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In this paper, I introduce the notion of 'philosophy moves': prominent tropes featured in contemporary academic philosophy. Moves are more than patterns—they are tools for advancing and enriching philosophical debates. By recognizing these patterns in the philosophical literature, we collect an ensemble of moves for deployment in novel contexts, each with the potential to forge new paths of philosophical investigation through a given topic. The moves featured in this paper are constructive and progressive, with the potential to push past stalemates and open a wider conceptual landscape. Following a presentation of five exemplars taken from the philosophy of biology literature, I show how different moves could be made within a current interdisciplinary debate. Overall, I aim to demonstrate that recognizing these patterns is insightful pedagogically and potentially useful when used as part of one's philosophical methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recognition of metaphilosophy as a separate independent philosophical discipline forces us to pay attention not only to the various variants of its understanding and its own status, but also to the history of its origin and development. It is believed that the beginning of metaphilosophy as a study of the nature of philosophy was laid by several articles by M. Lazerowitz, although some other philosophers are mentioned in passing. The study characterizes Lazerowitz’s desire to understand metaphilosophy as a view of philosophy “from the outside” and demonstrates the failure of this attempt: in fact, his metaphilosophy represents a position “inside” philosophy itself. The author of the research argues that the beginning of philosophy of philosophy should be associated with the works of the Russian and Polish philosopher Heinrich Struve and suggests a broader reconstruction of his approach. A comparison of the works of these philosophers makes it possible to identify their common starting point, which is the statement of the presence of many disagreements in philosophy, that is, what Kant called a “scandal” in philosophy. The differences between the two approaches are also revealed, in particular, Struve’s philosophy of philosophy is a precursor to any philosophy in general, aimed, while maintaining the different points of view of individual philosophers, at developing a “common worldview”. As the subject of his philosophy of philosophy, Struve calls a historical and critical analysis of the current state of philosophy, an explanation of the subject, tasks, goals, aspirations and method of philosophy; among the “principles” of philosophy is the study of the relationship of philosophy to other “phenomena of mental life.” In addition to Lazerowitz and Struve, the author points to other philosophers (for example, J. Maritain, V. Ern, E. Kalinowsky, T. Oizerman), whose interests include metaphilosophical problems, and a detailed study of their works can help to see a certain historical tradition of metaphilosophy.

I argued, in the article “Is prostitution harmful?”, that if one holds that casual sex is not per se harmful, one should hold that neither is prostitution. Bjørn Hofmann and Morten Magelssen make the case that my article is methodologically flawed – so flawed, in fact, that it can serve as a cautionary tale about how this type of ethical work should not be done. Are they right?

The disappearing agent problem is an argument in the metaphysics of agency. Proponents of the agent-causal approach argue that the rival event-causal approach fails to account for the fact that an agent is active. This paper examines an analogy between this disappearing agent problem and the exclusion problem in the metaphysics of mind. I develop the analogy between these two problems and survey existing solutions. I suggest that some solutions that have received significant attention in response to the exclusion problem have seen considerably less attention in response to the disappearing agent problem. For example, one solution to the exclusion problem is to reject the exclusion assumption. Analogously, one solution to the disappearing agent problem could be to deny the claim that the agent-causal approach and the event-causal approach are mutually exclusive. Similarly, proportionality theories of causation, a solution to the exclusion problem, can be transferred to the disappearing agent problem. After establishing the plausibility of the analogy between the two problems, I examine how this latter solution in particular can be transferred from the one problem to the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper employs structural topic modeling (STM) to describe the academic philosophy landscape in Brazil. Based on a public national database, a corpus consisting of 12,515 abstracts of monographs defended in philosophy graduate programs between 1991 and 2021 was compiled. The final STM model identified 74 meaningful research topics, clustered into 7 thematic categories. This study discusses the prevalence of the most significant topics and categories, their trends across three decades, and their (positive or negative) association with the supervisor's gender. Results show the first empirical evidence that Brazilian philosophical research exhibits a greater focus on philosophers than on specific themes or problems. Moreover, by