[lit-ideas] Re: Meta-Philosophy
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2004 22:20:22 EDT
Thanks to R. Paul for his commentary. He writes:
There might be sociological or historical accounts of what philosophers do
(such
studies and accounts of what physicists do are fairly frequent), but neither
could establish what philosophy _was_, for any such investigation would have
to
begin with an answer to the question 'What is philosophy?' in hand. No
quasi-empirical investigation can investigate what philosophers do unless it
can
distinguish between philosophers rightly so-called and other sorts of
people.
Metaphilosophy, the journal, assumes that its audience is (mostly)
philosophers,
and further assumes that it can carve philosophy at the joints without
quibbling
over what philosophy is 'really.' (I know this a priori.)
----
I tend to agree. One problem here is, however, linguistic. If 'meta-' means
'recursion' (or something like that) then, indeed, 'meta-philosophy' should be
the 'philosophy of philosophy', rather than, say, the 'sociology' or
'psychology' of philosophy (whatever that could be). -- As Wittgenstein (and
Geary
would agree) would say: there are as many psychologies as there are
philosophers (or philosophies), etc.
But 'meta-' can mean just 'discourse on...', in which case, a sociological
theory of what philosophy is all about (or even of what philosophy _is_) would
count as metaphilosophical.
For the records, below, the def. of the OED of 'metaphilosophy',
'metaphilosophical', and the _dated_ quotes. The main metaphilosopher quoted is
(an
Italian?) named "Bacca" ('female cow'?). -- Cheers,
JL
----
Under "meta-"
With sense â??beyond, above, at a higher levelâ??. Prefixed to the name of a
subject or discipline to denote another which deals with ulterior issues in
the
same field, or which raises questions about the nature of the original
discipline and its methods, procedures, and assumptions, as ...
meta-philosophy
... Also applied to related adjectives, as meta-philosophical ...
Cites
1942 Mind 51 284
â??Why are no philosophical disputes ever settled?â?? It is with this â??
metaphilosophicalâ?? problem..that Professor Ducasse's book..is concerned.
1979 Yale French Stud. No. 58 96
Marx and Heidegger try to surpass philosophy... Their thought could be
called metaphilosophical.
1992 Nous 26 245
Cohen's metaphilosophical distinctions between categorical and hypothetical,
and between deductive and inductive forms of analytic philosophizing.
1941 Jrnl. Philos. 38 668
The impression that Bacca's whole enterprise smacks of something beyond
philosophy, meta-philosophy, a product of a theological voice in the
wilderness.
1970 M. LAZEROWITZ in Metaphilosophy 1 91
Metaphilosophy is the investigation of the nature of philosophy, with the
central aim of arriving at a satisfactory explanation of the absence of
uncontested philosophical claims and arguments.
1994 Philos. & Phenomenol. Res. 54 453
Such a conceptual idealism aligns itself smoothly with a metaphilosophy of
experiential perspectivism.
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