Creating truths by winning arguments: : the problem of methodological artifacts in philosophy

• Autores: Abraham Graber
• Localización: Synthese, ISSN-e 1573-0964, Vol. 192, Nº. 2, 2015, págs. 487-503
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • In this paper I will argue that there is a bi-directional relationship between philosophy and meaning such that doing philosophy can change the meaning of terms. A rhetorically powerful work of philosophy that garners widespread interest has the potential to change how people use a predicate. This gives rise to three concerns. First, one�s conclusion can become right in virtue of one doing a particularly good job arguing for it. Second, it may be implausible to take philosophy to be a primarily descriptive enterprise. Part of the job of the philosopher is to proselytize about the correct usage of a word. Lastly, and most worrisome of all, the age-old method of the dialectic, a centerpiece of the philosophical project for thousands of years, threatens to plunge a range of domains of philosophical discourse into incoherence.