standpoint of critical realism and its application to social sciences Mandelbaum shows the advantages and disadvantages of the monistic or holistic approaches, partial monisms and pluralism. He considers A. O. Lovejoy's history of ideas to be the most reasonable pluralistic conception, although its use as a historical and philosophical methodology is limited. Intellectual history, which replaced it, should be called a partial monism, however, according to Mandelbaum, it gets a number of advantages if it begins to use a pluralistic methodology. In this version of methodology, the history of philosophy and intellectual history can be identified. The paper also presents some objections of analytic philosophers against this identification.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document