Editing Metaphilosophy (section)

==Topics==
<!--We need a more thorough, less single-author introduction to the kind of things which metaphilosophy studies -->
Many sub-disciplines of philosophy have their own branch of 'metaphilosophy'.<ref name=Edwards/> However, some topics within 'metaphilosophy' cut across the various subdivisions of philosophy to consider fundamentals important to all its sub-disciplines. 

===Aims===
Some philosophers (e.g. [[existentialism|existentialists]], [[pragmatism|pragmatists]]) think philosophy is ultimately a practical discipline that should help us lead meaningful lives by showing us who we are, how we relate to the world around us and what we should do. {{Citation needed|date=February 2009}} Others (e.g. [[analytical philosophy|analytic philosophers]]) see philosophy as a technical, formal, and entirely theoretical discipline, with goals such as "the disinterested pursuit of knowledge for its own sake".<ref name=pdp>''Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy'' (2005)</ref> Other proposed goals of philosophy include discovering the absolutely fundamental reason of everything it investigates, making explicit the nature and significance of ordinary and scientific beliefs,<ref>''[[Collins English Dictionary]]''</ref> and unifying and transcending the insights given by science and religion.<ref name=mp>''Mastering Philosophy'' by Anthony Harrison-Barbet (1990){{page needed|date=March 2013}}</ref> Others proposed that philosophy is a complex discipline because it has 4 or 6 different dimensions.<ref>Adler, Mortimer (1993), ''The Four Dimensions of Philosophy: Metaphysical-Moral-Objective-Categorical''</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=Vidal, Clément|title=Metaphilosophical Criteria for Worldview Comparison|journal=Metaphilosophy|year=2012|volume=43|issue=3|pages=306–347|url=http://homepages.vub.ac.be/%7Eclvidal/writings/Vidal-Metaphilosophical-Criteria.pdf|doi=10.1111/j.1467-9973.2012.01749.x|citeseerx=10.1.1.508.631}}</ref>

===Boundaries===
{{main|Definitions of philosophy}}
Defining philosophy and its boundaries is itself problematic; [[Nigel Warburton]] has called it "notoriously difficult".<ref name=ptb>{{cite book |title=Philosophy: The Basics |author=Nigel Warburton |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jNotC2OQocIC |page=1 |isbn=978-0203202029 |year=2003 |publisher=CRC Press |edition=3rd|author-link=Nigel Warburton }}</ref> There is no straightforward definition,<ref name=mp/> and most interesting definitions are controversial.<ref name=ocp>{{cite book |title=The Oxford Companion to Philosophy |chapter= Philosophy |page=702 |author= The Rt. Hon. Lord Quinton |isbn= 978-0199264797 |year=2005 |edition=2nd |publisher= Oxford University Press |editor =Ted Honderich |title-link= The Oxford Companion to Philosophy }}</ref> As [[Bertrand Russell]] wrote:

{{quote|"We may note one peculiar feature of philosophy. If someone asks the question what is mathematics, we can give him a dictionary definition, let us say the science of number, for the sake of argument. As far as it goes this is an uncontroversial statement... Definitions may be given in this way of any field where a body of definite knowledge exists. But philosophy cannot be so defined. Any definition is controversial and already embodies a philosophic attitude. The only way to find out what philosophy is, is to do philosophy."<ref name=Russell>
{{cite book |title= The Wisdom of the West: A Historical Survey of Western Philosophy in Its Social and Political Setting |page=[https://archive.org/details/wisdomofwesthis00russ/page/7 7] |year=1959 |publisher=Doubleday |url=https://archive.org/details/wisdomofwesthis00russ |url-access= registration |author=Bertrand Russell}}
</ref>|[[Bertrand Russell]]|''The Wisdom of the West'', p. 7}}

While there is some agreement that philosophy involves general or fundamental topics,<ref name=pdp/><ref name=odp>
{{cite book
|title=Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy
|chapter=Philosophy
|pages=276–7
|isbn=978-0198610137
|author=Simon Blackburn
|edition =2nd
|year=2005
|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5wTQtwB1NdgC
|title-link=Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy
}}</ref> there is no clear agreement about a series of demarcation issues, including:

