Sense Making from a human point of view
3 - Sense-making From a Human Point of View
from Part I - Visions of Philosophy
By A. W. Moore
The Cambridge Companion to Philosophical Methodology
Edited by Giuseppina D'Oro, Keele University, Søren Overgaard, University of Copenhagen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
pp 44-55
Sense Making from a human point of view
3 - Sense-making From a Human Point of View
from Part I - Visions of Philosophy
By A. W. Moore
The Cambridge Companion to Philosophical Methodology
Edited by Giuseppina D'Oro, Keele University, Søren Overgaard, University of Copenhagen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
pp 44-55
Sense Making from a human point of view
3 - Sense-making From a Human Point of View
from Part I - Visions of Philosophy
By A. W. Moore
The Cambridge Companion to Philosophical Methodology
Edited by Giuseppina D'Oro, Keele University, Søren Overgaard, University of Copenhagen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
pp 44-55
A. W. MOORE
3 Sense-making From a Human
Point of View
I.THE ARTISTIC CONCEPTION OF PHILOSOPHY
A view famously held by Bernard Williams is that philosophy
is a humanistic discipline (Williams 2006b).' I entirely endorse
this view — and the reasons he gives for it. I have tried to defend
something similar elsewhere (Moore 2012: esp. 602-4).* I shall not
try to offer any further defence here. For the purposes of this essay
Ishall take the view in question as a kind of datum. I am concerned
with what follows from it, or rather with what follows from one
particular embellishment of it, and with certain problems that this
embellishment poses.
But I must begin by saying something about what the view is; or
rather, what it is not. It is not the view that philosophy is one of the
human sciences. One might think that this barely needs saying. For
one thing, is there not a familiar and well entrenched distinction,
within academia, between the humanities and the human sciences?
Maybe there is (although it is worth remembering that there are at
least two disciplines, history and linguistics, which are standardly
included in the humanities and which might also reasonably be
classified as human sciences).’ However, that is beside the point.
For the point is not simply to classify philosophy as one of the
humanities either. (Williams makes this clear right at the beginning
of his essay.) The point is rather, as Williams himself puts it, to
signal ‘what models or ideals or analogies [we] should ... look to
in thinking about the ways in which philosophy should be done’
(Williams 2006b: 180}. A slogan that helps to convey the point is
this: philosophy, though it is not anthropological, is anthropocentric.
That is to say, philosophy, though it is not the scientific study of
human beings or of any of the peculiarities that mark their way of
44Sense-making From a Human Point of View 4s
life, has a fundamental concern with human beings and with what
it takes to be one and is properly pursued, at the deepest level, from
a human point of view. Philosophy is an attempt, by humans, from
their unique position in the world, to make sense both of themselves
and of that position.
But ‘make sense of’ is a polymorphous term. One respect in
which I would want to go beyond what Williams says is by urging
that we take seriously the term's overtones of invention rather than
discovery in this context. I believe that the sense-making involved in
philosophy, at least in philosophy of the best sort, is, quite literally,
sense-making: not an exploration of something antecedently given,
but a creation of something, most notably a creation of concepts
by which to live (such as Kant’s concept of a kingdom of ends, or
Nietzsche's concept of eternal return, to pick two signal examples|.*
Let us call the conception of philosophy on which it is both
humanistic in Williams’ sense and creative in the sense just
indicated the ‘artistic’ conception. (This is what Ihad in mind when
Ireferred to an embellishment of Williams’ view.) Now if, as I hold,
the artistic conception is correct, then we can straight away identify
two things of which philosophers need to beware: one of these
relates primarily to the element of humanism in the conception,
the other to the element of creativity in it. The first thing of which
they need to beware, the one that relates primarily to the element
of humanism in the conception, is scientism. That is, they need
to beware of the unwarranted appropriation of procedures that are
suited to the natural sciences. Sometimes the appropriation of such
procedures in the pursuit of philosophy is perfectly acceptable and
not precluded by anything that Ihave said on behalf of the conception.