visualizing the variations in topic prevalence over time, it was possible to track the rise or decline of the major interest categories and topics. Finally, results also show which topics are more influenced or less influenced by gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for a broad definition of philosophical sources and how Indigenous traditional knowledge fits that definition. It concludes by showing how, following the previous two points, an Indigenous document such as the Huarochirí Manuscript can be considered a philosophical source by academic philosophers. The paper has three sections: the first deals with the methodological point of addressing what can be considered as philosophy. This section presents a conversational approach to philosophy. This approach, although broad, properly captures the practices of inquiring about philosophical issues as is commonly done in Western academic circles, but without excluding the practices of non‐Western cultures from being labelled as philosophical. The second section argues for the analytical distinction between a philosophical source, a philosophical text, and a philosophical insight. It shows that what makes a philosophical source such are the philosophical insights that it can provide. The final section shows how the Huarochirí Manuscript has merits making it worthy of being considered a philosophical source and thus a relevant academic source for those working in the field of philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay aims to shed new light on the theoretical pertinence of classical Indian logic and epistemology in Benedetto Croce's criticism of Western Aristotelian and modern logic. As a matter of fact, Croce gave a positive and extraordinarily enterprising evaluation of "Indian Logic" in his review of Hermann Jacobi's Indische Logik (1905) and in his book Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept (1996 [1909]). Yet Croce's significant and considerable evaluation of "Indian Logic" has remained neglected until today. This essay tries to clear the field of some prejudices that misled scholarly research on Croce and Indian philosophy, and it glosses in detail the "neglected" judgment on "Indian Logic" in Croce's Logic. In doing so, it critically discusses some epistemological questions starting from Croce's philosophy, such as the character of "natural induction," the relationship between language and thought, and the connection between historical languages and logical forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay unpacks several arguments about the metaphilosophic nature of African philosophy and charts a way through the problems these arguments encounter. It argues that we must be careful in our attempt to define African philosophy conceptually. Because to define it is to limit it—and to limit it is to conserve it and lead it to a cesspool. It also argues that finding a single meaning for African philosophy is not a rich endeavour, because, just like Western philosophy, African philosophy should not be a thing but be a vast array of things. The argument, one hopes, is taken as a normative rather than a merely prescriptive enterprise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some scholars claim that epistemology of science and machine learning are actually overlapping disciplines studying induction, respectively affected by Hume's problem of induction and its formal machine‐learning counterpart, the "no‐free‐lunch" (NFL) theorems, to which even advanced AI systems such as LLMs are not immune. Extending Kevin Korb's view, this paper envisions a hierarchy of disciplines where the lowermost is a basic science, and, recursively, the metascience at each level inductively learns which methods work best at the immediately lower level. Due to Hume's dictum and NFL theorems, no exact metanorms for the good performance of each object science can be obtained after just a finite number of levels up the hierarchy, and the progressive abstractness of each metadiscipline and consequent ill‐definability of its methods and objects makes science—as defined by a minimal standard of scientificity—cease to exist above a certain metalevel, allowing for a still rational style of inquiry into science that can be called "philosophical." Philosophical levels, transitively reflecting on science, peculiarly manifest a non–empirically learned urge to self‐reflection constituting the properly normative aspect of philosophy of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This reply is a refutation of Santiago Vrech's article "The End of the Case? A Metaphilosophical Critique of Thought Experiments" (2022) which argues that thought experiments used in argumentation cannot hold in All Possible Worlds (APW) modality, and thus should end. Cases are used to justify or refute a philosophical theory, but should not have the power to refute an entire theory, especially ad infinitum. Significant variations in intuitions, he argues, invalidate cases and are not proven. I argue some variation is acceptable and expected, and his bar of criteria is too high--APW validity is unnecessary. Vrech's three arguments are faulty and/ or too weak, and his thought experiment is of questionable value. Experimental and armchair philosophy (or philosophers) are misnomers, misleading and false dichotomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper agrees with