*that between first-order and second-order investigations. Some authors say that philosophical inquiry is second-order, having concepts, theories and presupposition as its subject matter; that it is "thinking about thinking", of a "generally second-order character";<ref name=OxfordCNE>{{cite book |title=Oxford Companion to Philosophy New Edition |chapter=Conceptual analysis |isbn=978-0199264797 |editor= Ted Honderich |year=2005 |edition =2nd |publisher=Oxford University Press USA |quote="Insofar as conceptual analysis is the method of philosophy (as it was widely held to be for much of the twentieth century), philosophy is a second-order subject because it is about language not the world or what language is about. |page=154 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F9oAomj2IIwC}}</ref> that philosophers study, rather than use, the concepts that structure our thinking. However, the ''[[Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy]]'' warns that "the borderline between such 'second-order' reflection, and ways of practicing the first-order discipline itself, is not always clear: philosophical problems may be tamed by the advance of a discipline, and the conduct of a discipline may be swayed by philosophical reflection".<ref name=odp/>
*that between philosophy and [[Empiricism|empirical science]]. Some argue that philosophy is distinct from science in that its questions cannot be answered empirically, that is, by observation or experiment.<ref name=Simons>
{{cite book |title=The Philosophy of Simone De Beauvoir: Critical Essays |author=Sara Heināmaa |editor=Margaret A. Simons |quote=The important difference between the scientist and the philosopher is in the radically critical nature of philosophy. [[Husserl]] characterizes this difference by saying that the task of philosophy is to ask the ultimate questions...The philosophical questions can not be answered in the same way that empirical questions can be answered. |chapter=Phenomenology: A foundational science |page=22 |isbn=978-0253218407 |year=2006 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Abooxr14nCwC&pg=PA22 |publisher=Indiana University Press}}
</ref><ref name=Gutting>{{cite book |title=Continental Philosophy of Science |editor=Gary Gutting |author=Richard Tieszen |page=94 |chapter=Science as a triumph of the human spirit and science in crisis: Husserl and the fortunes of reason |quote=The sciences are in need of continual epistemological reflection and critique of a sort that only the philosopher can provide. ...[[Husserl]] pictures the work of the philosopher and the scientist as mutually complementary. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W6RVSDUG9acC&pg=PA94 |isbn=978-1405137447 |year=2008 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons}}</ref> Some [[analytical philosophy|analytical philosophers]] argue that all meaningful empirical questions are to be answered by science, not philosophy. However, some schools of [[contemporary philosophy]] such as the [[pragmatism|pragmatists]] and [[naturalized epistemology|naturalistic epistemologists]] argue that philosophy should be linked to science and should be scientific in the broad sense of that term, "preferring to see philosophical reflection as continuous with the best practice of any field of intellectual enquiry".<ref name=odp/>

*that between philosophy and [[religion]]. Some argue that philosophy is distinct from religion in that it allows no place for faith or [[revelation]]:<ref name=pdp/> that philosophy does not try to answer questions by appeal to revelation, myth or religious knowledge of any kind, but uses reason, without reference to sensible observation and experiments". However, philosophers and theologians such as [[Thomas Aquinas]] and [[Peter Damian]] have argued that philosophy is the "handmaiden of theology" (''ancilla theologiae'').<ref>Gracia, J.G. and Noone, T.B., ''A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages'', London: Blackwell, 2003, p. 35</ref>

===Methods===
{{main|Philosophical method}}

Philosophical method (or philosophical methodology) is the study of how to do philosophy. A common view among philosophers is that philosophy is distinguished by the ways that philosophers follow in addressing philosophical questions. There is not just one method that philosophers use to answer philosophical questions.

[[C.D. Broad]] classifies philosophy into two methods, he distinguished between critical philosophy and speculative philosophy. He described critical philosophy as analysing "unanalysed concepts in daily life and in science" and then "expos[ing] them to every objection that we can think of". While speculative philosophy's role is to "take over all aspects of human experience, to reflect upon them, and to try to think out a view of Reality as a whole which shall do justice to all of them".<ref name="spec">{{cite book |last=Broad |first=C. D. |url=https://archive.org/details/contemporarybrit0000unse_m4z2 |title=Contemporary British Philosophy Personal Statements · Volume 20 |date=1953 |publisher=London, Allen & Unwin |pages=87-100 |chapter=Critical and Speculative Philosophy |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.46370/page/n73/mode/1up |url-access=registration}}</ref>