For instance, among the many things in which philosophers can
quite properly show an interest are the natural sciences themselves,
these being (after all) a very significant part of human life; and such
an interest may well include self-conscious engagement with them
(cf. Williams 2006b: 182 and Williams 2006¢: 203). But there can be
no presumption that procedures suited to the natural sciences will
in general serve philosophy well.
‘The second thing of which philosophers need to beware, the one
that relates primarily to the element of creativity in the artistic
conception, is conservatism. If one of the purposes of philosophy
is sense-making, understood quite literally as the production of46 lw. MOORE
something, then philosophers had better not be too beholden to
extant forms of sense-making. They had better feel no compunction
about modifying these, extending them in various ways, establishing
new connections between them, supplementing them — or even
challenging, disrupting, discarding, and replacing them.’ This I take
to be an anti-Wittgensteinian idea. Wittgenstein is not in general a
conservative with respect to sense-making (see e.g., Wittgenstein
1967: §132). But he is a conservative with respect to sense-making
in philosophy, which he famously says ‘leaves everything as it
is’ [ibid.: $124). For Wittgenstein, the purpose of philosophy is to
cure us of the confusions that arise when we mishandle our own
conceptual apparatus (ibid.: §§89-133). Innovation in our sense-
making can only ever bring with it the risk of new confusions
whereas, on Wittgenstein’s view, philosophers should be looking
to minimize that risk. That is contrary to the spirit of the artistic
conception.
2, THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN ANALYTIC
PHILOSOPHY AND CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY:
A PROBLEM FOR THE ARTISTIC CONCEPTION
It is instructive, in the light of these twin dangers of scientism and
conservatism, to consider how the artistic conception relates to the
distinction that is standardly drawn between ‘analytic’ philosophy
and ‘continental’ philosophy.
Now I am, in common with many others, impatient both with
the connotations that the drawing of this distinction typically has
and with the absurd terminology that is used to draw it (cf. Williams
2006¢: 201). But I do not deny that such a distinction exists; nor
do I'see any great advantage in trying, at this stage, to promote a
new label for it. More to the point, I think that the distinction has
something to teach us about the artistic conception. It does this
by creating a paradox vis-i-vis that conception. For, as far as actual
practice is concerned, it is continental philosophers whom we might
expect to be more sympathetic to the conception. They are the ones
who seem more ready to engage with other humanistic disciplines,
such as history and literary theory, and to do so, moreover, in such
a way as to suggest some continuity with their own endeavours.
They are the ones whose practice is on the whole more playful.Sense-making From a Human Point of View 47
Analytic philosophers are the ones who more often proceed as
though they were mapping the features of something independent
mapping, indeed independent of humanity altogether. They
are the ones who are more likely to need reminding of the danger of
scientism. On the other hand, as far as self-image is concerned, that
is as far as the practitioners’ own conception of the scope and limits
of philosophy is concerned, it is, if not exactly the other way round,
then at least more nearly the other way round. Analytic philosophers
are the ones who are liable to think that what they do is regulated
by appeal to, or with reference to, some such fundamentally human
phenomenon as language or discursive knowledge.” It is among
continental philosophers that we are more likely to find the view
that what philosophy is, first and foremost, is pursuit of the great
questions of ontology.*
Part of my response to this paradox is simply to acknowledge a
failing in the practice of some analytic philosophers, a failing which
does indeed suggest that they have paid insufficient heed to the
danger of scientism. It is not just that their practice is not true to.
philosophy as I conceive it, that is to the artistic conception. Their
practice is not true to philosophy as they conceive it. Nor is it true
to their own heritage. A significant part of that heritage is the aim,
not only to make sense, but to make clear sense, where clarity is
a matter of presentation, and where presentation presupposes an
audience. Analytic philosophers should be more self-conscious than
they very often are, first about who their audience might be, and
second about the need to make sense of things from some suitable
point of view that they share with that audience. This shared point
of view will typically be much more restricted than a human point
of view. But it will not typically be less restricted.
