The Poverty of Philosophical Method

Cartesian mind–body dualism is widely thought to have been simply refuted by sound argument. This chapter maintains that the case against dualism is very weak. There is no very good argument for materialism, and the objections to dualism are convincing only to materialists. In particular, the dreaded Interaction problem is not notably hard for a committed dualist to handle; and the other standard objections simply presuppose a third-person perspective that would not be tolerated by the dualist in the first place. Materialism is not significantly better supported than dualism. In the process, the chapter sets out a number of sociophilosophical observations that explain our impression that dualism has been simply shown to be untenable. The sociophilosophical observations, more generally, explain how an illusion is created to the effect that purely philosophical reasoning can either prove or refute a significant doctrine or claim.

Free Will and the Burden of Proof

Moore’s method is deployed in favor of the compatibility of free will with causal determinism. It is pointed out that the compatibilism issue has always been set up prejudicially: the compatibilist has been required to offer an analysis of “free action” that both is correct and exhibits the compatibility with determinism. This chapter argues that according to sound dialectical procedure, but contrary to tradition, the incompatibilist bears the burden of proof, and that an incompatibilist argument will contain a bare philosophical assumption that should be rejected on Moorean grounds. (Moreover, a compatibilist not only need not but should not attempt an analysis of “free action.”) All this is illustrated by a close examination of the impressive “Consequence argument” for incompatibilism.

Moore against the New Skeptics

Moore’s method as detailed in Chapter 1 is applied against epistemological skepticism, and shown to have force in a way that other Moorean responses do not. The objections of Keith Lehrer, Peter Unger, and Barry Stroud are rebutted. In addition, this chapter responds to Stroud’s demand for a “deeper” response to the skeptic, and argues that the idea of a deeper response itself succumbs to Moore. It also addresses Moore’s own worry that “I know that I have hands” is both controversial and logically stronger than “I have hands,” arguing that that difference does not disqualify the knowledge claim as a term of the operative credibility comparison.

Intuitions and Coherentism

The method of reflective equilibrium is a special case of explanatory-coherentist epistemology. This chapter defends explanatory coherentism against pertinent objections: Keith Lehrer’s problem regarding the data base; the charge of unacceptable conservatism; Stich’s threat of relativism; Goldman’s problem of wild and crazy beliefs; and Hacking’s doubt that explanatory virtues such as simplicity have anything to do with truth. The epistemological picture defended in this book does not incur the traditional problem of “getting from” one’s own sensory experiences to the external world, and so offers an unusual answer to the skeptic. But if one were to engage that problem, the explanatory coherentist has a viable approach.

A Version of Moore’s Method

This chapter looks at Moore’s distinctive method of refuting idealists and skeptics, and isolates and defends the most effective version of that method. The version is everywhere comparative and piecemeal: which is more credible, an abstract a priori philosophical premise, or the humdrum everyday proposition the idealist is concerned to attack? This version of the method is shown to resist all the standard objections to Moore (that he is being dogmatic, that he begs the question, that he privileges “common sense” in an arbitrary way, etc.). An appendix considers but prescinds from the “Very Strong” position that, in principle, no idealist argument could possibly succeed against Moore.

Philosophical Knowledge

Gary Gutting has contended that philosophical method by itself can yield knowledge of certain sorts. This chapter offers four reasons for doubting that philosophical beliefs can ever be counted as items of knowledge. It then turns to Gutting’s candidates and argues that he has exaggerated the yield; what survive are only the recognizing of possible positions (admittedly important), and just possibly a few nonlinguistic intuitions—certainly no significant philosophical claims or doctrines. The chapter goes on to examine the ways in which there is and is not progress in philosophy—a fortiori not in the accretion of knowledge. There has been one kind of progress: methodological; we now understand dialectical and investigative procedures better than did our predecessors.

A Novel Refutation of Eliminative Materialism

Moore’s method as developed in Chapter 1 is applied against the doctrine of Eliminative Materialism in the philosophy of mind. It resists all defenses of that view that are based on the “Theory” theory of mental discourse and the vulnerability of folk psychology. It also differs from all the standard objections to the doctrine. Two sophisticated replies are considered and rebutted: that there might be empirical linguistic evidence for an elimination-supporting entailment claim, and that my Moorean objection proves too much in that it makes an empirical proposition irrefutable. However, a possible halfway house is conceded: an everyday term sometimes divides its sense as between a scientifically naïve reading and a slightly neologized one compatible with a scientific account.

Introduction

My title is a pun, as between (a) what philosophers may use as evidence for theories and (b) what sorts of things philosophers may consider to be evident. Each of those is a central topic of this book. I shall sketch an epistemology of philosophy itself, a partial method for philosophical inquiry. No element of it is original with me, but I do not think it has ever before been put together in the way I will do here....

Conclusion

In this book I have presented and defended a coherent philosophical method. It rests ultimately on intuitions. It draws on scientific results so far as the scientific community considers them established or at least well supported. It entitles itself to prefer Moorean facts to a priori philosophical assumptions. And it tries to bring all these into a (very) wide reflective equilibrium....

The Evidential Status of Intuitions

An intuition is an intellectual seeming, and this chapter argues that intuitions have evidential status. That claim is defended against objections: that an “intuition” is just a psychological fact about a person, that it merely reveals a lack of imagination, that it is already a tacit theory rather than a datum, that intuitions are malleable, and that they vary across communities. There is a further question of how intuitions might be shown to be reliable indicators of truth; this question is misguided, as it presupposes a competing epistemological theory that is rejected here. On the positive side, intuitions justify by way of what Goodman called reflective equilibrium. That method too has incurred objections, over and above those mentioned above, but they are deferred until Chapter 8.