Editing Philosophical methodology (section)

== Disagreements and influence ==
The disagreements within philosophy do not only concern which first-order philosophical claims are true, they also concern the second-order issue of which philosophical methods to use.<ref name="OvergaardMethodology"/><ref name="DalyHandbook"/> One way to evaluate philosophical methods is to assess how well they do at solving philosophical problems.<ref name="DalyIntroduction"/> The question of the nature of philosophy has important implications for which methods of inquiry are appropriate to philosophizing.<ref name="OvergaardMethodology"/><ref name="MacmillanPhilosophy">{{cite book |last1=Audi |first1=Robert |title=Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd Edition |date=2006 |publisher=Macmillan |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/philosophy-and-religion/philosophy/philosophy-terms-and-concepts/philosophy|chapter=Philosophy}}</ref><ref name="OxfordPhilosophy">{{cite book |last1=Honderich |first1=Ted |title=The Oxford Companion to Philosophy |date=2005 |publisher=Oxford University Press |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/HONTOC-2 |chapter=Philosophy}}</ref> Seeing philosophy as an empirical science brings its methods much closer to the methods found in the natural sciences. Seeing it as the attempt to clarify concepts and increase understanding, on the other hand, usually leads to a methodology much more focused on [[apriori]] reasoning.<ref name="OvergaardPhilosophy"/><ref name="Rescher">{{cite book |last1=Rescher |first1=Nicholas |title=On the Nature of Philosophy and Other Philosophical Essays |date=2 May 2013 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-032020-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RIx_k41e1xAC |language=en |chapter=1. The Nature of Philosophy}}</ref><ref name="MacmillanPhilosophy"/> In this sense, philosophical methodology is closely tied up with the question of how [[Definitions of philosophy|philosophy is to be defined]]. Different conceptions of philosophy often associated it with different goals, leading to certain methods being more or less suited to reach the corresponding goal.<ref name="OvergaardMethodology"/><ref name="OvergaardPhilosophy"/>

The interest in philosophical methodology has risen a lot in [[contemporary philosophy]].<ref name="Dever"/><ref name="Cappelen">{{cite book |last1=Cappelen |first1=Herman |last2=Gendler |first2=Tamar Szabó |last3=Hawthorne |first3=John |chapter=Preface |title=The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Methodology |date=19 May 2016 |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199668779.013.34 |isbn=978-0-19-966877-9 |url=https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199668779.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199668779-e-34 |language=en}}</ref> But some philosophers reject its importance by emphasizing that "preoccupation with questions about methods tends to distract us from prosecuting the methods themselves".<ref name="OvergaardMethodology"/> However, such objections are often dismissed by pointing out that philosophy is at its core a reflective and critical enterprise, which is perhaps best exemplified by its preoccupation with its own methods. This is also backed up by the arguments to the effect that one's philosophical method has important implications for how one does philosophy and which philosophical claims one accepts or rejects.<ref name="OvergaardMethodology"/><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Nado |first1=Jennifer |title=How To Think About Philosophical Methodology |journal=Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research |date=1 September 2017 |volume=34 |issue=3 |pages=447–463 |doi=10.1007/s40961-017-0116-8 |s2cid=171569977 |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40961-017-0116-8 |language=en |issn=2363-9962}}</ref><ref name="Cappelen"/> Since philosophy also studies the methodology of other disciplines, such as the methods of science, it has been argued that the study of its own methodology is an essential part of philosophy.<ref name="OvergaardMethodology"/>

In several instances in the history of philosophy, the discovery of a new philosophical method, such as [[Cartesian doubt]] or the [[Phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenological method]], has had important implications both on how philosophers conducted their theorizing and what claims they set out to defend. In some cases, such discoveries led the involved philosophers to overly optimistic outlooks, seeing them as historic breakthroughs that would dissolve all previous disagreements in philosophy.<ref name="DalyHandbook"/><ref name="MeinerMethode"/><ref name="Gelan">{{cite book |last1=Gelan |first1=Victor Eugen |title=The Subject(s) of Phenomenology |chapter=Husserl's Idea of Rigorous Science and its Relevance for the Human and Social Sciences |date=2020 |publisher=Springer International Publishing |isbn=978-3-030-29357-4 |pages=97–105 |chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-29357-4_6 |language=en |series=Contributions to Phenomenology |volume=108 |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-29357-4_6 |s2cid=213082313 }}</ref>