Knowra Metaphilosophy Metaphilosophy Metaphilosophy examines philosophy itself: its nature, aims, methods, and assumptions. It asks what philosophical inquiry is and how its claims should be assessed.
Philosophical method : The practices philosophers use to formulate, analyze, and assess claims and arguments. Metaphilosophy asks which methods make philosophical inquiry distinctive or reliable.
Experimental philosophy : An approach that uses empirical studies, often surveys, to investigate intuitions and philosophical judgments. It challenges reliance on armchair judgments by testing how people actually respond.
Plato : An ancient Greek philosopher whose dialogues examine knowledge, reality, ethics, and political life. His dialogues established enduring models of philosophical inquiry and argument.
Metaethics : The study of the meaning, status, and foundations of moral judgments and properties. It applies metaphilosophical questions to the methods and commitments of ethics.
Analytic–synthetic distinction : The proposed distinction between truths grounded in meanings and truths grounded in facts about the world. Its rejection undermines one influential account of philosophy as purely conceptual inquiry.
Philosophical progress : The question of whether and how philosophy accumulates knowledge or improves its answers over time. Assessing philosophy’s aims requires asking whether its history shows progress.
Naturalism (philosophy) : The view that philosophy is continuous with, or constrained by, the empirical sciences. It contests accounts that give philosophy methods or knowledge independent of science.
Immanuel Kant : An eighteenth-century German philosopher who investigated the limits and conditions of human knowledge. His critical philosophy makes the examination of reason’s own limits central.
Metaphysics : The branch of philosophy that investigates reality, existence, identity, causation, and possibility. Debates over metaphysical method expose disagreements about philosophy’s aims and evidence.
Armchair philosophy : Philosophical inquiry conducted primarily through reflection and reasoning rather than empirical investigation. Its legitimacy depends on contested claims about what reflection can establish.
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