For one prominent example of the failing that I have in mind,
consider Derek Parfit’s book Reasons and Persons (1984). In his
conclusion to that book, Parfit discusses the various kinds of
argument that he has invoked. He says that these lie between two
extremes (where ‘between’ is understood in such a way that this
includes the two extremes themselves|: what he calls ‘the Low
Road’, which ‘merely appeals to our intuitions’, and what he calls
‘the High Road’, which ‘asks what is the meaning of moral language,
or the nature of moral reasoning’ (Parfit 1984: 447). Both extremes,
and the territory between them, involve a human clement of the48 A.W. MOORE
kind to which I have alluded. Yet Parfit’s conclusions in the book
are notoriously detached from any relevant point of view that he
might share with his audience. For instance, he argues that there are
good reasons to induce in ourselves dispositions that will subserve
a certain ethical theory while keeping the content of that theory
hidden (Parfit 1984: Pt. I, passim); but he does little or nothing to
say what this means from the point of view of those for whom, if he
were right, the practicalities of inducing such dispositions (not least
by suppressing reflective self-consciousness of the very kind that
his own argument has instilled) would constitute a real social and
political problem.’
Is there a mirror-image failing in the practice of some continental
philosophers? Is there a similar mismatch between their practice and
their self-image? That would afford an interesting symmetry, if it
were so. In fact, however, there is no obvious reason to think that it is
80 ~ not if we focus on the anthropocentrism that is evidenced in their
practice. The great questions of ontology can certainly be addressed
in an anthropocentric way. Phenomenology provides the model.
Heidegger at one point equates phenomenology with ontology (and
cach, in tum, with philosophy}; but he also insists that it should be
executed with peculiar reference to the sort of being that each human
being is, namely Dasein (Heidegger 1962: 61-2).
I said that we see no mirror-image failing in the practice of
continental philosophers if we focus on the anthropocentrism
that is evidenced in their practice, But what if we focus on the
creativity that is evidenced in their practice - creativity being the
other element in the artistic conception ~ and then reflect on the
associated danger of conservatism? Is there perhaps, if not a tension
between addressing the great questions of ontology and proceeding
anthropocentrically, then a tension between doing both of those
things and being radically innovative?
What tension do I have in mind? Well, consider this. Why should
the radical innovation that I have suggested is a feature of the best
philosophy not be so radical that it brings us to a new conception of
who ‘we’ are and of what it takes to be one of ‘us’; so radical, in other
words, that it provides us with ways of making sense of things that
leave our humanity behind? There are various things that might
be at stake here. We might come to reassess the relations between
human beings and other animals in such a way that the former noSense-making From a Human Point of View 49
longer have the special significance for us that is required for there
to be a distinctively human point of view. Or advances in technology
might challenge the very application of the concept of a human being
in such a way that we are eventually led to abandon the concept
altogether. And there is indeed, in certain continental philosophers,
a preparedness, if not an aspiration, to think beyond the human in
this way. Foucault, Deleuze, and Guattari are among the clearest and
most interesting cases in point."" How can philosophy be pursued in
a spirit such as this, while remaining resolutely anthropocentric?
It is a good question. There is certainly a tension here. It is
not, however, a tension that peculiarly afflicts any continental
philosophers. I represented it above as a tension between three
elements: the anthropocentrism evidenced in the practice of
continental philosophers; the creativity evidenced there, where this
is creativity of a kind that allows for radical innovation; and the
pursuit of the great questions of ontology that many continental
philosophers take to be their métier. But the third is not really
relevant. The tension is already there between the first two. And
this means that, if it afflicts anyone, it afflicts me. For those are
precisely the two elements in the artistic conception. It is an urgent
question for me, then, how this tension can be resolved.
3. THINKING BEYOND THE HUMAN IN PHILOSOPHY
Is the following a reasonable way of resolving the tension?
