Doing Philosophy: From Common Curiosity to Logical Reasoning

Description

What are philosophers trying to achieve? How can they succeed? Does philosophy make progress? Is it in competition with science, or doing something completely different, or neither? InDoing Philosophy, Timothy Williamson tackles some of the key questions surrounding philosophy in new and provocative ways, showing how philosophy begins in common sense curiosity, and develops through our capacity to dispute rationally with each other. Discussing philosophy's ability to clarify our thoughts, he explains why such clarification depends on the development of philosophical theories, and how those theories can be tested by imaginative thought experiments, and compared against each other by standards similar to those used in the natural and social sciences. He also shows how logical rigor can be understood as a way of enhancing the explanatory power of philosophical theories. Drawing on the history of philosophy to provide a track record of philosophical thinking's successes and failures, Williams overturns widely held dogmas about the distinctive nature of philosophy in comparison to the sciences, demystifies its methods, and considers the future of the discipline. From thought experiments, to deduction, to theories, this little book will cause you to totally rethink what philosophy is. Cover......Page 1 DOING PHILOSOPHY: FROM COMMON CURIOSITY TO LOGICAL REASONING......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 CONTENTS......Page 6 PREFACE......Page 8 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS......Page 10 1: Introduction......Page 12 Common Sense in Philosophy......Page 17 What Is Common Sense?......Page 18 Common-Sense Questions, Philosophical Questions......Page 20 Common Sense as a Check on Philosophy......Page 22 Fallibility about Evidence......Page 24 The Reliability of Common Sense......Page 27 Two Sides of an Argument......Page 30 Adversarial Philosophy......Page 33 Logic Games......Page 37 Dialogues......Page 40 It Depends on What You Mean......Page 46 Concepts and Conceptions......Page 55 Clarifying and Theorizing......Page 58 Use Your Imagination......Page 61 Thought Experiments and Real-Life Experiments......Page 64 Knowing by Imagining......Page 68 Intuition?......Page 71 Biases......Page 74 Theories of Everything......Page 77 Testing Theories by Thought Experiment......Page 79 Rival Theories......Page 83 Inference to the Best Explanation......Page 89 Deduction in Philosophy and Elsewhere......Page 93 Validity and Soundness......Page 95 Abduction in Logic and Mathematics......Page 99 Non-Neutral Logic......Page 102 Logic and Philosophy......Page 106 Is Philosophy History?......Page 109 Monuments and Influence......Page 112 Can the History of Philosophy Help Solve Philosophical Problems?......Page 115 History......Page 122 Social Anthropology......Page 124 Linguistics......Page 127 Psychology......Page 129 Economics......Page 131 Computer Science......Page 133 Biology......Page 135 Physics......Page 136 Mathematics......Page 137 Models in Science......Page 138 Models in Philosophy......Page 141 Working Models, Counterexamples, and Error-Fragility......Page 148 11: Conclusion: The Future of Philosophy......Page 152 REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING......Page 154 3. Disputing......Page 155 4. Clarifying Terms......Page 156 5. Doing Thought Experiments......Page 157 7. Deducing......Page 158 9. Using Other Fields......Page 159 10. Model-Building......Page 160 INDEX......Page 162