the premises of Philip Kitcher's argument, but rejects the inference to his conclusion about what we philosophers ought to be doing instead of philosophizing in the traditional way. It argues that two topics Kitcher himself mentions, consciousness and moral realism, can be and are usefully pursued and are both of some interest and value to the general intelligent public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution examines Miscevic's defence against restrictionist X-phi, based on his view that thought experiments exhibit a large number of typical stages. On Miscevic's view, the epistemic threats identified by proponents of the negative program in X-phi may be countered or ameliorated in various ways at various stages. I argue that the defence he offers is insufficient to counter the arguments by in particular Machery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using two decades worth of experimental philosophy (aka x-phi), Edouard Machery argues in Philosophy within its Proper Bounds (2017) that philosophers’ use of the “method of cases” is unreliable because it has a strong tendency to elicit different intuitive responses from non-philosophers. And because, as Machery argues, appealing to such cases is usually the only way for philosophers to acquire the kind of knowledge they seek, an extensive philosophical skepticism follows. I argue that Machery’s “Unreliability” argument fails because, once its premises are percisified, they are either self-defeating or without justification. This is a significant result because Machery’s arguments are the most widely cited and discussed x-phi arguments for philosophical skepticism and many hold that Machery provides the most empirically informed, convincing, and thus best case for this kind of skepticism. So, if my arguments are sound, then the best x-phi argument for philosophical skepticism fails. I further argue that this result provides strong reason to believe the more general conclusion that “negative” x-phi is likely doomed: x-phi likely can never support a substantive philosophical skepticism. Ultimately, I argue for the broad conclusion that all empirically minded arguments for philosophical skepticism are likely to fail for the same reasons that Machery’s does, i.e. they are (likely) self-defeating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent authors hold that the role of historical scholarship within contemporary philosophical practice is to question current assumptions, to expose vestiges or to calibrate intuitions. On these views, historical scholarship is dispensable, since these roles can be achieved by nonhistorical methods. And the value of historical scholarship is contingent, since the need for the role depends on the presence of questionable assumptions, vestiges or comparable intuitions. In this paper I draw an analogy between scientific and philosophical practice, in order to float one role for historical scholarship that is nonreplicable and noncontingent. It has long been acknowledged that cognitive values – features of theories that facilitate understanding, such as ontological parsimony, ideological simplicity, computational ease and fecundity – play a key role within science. The role of some of these values within philosophy also has received attention but left understudied are the values of novelty and conservativeness. These values influence theory choice, the selection of methodology, the setting of research agenda, and the presentation of results; and are best assessed with a historically informed evaluation. This role for historical scholarship is not replicable by nonhistorical methods, and is not contingent on the presence of questionable assumptions, vestiges or comparable intuitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some video games are said to be philosophical. Despite video games having received some attention in academic philosophy, that contention has not been sufficiently addressed. This paper investigates in what sense video games might be properly called “philosophical”. To this end, I utilize Wittgenstein’s distinction between saying and showing to get into view how some video games might be properly called philosophical. This leads to two senses of being philosophical: a conventional sense of expressing philosophy through propositions, i.e., through saying, and a sense of being genuinely philosophical by expressing philosophical thought through showing. I argue that the conventional sense is not sufficient to call video games philosophical, leaving the question whether there are video games which satisfy the conditions of being genuinely philosophical. I furthermore contend that there are at least some examples of video games which qualify as being philosophical, e.g., Papers, Please and The Stanley Parable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reveals the pragmatic implications of Herman Cappelen's account of 'topics' in his contribution to the conceptual engineering literature. I show that Cappelen's introduction of the category of 'topics' serves the pragmatic goal of having a convenient handle to account for 'continuity in revision', and that his general insistence on 'continuity' is motivated morally and strategically. In asking what accounts for continuity, Cappelen's 'topics' are not defined by content or any other fixed set of rules or criteria. Topics are metaphysically lightweight