We should indeed be open to the possibility of thinking beyond
the human in philosophy. But what this means is that we humans
should be open to the possibility of thinking beyond the human in
philosophy. We should be open to the possibility that our philosophy
will one day no longer need to be, or may even one day no longer have
the proper resources to be, anthropocentric. Nevertheless, we cannot
oversee its becoming non-anthropocentric except by overseeing
its evolution from something anthropocentric. And ‘evolution’ is
the right word here. Nothing can happen in a metamorphic flash.
Quite apart from whatever gradual transformation may have to be
involved in our coming to embrace non-human possibilities outside
philosophy, there is a gradual transformation that will certainly have
to be involved in our coming to embrace non-human possibilities
within philosophy. We cannot come to make radically new50 AW. MOORE
philosophical sense of things save through a progressive piecemeal
process. |This is a conceptual point, not an anthropological point.
There is a limit to how drastic and how rapid an upheaval in our
philosophical sense-making can be while still counting as an
upheaval in our philosophical sense-making - as opposed to our
being as it were magically transported to some new position on
the philosophical landscape.) So for now our philosophy needs to
be anthropocentric. That is the only way, for now, in which we its
practitioners can appropriate the sense that it helps us to make of
things as distinctively ours, and the only way, therefore, in which
we can recognize it as having the value and importance for us that it
should. The tension between philosophy's anthropocentrism and its
creativity is resolved by our recognizing the former as provisional.
Yes, I think that is a reasonable way of resolving the tension,
at least in outline. Even so, I am uncomfortable with letting the
matter rest there. For I also think we should be extremely wary of
thinking beyond the human in this way. [have already remarked on
Wittgenstein’s conservatism and Deleuze’s anti-conservatism; and
Thave made it clear that my sympathies are with the latter. However,
there is a further, related disparity between the two thinkers with
respect to which my sympathies are more with the former. And this
inclines me towards a conservatism of practice, if not of principle.
‘The disparity that 1 have in mind turns on Wittgenstein’s and
Deleuze’s different conceptions of the given. Wittgenstein says that
what are given are forms of life (Wittgenstein 1967: 226). Deleuze
says that what are given are differences (Deleuze 1994: 222), It is not
obvious that there is any conflict between these —not least because it
is not obvious that they mean the same by ‘the given’, Even so, there
is. For Wittgenstein, a form of life, which he relates very closely to
a language (Wittgenstein 1967: §§19, 23, and 241], provides a kind of
framework within which sense is made of things. The limits of our
form of life, we might say, are the limits of our world. That would
be an anathema for Deleuze, for whom all unity ~ including the
unity of any framework of this kind - has to be constituted within
multiplicity, that is to say within what he counts as the given,"
and must itself, accordingly, be made sense of in the same way as
everything else.
T lean towards Wittgenstein in this conflict. There seems to me
something fundamentally right in the idea that, for sense to beSense-making From a Human Point of View st
made of things, there must first of all be some such framework for
it to be made within, a framework determining whose sense it is
And if there is something fundamentally right in this idea, then
any disruption of the sort that would be required for us to think
beyond the human in philosophy would have to be a disruption to
more than just our sense-making. There would have to be, beyond
whatever new sense we made of things, a new ‘we’ making it. For
Deleuze, too, there would have to be a new ‘we’, But, for Deleuze,
this new ‘we’ would itself be a product of our sense-making, a sort
of self-creation. The changes that would be involved in our thinking
beyond the human, however extreme, would be of a piece with the
changes that would be involved in our extending our sense-making
in any other way. On a more Wittgensteinian conception, however,
something more radical would be at stake. And the radicalness
would be an ethical radicalness. For, in so far as the primary ethical
question is the question of what it is for ‘us’ to live well, ethics itself
would be called into question. None of this is a conclusive reason to
eschew all such disruption. But it is a reason, an ethical reason, to
tread extremely carefully.
