Editing Metaphilosophy (section)

===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.