and defined pragmatically and as we go: speakers talk about the same topic when we (and they) attribute that they do. But why should we do that? Why should we aim for continuity and why should we think it is possible in general? I contrast Cappelen's insistence on continuity with Rorty's appeal for discontinuity, and trace both of their positions back to their respective moral background assumptions and their assumptions about what communication is (and is for) and, in turn, what philosophy is (and is about). Further, I question the role the 'continuity' claim plays in the current redefinition of linguistic philosophy after the 'death of the linguistic turn'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conceptual engineering takes a distinctively normative and reconstructive approach to our conceptual repertoire. This approach is congenial to the ideas defended by philosophers belonging to the multifaceted tradition of American and Cambridge Pragmatism. This special issue is devoted to the investigation and development of these connections. Our introduction maps some of the historical and theoretical entanglements between the two fields and gives a short overview of the contributions to the special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pragmatists are interested primarily not in representing a purportedly unchanging Reality but in articulating prophetic future possibilities on the basis of the values most venerated by a culture/society in the present. This makes pragmatism sound a little like 'Conceptual Engineering'. Conceptual engineers too are interested in transforming our ways of talking, which implies some notion of how such improvements are to be evaluated. Nevertheless, this paper argues that accounts of conceptual engineering that regard it as key to the project of elucidating an externalist semantics find it difficult to accommodate on their own terms the problem-phenomena taken to be of shared interest: regions of discourse where the demand for change are at their most pressing culturally. This difficulty takes the form of what I call the Conceptual Engineering Dilemma (CED), an inability to accommodate simultaneously the ethical and ameliorative dimensions of contestation. I argue that acknowledging the formalist commitments that undergird CED should make pragmatism more appealing to the practically-orientated analytic philosopher and conclude with a brief survey of some of the tools that it makes available for the pressing work of changing minds for the better. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on Hector‐Neri Castañeda's significant contributions to metaphilosophy. In his 1980 work, On Philosophical Method, Castañeda articulates a unique perspective, characterizing philosophy as fundamentally a dia‐philosophical activity. By asserting the supremacy of synthesis over analysis within the metaphilosophical hierarchy, his account provides a purely theoretical defense of philosophical pluralism devoid of any relativistic inclinations. Despite Castañeda's enduring influence and profound impact on ongoing discussions in ontology, logic, and the philosophy of language, his metaphilosophical insights have largely been neglected. In the context of today's increasingly diverse philosophical landscape, this paper posits that Castañeda's pluralist metaphilosophy retains substantial theoretical relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reassesses the Cooper‐Hadot debate surrounding how students are converted to philosophy as a way of life (section 1) through engagement with philosophical protreptics. In section 2, the paper identifies the core "argument from finality" in philosophical protreptics seeking to convert non‐philosophers to philosophy, starting from the universal human interest in securing eudaimonia. In line with Cooper, this argument seeks to persuade prospective students on rational grounds, so that their choice to philosophise would be rationally motivated. In section 3.1, the paper illustrates how in Plato's Euthydemus (a) the choice to undertake philosophy is rationally justified by Socrates, using the eudaimonistic argument from finality. In section 3.2, by recourse to Aristotle's Protrepticus, the paper shows how the protreptic texts also compared philosophy to other intellectual pursuits, notably rhetoric, so as to recommend philosophy specifically for delivering a directive wisdom concerning how to live. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ethnophilosophy debate in African philosophy has been primarily concerned with the nature and future direction of African philosophy, but this paper approaches the debate in search of lessons about philosophy in general. The paper shows how this ongoing debate has been obscured by varying understandings of "ethnophilosophy" and that a de facto victory has long since transpired, since "ethnophilosophy," in the sense recommended here, is flourishing. The paper argues that the political arguments with which Hountondji and Wiredu initiated the debate in the 1970s supervene on the metaphilosophical view that ethnophilosophy, if philosophy at all, is of a poor standard. Showing that ethnophilosophy must indeed be philosophy, it argues that the critics' low opinions of it depend on unrealistic assumptions about how philosophy makes progress. The paper concludes that Africa is lucky to have ethnophilosophies and that the rest of the world should hope to develop some. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Annals of Philosophy / Roczniki Filozoficzne is the property of John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Faculty of Philosophy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Annals of Philosophy / Roczniki Filozoficzne is the property of John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Faculty of Philosophy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper develops an internal critique of Graham Oppy's metaphilosophy of religion – his theories of argumentation, worldview comparison, and epistemic justification. First, it presents Oppy's views and his main reasons in their favor. Second, it argues that Oppy is committed to two claims – that only truth-conducive reasons can justify philosophical belief and that such justification depends entirely on one's judgments about the theoretical virtues of comprehensive worldviews – that jointly entail the unacceptable conclusion that philosophical beliefs cannot be justified. Third, it briefly argues that of his two claims, it is his thoroughgoing coherentism that should be rejected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that, in order to understand Peter Winch's view of philosophy, it is profitable to read him together with R. G. Collingwood's philosophy of history. Collingwood was both an important source for Winch and a thinker engaged in a closely parallel philosophical pursuit. Collingwood and Winch shared the view that philosophy is an effort to understand the various ways in which human beings make reality intelligible. For both, this called for rapprochement between philosophy and the humanities. Like Collingwood, Winch wanted to reformulate philosophy as a form of human science. Both thinkers advanced a conception of logic where the validity of judgements, propositions, and thought are dependent on their function as instruments in human dialogue. In their treatments of logic, Winch and Collingwood were fleshing out their idea that questions concerning human meaningful behaviour also tie back to the question of what philosophical analysis is about. There is a deep connection between two main issues in both Collingwood's and Winch's writings: on the one hand, the need for 'internal' understanding of how human beings relate to reality, and on the other hand, their critique of the idea of logic as a self-sufficient system, external to historically embedded forms of life. At the core of their shared vision there was a comprehensive critique of metaphysical realism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a widespread agreement that Nietzsche has developed a kind of position or doctrine called 'perspectivism'. Scholars go on and develop metaphysical, semantic, epistemic, and psychobiological interpretations of the supposed Nietzschean perspectivism or even 'perspectivisms'. They engage in debates about whether this perspectivism is relativistic, realistic, or anti-realistic and what the tenets of perspectivism are. In this paper, I suggest putting an end to this practice. I examine Nietzsche's explicit mentions of the term 'perspectivism', the problems associated with the misunderstanding of this term as a label, attempts to reconstruct perspectivism based on explicit mentions of 'perspective' and related vocabulary, and doctrinal assumptions scholars try to connect with this terminology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are academic hoaxes, and what should we make of them? This paper argues that academic hoaxes are exercises in pretense, with a complex structure involving both a focal item and a self‐revealing dimension, all governed by attitudes about the relevant sort of academic work, that are derivative yet different from the attitudes found in normal participation in publication. Hoaxes done primarily for humorous purposes are unproblematic. Serious academic hoaxes are both inherently risky and poorly suited to accomplish their ends, making them an undesirable feature of the contemporary academic landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philosophers ponder on how to do philosophy and how to do it well. This pondering has divided metaphilosophers' concern about philosophical methodology into two groups, which we could label "pro‐history" and "pro‐intuition." The claim (and belief) of philosophers who are in the "pro‐history" group can be found in this sentence by Robert Pasnau (2011): "The discipline of philosophy benefits from a serious, sustained engagement with its history." Those in the "pro‐intuition" group believe that for philosophy not to slide into the realm of irrelevance it must rely on intuitions to make sense of our present ontologies, rather than study history of philosophy. This paper argues that both proponents of the pro‐history and those of the pro‐intuition approach are wrongheaded. It argues for what it calls protohistory. Protohistory here refers to the method of doing philosophy in which the intuitions of philosophers are informed by the history of philosophy (though not directly influenced by it but indirectly informed by it). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a reflection on the present state of philosophy in light of Husserl's crisis-concept. First, I will introduce a tentative classification of philosophical research areas, and stress the significance of philosophy of science for the present state of philosophy. Subsequently, I will use the phenomenological theory of science as a foil to illuminate some distinctive features of philosophy of science, and to argue that these features can be understood as a consequence of the fragmentation of philosophy. Finally, I will show that, drawing on transcendental phenomenology, it is possible to bring to the fore some fundamental shortcomings of philosophy of science. These shortcomings stem from its inability to address in a rigorous way the philosophical question of the being of the world, which is, nevertheless, inescapable for any radical investigation concerning its own object. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Araucaria is the property of Araucaria-Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofia, Politica y Humanidades and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Aufklärung: Revista de Filosofia is the property of Aufklarung: Revista de Filosofia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

For Kant, philosophical investigations are inherently analytic. The proper method of philosophy is analysis, and the object of analysis are concepts. Hence, Kant's short description of philosophy as "rational cognition [...] from concepts" (KrV, A 837/B 865) can be substituted by "philosophy is conceptual analysis". The article shows that Kant follows a representationalism about concepts and a combination of intensional and extensional feature semantics. Against the claim that Kant is a proponent of the concept-judgement-inversion, it is argued that concepts are being articulated in form of singular terms, propositions, and sets of propositions alike. Kant interlinks different kinds of concepts with different kinds of definitions, as the reconstruction of his theory of definitions reveals. Philosophy foremost deals with what Kant calls 'given' empirical and pure concepts. Such concepts are object of analysis, i.e., explication and exposition. The article ends with answers to five possible objections. Is philosophy all about analysis? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Michel Foucault (1926-1984), a French postmodern philosopher, has reflected on the nature of philosophy and its relationship with modernity in his various books. This article is based on the contemporary controversies about the nature and destiny of philosophy that have been raised under the literature of "metaphilosophy" since the 1970s and by referring to Foucault's key Ideas such as the order of things, the Archeologydg of knowlee, the history of sexuality, power-knowledge. And …. to Analyise the relationships of Foucault's understanding of philosophy (Foucault's metaphilosophy) in connection with his reading of humanism as the foundation of modernity. What in Foucault's opinion is the link between metaphilosophy and modernity is Foucault's theoretical effort in expanding and deepening the intellectual literature of "anti-humanism" in the tradition of continental philosophy.

There is a growing interest in both Kant’s conception of philosophy and contemporary metaphilosophy, understood as philosophical inquiry into philosophy, its aims, purpose, subjects, structure, practice and methods. Kant has not contributed to metaphilosophy qua contemporary discipline, but his direct analyses of what philosophy is and how it is to be done can be identified with general subjects and problems constituting the research field of metaphilosophy. Several aspects of Kant’s conception of philosophy and its metaphilosophical value are the subject of current debates, such as the taxonomy of philosophy, relation between empirical and non-empirical philosophy, relation between philosophy and its history, conceptual analysis, deductive reasoning and philosophical disagreement.

Kant’s metaphilosophy has three main parts: (1) an essentialist project (“What is philosophy?”); (2) a methodological project (“How do we do philosophy?”); and (3) a taxonomic project (“What are the different parts of philosophy, and how are they related?”). This paper focuses on the third project. In particular, it explores one of the most intriguing yet puzzling aspects of Kant’s philosophy, viz. the relationship between what Kant calls ‘pure’ philosophy vs. ‘applied’, ‘empirical’ or what we can broadly refer to as ‘impure’ philosophy. (As we shall see, in order to be able to address this third project, we shall also need to examine the other two projects in detail.) My plan is as follows. First, I discuss four main areas of pure vs. impure philosophy: (i) ‘pure logic’ vs. ‘applied logic’; (ii) ‘rational psychology’ vs. ‘empirical psychology’; (iii) ‘pure metaphysics of nature’ vs. ‘physics’ and (iv) ‘pure morality’ or a ‘metaphysics of morals’ vs. ‘moral anthropology’, ‘practical anthropology’ or ‘applied moral philosophy’. Based on this, I identify four key differences between pure and impure philosophy. Second, I critically examine four different readings of Kant’s views about the status of ‘impure’ philosophy: (a) that it is not genuine philosophy; (b) that it is bad or inferior philosophy; (c) that it is instrumentally valuable; and (d) that it constitutes an indispensable part of Kant’s philosophy, both in a theoretical and practical sense. I argue that Kant is best interpreted as endorsing readings (c) and (d). Third, I offer some concluding remarks.