4. SPINOZA: A CASE STUDY
Let us take the case of Spinoza.’ Spinoza might be reckoned an
opponent of anthropocentrism in philosophy. One of his best
known doctrines is that our supreme virtue involves our making
sense of things sub specie «ternitatis (Spinoza 2002: Pt. V, Props
2gif.). In fact, however ~ be the interpretation of that doctrine as it
may ~ there is something profoundly anthropocentric in Spinoza's
philosophy. Nowhere is this more blatant than in his account of
the difference between good and bad. Spinoza denies that these are
anything ‘positive considered in themselves’ (ibid.: Pt. IV, Pref.)
Rather, they are ways we have of thinking of things, according to
our desires. Thus, in Spinoza’s view, we judge a thing to be good
because we desire it; we do not desire it because we judge it to be
good ibid.: Pt. II, Prop. 9, Schol.). This, of course, entails a kind of
relativism, as Spinoza freely acknowledges (e.g,, ibid.: Pt. III, Prop.
39, Schol., and Pt. IV, Pref.). Nevertheless, because he believes that
there is a ‘model of human nature that we all set before ourselves’,
and because he is writing from a shared human point of view,52 AL W. MOORE
Spinoza is able to bypass the relativism and define the good as
‘that which we certainly know to be the means for our approaching
nearer to the model’ and the bad as ‘that which we certainly know
prevents us from reproducing the said model’ (ibid.: Pt. IV, Pref).
Such anthropocentrism is striking in its own right. But it is striking
also for a more indirect reason, highly pertinent to the caution that I
am now urging. It counteracts what would otherwise be a disturbing
and sinister aspect of Spinoza’s philosophy, itself a natural attendant
of the relativism to which he is committed, namely the doctrine
that the right of each thing extends as far as its power does (Spinoza
2002b: Ch. 16, §4)."° Thus the right of a tiger on the loose extends
as far as its power does; the right of a cancerous growth extends as
far as its power does; the right of a repressive regime extends as far
as its power does. Spinoza’s anthropocentrism provides a bulwark
here. As soon as we can sce that an exercise of one of these powers
is preventing us from reproducing the model of human nature in
some way, we can sce that it is bad; and we can accordingly resist it.
‘To quote Max Stirner: ‘The tiger that assails me is in the right, and I
who strike him down am also in the right. I defend against him not
my right, but myself" (Stirner 1982: 128, emphasis in original).
By the same token, were we to start trying to extend Spinozism
beyond the human, we would undermine the assurances that such
anthropocentrism provides and exacerbate that which is troubling
in Spinoza’s power-centred vision. We might, for instance, begin
to take seriously a point of view from which the flourishing of
individuals was subordinate to the flourishing of the state.
Admittedly, ‘assurances’ and ‘troubling’, like ‘good’ and ‘bad’, are
to be understood from a human point of view. But that, ina way, is
the point. The point is not that there is some neutral position from
which to evaluate different forms of philosophizing; precisely not.
‘The point is that our philosophizing and our evaluating are, at least
for now, from a common point of view, a human point of view, and,
as long as that is the case, we are bound to acknowledge the dangers,
that is to say the human dangers, in its being otherwise.
To be sure, the sheer fact that there is no Archimedean point
means that it is equally important for us to acknowledge the dangers,
perhaps the non-human dangers, in our remaining beholden to one
particular philosophical paradigm.” But that does not gainsay the
conclusion that philosophy is, at least for now, an exercise in makingSense-making From a Human Point of View 53
sense of things from a human point of view. It merely reinforces the
conclusion that we must proceed with care when doing philosophy.
Only, let us not underestimate the force of this conclusion. For if
philosophy is an exercise in making sense of things from a human
point of view - if, as I put it earlier, philosophy is an attempt, by
humans, from their unique position in the world, to make sense
both of themselves and of that position ~ then the care with which
‘we must proceed when we are doing philosophy is the care with
which we must proceed when our very humanity is in question."
NOTES
1 See also (Williams 2014) for associated reflections on the nature of the
humanities.