Recently, some philosophers have cast doubt about intuition as a basic tool in philosophical inquiry, from Socrates up to contemporary philosophy of language. In ''Rethinking Intuition''<ref>''Rethinking Intuition: The Psychology of Intuition and its Role in Philosophical Inquiry '',(Studies in Epistemology and Cognitive Theory) by Michael DePaul, William Ramsey (Editors), Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. (1998) {{ISBN|0-8476-8796-1}}; {{ISBN|978-0-8476-8796-1}}</ref> various thinkers discard intuition as a valid source of knowledge and thereby call into question 'a priori' philosophy. [[Experimental philosophy]] is a form of philosophical inquiry that makes at least partial use of [[empirical|empirical research]]—especially ''[[opinion polling]]''—in order to address persistent [[list of philosophical questions|philosophical questions]]. This is in contrast with the methods found in [[analytic philosophy]], whereby some say a philosopher will sometimes begin by appealing to his or her [[Intuition (philosophy)|intuitions]] on an issue and then form an [[argument]] with those intuitions as [[premise]]s. However, disagreement about what experimental philosophy can accomplish is widespread and several philosophers have offered [[Experimental philosophy#Criticisms|criticisms]]. One claim is that the empirical data gathered by experimental philosophers can have an indirect effect on philosophical questions by allowing for a better understanding of the underlying psychological processes which lead to philosophical intuitions.<ref>Knobe, J. and Nichols, S. (eds.) (2008) ''Experimental Philosophy'', §2.1, {{OCLC|233792562}}</ref> Some analytic philosophers like Timothy Williamson<ref>{{Citation|last=Williamson|first=Timothy|chapter=Philosophical Criticisms of Experimental Philosophy|date=2016-04-29|pages=22–36|publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Ltd|isbn=9781118661666|doi=10.1002/9781118661666.ch2|title=A Companion to Experimental Philosophy}}</ref> have rejected such a move against 'armchair' philosophy–i.e., philosophical inquiry that is undergirded by intuition–by construing 'intuition' (which they believe to be a misnomer) as merely referring to common cognitive faculties: If one is calling into question 'intuition', one is, they would say, harboring a skeptical attitude towards common cognitive faculties–a consequence that seems philosophically unappealing. For Williamson, instances of intuition are instances of our cognitive faculties processing counterfactuals<ref>{{Citation|last=Pust|first=Joel|title=Intuition|date=2019|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2019/entries/intuition/|encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|editor-last=Zalta|editor-first=Edward N.|edition=Summer 2019|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|access-date=2020-01-18}}</ref> (or subjunctive conditionals) that are specific to the thought experiment or example in question.

===Progress===
A prominent question in metaphilosophy is whether philosophical progress occurs and, moreover, whether such progress in philosophy is even possible.<ref>Dietrich, Eric (2011). [https://commons.pacificu.edu/work/sc/292c2488-3e73-4ae5-abf4-0c26c29dea7c There Is No Progress in Philosophy] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210302202652/https://commons.pacificu.edu/work/sc/292c2488-3e73-4ae5-abf4-0c26c29dea7c |date=2021-03-02 }}. Essays in Philosophy 12 (2):9.</ref>

[[David Chalmers]] divides inquiry into philosophical progress in metaphilosophy into three questions.
#The Existence Question: is there progress in philosophy?
#The Comparison Question: is there as much progress in philosophy as in science?
#The Explanation Question: why isn't there more progress in philosophy?<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Chalmers|first1=David|title=Why Isn't There More Progress in Philosophy?|journal=Philosophy|date=2015|volume=90|issue=1|pages=3–31|doi=10.1017/S0031819114000436|url=http://consc.net/papers/progress.pdf|access-date=18 December 2017|hdl=1885/57201|s2cid=170974260|hdl-access=free}}</ref>

[[Ludwig Wittgenstein]], in [[Culture and Value]] remarked, "Philosophy hasn't made any progress? - If somebody scratches the spot where he has an itch, do we have to see some progress?...And can't this reaction to an irritation continue in the same way for a long time before the cure for an itching is discovered?".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hutto |first1=D. |title=Wittgenstein and the End of Philosophy Neither Theory Nor Therapy |date=2003 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |page=218}}</ref>

According to [[Hilary Putnam]] philosophy is more adept at showing people that specific ideas or arguments are wrong than that specific ideas or arguments are right.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Putnam |first1=Hilary |title=Renewing Philosophy |date=1995 |publisher=Harvard University Press |page=134}}</ref>