Editing Metaphilosophy (section)

==Relationship to philosophy==
Some philosophers consider metaphilosophy to be a subject apart from philosophy, above or beyond it,<ref name=Griswold/> while others object to that idea.<ref name=Heidegger/> [[Timothy Williamson]] argues that the philosophy of philosophy is "automatically part of philosophy", as is the philosophy of anything else.<ref name=Williamson/> [[Ludwig Wittgenstein]] argued that there is no "second-order philosophy" in the same way an explanation of the spelling of "spelling" is not second-order spelling,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wittgenstein |first1=Ludwig |title=Wittgenstein's Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics |date=1976 |publisher=Cornell University Press |page=14}}</ref> or [[orthography]] of the word 'orthography' is not second-order orthography.<ref>Philosophical Investigations §121</ref> Nicholas Bunnin and [[Jiyuan Yu]] write that the separation of first- from second-order study has lost popularity as philosophers find it hard to observe the distinction.<ref name=Bunnin>{{cite book |author1=Nicholas Bunnin |author2=Jiyuan Yu |name-list-style=amp |chapter= Metaphilosophy |title=The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |year=2009 |pages= 426–427 |isbn=978-1405191128 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0HyNPwAACAAJ}}</ref> As evidenced by these contrasting opinions, debate persists as to whether the evaluation of the nature of philosophy is 'second-order philosophy' or simply 'plain philosophy'.

Many philosophers have expressed doubts over the value of metaphilosophy.<ref name=Overgaard>
{{cite book |title=An introduction to metaphilosophy |chapter=Introduction: What good is metaphilosophy? |page=[https://archive.org/details/introduction_over_xxxx_000_10716446/page/6 6] |author1=Søren Overgaard |author2=Paul Gilbert |author3=Stephen Burwood |year=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0521193412 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zr6sOHSa1aoC&pg=PA6 |url=https://archive.org/details/introduction_over_xxxx_000_10716446/page/6 }}
</ref> Among them is [[Gilbert Ryle]]: "preoccupation with questions about methods tends to distract us from prosecuting the methods themselves. We run as a rule, worse, not better, if we think a lot about our feet. So let us ... not speak of it all but just do it."<ref name=Ryle>
{{cite book |title=Collected Essays 1929-1968: Collected Papers Volume 2 |author=Gilbert Ryle |page=331 |chapter=Chapter 23: Ordinary language |isbn=978-0415485494 |year=2009 |publisher=Routledge |edition=Reprint of Hutchinson 1971 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k1G1NAAACAAJ |author-link=Gilbert Ryle }} Quoted by {{cite book |title=An introduction to metaphilosophy |chapter=Introduction: What good is metaphilosophy? |page=[https://archive.org/details/introduction_over_xxxx_000_10716446/page/6 6] |author1=Søren Overgaard |author2=Paul Gilbert |author3=Stephen Burwood |year=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0521193412 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zr6sOHSa1aoC&pg=PA6 |url=https://archive.org/details/introduction_over_xxxx_000_10716446/page/6 }}</ref>