2 Something similar but not the same, because my concern in that book is
specifically with metaphysics and not with philosophy more generally.
Still, my concern is with metaphysics on a somewhat idiosyncratic
and very generous characterization of metaphysics, as the most general
attempt to make sense of things (a characterization that many people
would in fact take to be more appropriate for philosophy as a whole|. And
much of what this excludes within philosophy - such as aesthetics, ethics,
political philosophy, and philosophy of religion ~ gives the discipline, if
anything, an even greater claim to the title of being humanistic.
3 It is also worth remembering that Collingwood took metaphysics to be
a branch of history: see (Collingwood 1998). (That said, he did not take
philosophy to be a branch of history: see (Collingwood 2005: Ch. 10, §3).)
4 This too is a view that I have tried to defend elsewhere, in relation
specifically to metaphysics but with implications for philosophy more
generally (see Moore 2012: esp. Intro., §7, and Concl., §4). I say that I
am going beyond what Williams says. But am I in fact doing something
more radical than that? Am I contradicting what he says? In particular,
does the view that philosophy is creative in the sense indicated conflict
with Williams’ insistence that ‘there has to be such a thing in philosophy
as getting it right’ (Williams 2006c: 202, emphasis in original)? I do not
think so. This is because I do not think that answering to something
antecedently given is EG only way of ‘getting it right’ {sce MIBBIE 2012:
381, 393-4). Certainly, my view does not conflict with the idea that there
is such a thing in philosophy as doing it well.
5 Williams spends a great deal of time issuing warnings against scientism in
philosophy, for example (Williams 2006b} and (2006e: passim). Warnings
against conservatism in philosophy, unsurprisingly, are less visible in his
work; unsurprisingly, because the corresponding idea that philosophy is
creative is not there. But such warnings are not absent from his work
altogether. They hardly could be, given that there is a closely associated54 A.W. MOORE
idea that is quite certainly in his work, namely that reflection must
sometimes be allowed to disturb the concepts by which we live: see, for
example [Williams 2006e, esp. Chs 8 and 9).
6 Cf. Dummett’s contention that ‘the philosophy of language is the
foundation of all other philosophy’ (Dummett 1978: 442), or Quine’s
suggestion that ‘philosophy of science is philosophy enough’ (Quine
1966: 151), where by ‘science’ he means not much more than organized
knowledge (see e.g., Quine and Ullian 1978: 3}
7 Admittedly, these phenomena can be objects of {non-anthropocentric)
scientific study. But their relevance to analytic philosophy is of a different
ilk. If an analytic philosopher, reflecting on how (say] the word ‘causation’
is used, denies that there is any such thing as backward causation, then
he or she is not announcing the result of an empirical investigation into
the use of the word ‘causation’; he or she is enunciating a rule for its
use, (Here I am betraying my Wittgensteinianism, my earlier complaint
about Wittgenstein notwithstanding: cf. (Wittgenstein 1967: §383); cf.
also (Hacker 1996, esp. Ch. 8}, and (Hacker 2007: 7-11),) For a sustained
discussion of the relations between analytic philosophy and language
from a deeply opposed perspective see [Williamson 2007: passim). What
may be true is that the kind of attention that analytic philosophers pay
language shows that they have not indulged in that suspension of our
natural-scientific modes of thought which phenomenologists take as
their starting point: what they call the epoche (cf. Moore 2012: 431; and
for an explanation of the epoche see Husserl 1970: §35). But that is not,
in itself, any offence to the artistic conception. There are all manner of
ways in which philosophy might distance itself from the natural sciences
without going as far as suspending their very modes of thought. (Some
phenomenologists are perhaps insufficiently sensitive to this point: seee.g.,
Husserl 1962: §62.) Note that a yet different approach to philosophy has
recently emerged, under the title ‘experimental philosophy’, which retains
a broadly analytic interest in language but which also involves significant
use of empirical investigation, notably the empirical investigation of
people's linguistic intuitions (sce e.g., Knobe and Nichols 2008}.