In the current dialogue between two authors with different views on analysis, philosophy, and the use of labels, the leading question is: How should one understand the expression ‘analytic philosophy’? Lewin argues that as there are no generally agreed tenets and methods of what is being called ‘analytic philosophy’, the name is to be replaced by a more specific one or abandoned. Williamson defends the use of this phrase, claiming that it is quite serviceable, as it relates to a broad tradition of influence, while it is not even required to adhere to the method of analysis in any distinctive sense. Lewin counters that, in this case, ‘analytic philosophy’ is too empty. One could heal this by conceptual analysis of ‘analytic philosophy’ — but then Kant, for whom philosophy is inherently analytic, would be a proponent of analytic philosophy. Another option is to follow Ryle’s ideal of a label-free, coherent and honest thinking. As Lewin argues, Williamson’s views seem at least partially to agree with Kant’s conception of the difference between philosophy and history of philosophy as well as empirical analysis and the underlying empirical realism. Williamson replies that he uses ‘analytic philosophy’ in its current meaning, which is not composed of the meanings of ‘analytic’ and ‘philosophy’. The current use is different from the earlier ones and not applicable to Kant. He argues against the transcendental idealism and the coarse-grained distinction between analytic and synthetic and a priori and a posteriori that requires an update.

My aim is to reconstruct the basic steps and the fundamental idea of Kant’s transcendental deduction of categories as well as Hegel’s interpretation and reframing of Kant’s idea. Hegel’s reading is crucial for two reasons: first, for fixing the basic form of the Kant­ian argument and secondly, for understanding its metaphilosophical relevance. For Hegel, philosophical proof has a specific nature, which distinguishes it from scientific proof and brings it closer to a juridical one. In this perspective the transcendental deduction, which is universally considered one of the most difficult chapters in the history of philosophy, reveals itself as the genuine clarification of specifically philosophical proof. I first present the idea of Kant’s transcendental deduction in the Critique of Pure Reason as well as its Hegelian reading in the Science of Logic and reformulation as the very method of philosophy in the Philo­sophy of Right. I show what in the Kantian argumentation constituted the basis for Hegel’s own interpretation and transformation. In so doing, I highlight a ‘red thread’ between the two ideas of the transcendental deduction. I conclude by proposing a formal account of Kant’s and Hegel’s ideas and by summing up the main metaphilosophical insights we can gain from Kant’s idea and its Hegelian interpretation.

Throughout history, both philosophers and non-philosophers have doubted that philosophical positions qua philosophical positions are justified and that philosophy is a rational enterprise. Today, such doubts are grouped under the term “Metaphilosophical Skepticism”. Nicholas Rescher, in his book Strife of Systems, includes Kant among the proponents of this kind of skepticism. I want to argue that while Rescher is wrong, Kant has con­tributed to a new version of such skepticism. In the first step, I characterize the basic idea of metaphilosophical skepticism in more detail and identify a version of this idea, which I call “Second-Stage-Skepticism” and on which I will focus. In the following part, I reconstruct Rescher’s reading of Second-Stage-Skepticism as well as his reasons for considering Kant to represent this version. My main claim in this part will be that there is no reading of the mentioned basic idea that makes Rescher’s view reasonable. In the third step, I introduce a newer form of metaphilosophical skepticism — “Third-Stage Skepticism” — and conjecture that this form can be seen as inspired by Kant’s thought on philosophical diversity. Finally, I point out a way to reject this newer form.