8 Cf Heidegger's claim that ‘ontology and phenomenology are not
two distinct philosophical disciplines among others’ but rather that
they ‘characterize philosophy itself’ and that ‘philosophy is universal
phenomenological ontology’ (Heidegger 1962: 62). 1 shall have a little
more to say about this shortly.
9 Parfit’s book may also contain another prominent example of what
Ihave in mind. He argues that personal identity is nothing over and
above certain impersonally understood facts of bodily and psychological
continuity (Parfitt 1984 Ill, passim}. And he tries to draw conclusions
about persons, in particular ethical conclusions, that can themselves be
understood impersonally. But there is good reason to think that only from
a certain point of view involving a set of values that run contrary to these
conclusions can there be any meaningful talk of persons in the first place
{sce further Moore 1997: 229-32).0 Reviews
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The Cambridge Companion to
Philosophical Methodology
edited by Gluseppina D'Oro, Seren Overgaard
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Pages displayed by permission of Cambridge
University Press. Copyright.viii Contents
7 Armchair Metaphysics Revisited: The Three Grades
of Involvement in Conceptual Analysis 122
FRANK JACKSON
8 A Naturalistic Methodology 141
9 What is Negative Experimental Philosophy
Good For? 161
JONATHAN M. WEINBERG
Part II: Between Analysis and the Continent 185
10 Life-changing Metaphysics: Rational
Anthropology and its Kantian 18
ROBERT HANNA
11 Collingwood’s Idealist Metaontology:
Between Therapy and Armchair Science 211
GIUSEPPINA D‘ORO
12 Pragmatism and the Limits of Metaphilosophy 229
‘ROBERT B. TALISSE
13 On Metaphysical Quietism and Everyday Life 249
DAVID MACARTHUR
14 The Metaphilosophy of the Analytic-Continental
Divide: From History to Hope 274
ROBERT PIERCEY
Part IV: Continental perspectives 293
15 Phenomenological Method and the
Achievement of Recognition: Who’s
Been Waiting for Phenomenology? 295
pave SeRRONE
16 Existentialist Methodology and Perspective:
Writing the First Person 317
J. REYNOLDS AND P. STOKESviii Contents
7 Armchair Metaphysics Revisited: The Three Grades
of Involvement in Conceptual Analysis 122
FRANK JACKSON
8 A Naturalistic Methodology 141
9 What is Negative Experimental Philosophy
Good For? 161
JONATHAN M. WEINBERG
Part II: Between Analysis and the Continent 185
10 Life-changing Metaphysics: Rational
Anthropology and its Kantian 18
ROBERT HANNA
11 Collingwood’s Idealist Metaontology:
Between Therapy and Armchair Science 211
GIUSEPPINA D‘ORO
12 Pragmatism and the Limits of Metaphilosophy 229
‘ROBERT B. TALISSE
13 On Metaphysical Quietism and Everyday Life 249
DAVID MACARTHUR
14 The Metaphilosophy of the Analytic-Continental
Divide: From History to Hope 274
ROBERT PIERCEY
Part IV: Continental perspectives 293
15 Phenomenological Method and the
Achievement of Recognition: Who’s
Been Waiting for Phenomenology? 295
pave SeRRONE
16 Existentialist Methodology and Perspective:
Writing the First Person 317
J. REYNOLDS AND P. STOKESList of Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I: Visions of Philosophy
1 Doing Philosophy 13
-ALESSANDRA TANESINI
2 Philosophy as Rational Systematization
NICHOLAS RESCHER
3 Sense-making From a Human Point of View
‘AW, MOORE
4 Disagreement in Philosophy: An Optimistic
Perspective
HERMAN CAPPELEN
Part I: Conceptual Analysis and the Naturalistic
Challenge
5 Impure Conceptual Analysis
HANS-JOHANN GLOCK
6 What Can We Do, When We Do Metaphysics?
AMIE L. THOMASSON
Re