There are many pragmatisms, and it is a little misleading to present this variegated trend of thought as if it were a monolithic doctrine. The founding fathers, too, were all but unanimous. Peirce was not in agreement with James on many issues. Dewey, in turn, did not like various aspects of both Peirce’s and James’ philosophy, while C.I. Lewis’ views on logic were quite different from those held by Dewey. It should not be surprising, then, to find the same amount of disagreement in contemporary neo-pragmatism, where Rescher and Rorty, who both define themselves pragmatists, display different opinions on most subjects. I shall draw some comparisons between the ideas of these two thinkers.

Even if we deny any kind of exceptionalism to philosophy as an intellectual enterprise (see Williamson, 2007), it seems easy to concede that, at least concerning relations with its own history, philosophy is different from other fields of knowledge (see Williamson, 2018). However, questions regarding the scope, role and validity of the history of philosophy for philosophical activity are as old as philosophy itself, as well as becoming relevant in the so-called "parting of ways" between analytic and hermeneutic phenomenological trends. However, it is possible to say that, at least since the second half of the last century, we have seen an important inflection about the place and importance of the history of philosophy in contemporary philosophy: both because of the "historical turn" in analytical philosophy, with works by Strawson, Sellars and, more recently, Brandom, serving as good examples of such a movement, and due to the recently renewed interest in questions of metaphilosophy. An example of this second movement is the debate between the so-called appropriationists and contextualists. Hence, this paper sets out to analyze the two main arguments against rational reconstructions - the GTRC and the causation of anachronism - and offer a defense of an inferentialist approach to the history of philosophy, based on Robert Brandom’s work, which is simultaneously open to certain contextualism, as well as establishing parameters for rational reconstructions.

Although Rorty's work has become a touchstone for evaluating the metaphilosophical stance appropriate for pragmatism, the suspicion prevails that his 'neopragmatism' (NeoP) is undermined by a failure to take first-order philosophical problems seriously. We propose that this imputation is grounded in the assumption that he attempts to distinguish metaphilosophy from philosophy in order to insulate the former from the latter, and against it argue that pragmatism's experimental attitude towards inquiry entails that there is and can be no such separation. We go on to suggest that philosophers such as Misak who define their 'new pragmatist' (NewP) position partly in opposition to Rorty's, insist on this separation because they feel themselves answerable to some 'transcendental' urge. The conviction that to reject that urge is to reject the calling of philosophy itself is manifest in the debate between NeoP and NewP on the role of truth-talk. We argue that acceding to this urge prevents us from taking philosophy seriously, and by extension from taking Rorty's contribution to philosophy in like fashion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critiques the semantics-driven approach to conceptual engineering presented in Herman Cappelen's recent book, Fixing Language. I focus on three core aspects of Cappelen's 'Austerity Framework': first, the claim that conceptual engineering targets the meanings of linguistic expressions (rather than concepts); second, the claim that the linguistic phenomenon of 'samesaying' fixes the limits of permissible revision; and third, the claim that the process of conceptual engineering is largely both outside of our control and epistemically inaccessible to us. I contrast the Austerity Framework with my own proposal, which I call the 'Practical Role Account'. The Practical Role Account disavows a substantial role for metasemantics in a theory of conceptual engineering; I argue that it consequently both offers a more inclusive view on the limits of revision, and places the process of conceptual engineering back within our control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Michel Foucault (1926-1984), a French postmodern philosopher, has reflected on the nature of philosophy and its relationship with modernity in his various books. This article is based on the contemporary controversies about the nature and destiny of philosophy that have been raised under the literature of "metaphilosophy" since the 1970s and by referring to Foucault's key Ideas such as the order of things, the Archeologydg of knowlee, the history of sexuality, power-knowledge. And .... to analyise the relationships of Foucault's understanding of philosophy (Foucault's metaphilosophy) in connection with his reading of humanism as the foundation of modernity. What in Foucault's opinion is the link between metaphilosophy and modernity is Foucault's theoretical effort in expanding and deepening the intellectual literature of "anti-humanism" in the tradition of continental philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]