Progress in Philosophy

American Philosophical Quarterly 23 (1):35 - 46 (1986)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The work is an attempt to answer the transcendental question, "How is progress in philosophy possible?" The character of philosophical beliefs and doubts is examined, and it is argued that in the exigent context of philosophical practice in the agonistic analytic tradition, a certain limited doxastic voluntarism is possible. The role of both ordinary and ideal language intuitions is criticized; it is concluded that these cannot serve as uncontroversial pretheoretical givens of inquiry. As an extended example of the covert adoption of strategies of prescriptive idealization, several theories of meaning are reviewed. A model of philosophical inquiry based upon the notion of transcendental arguments is profferred. This is derived from both Kantian and Peircean antecedents, via the synthesizing efforts of Karl-Otto Apel. Finally, three senses of "progress" are distinguished and several alternative models of philosophical inquiry are assessed in the light of these distinctions. It is concluded that the sort of progress appropriate to philosophy, seen collectively, is non-terminating and non-decidable, relying upon negative consensus generating mechanisms, thus assuring perpetual pluralism.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

On Progress in Philosophy.Vladimir V. Mironov - 2013 - Metaphilosophy 44 (1-2):10-14.
Achieving Moral Progress Despite Moral Regress.Ben Dixon - 2005 - Social Philosophy Today 21:157-172.
Gomte and the idea of progress.Leslie Sklair - 1968 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 11 (1-4):321 – 331.
There Is No Progress in Philosophy.Eric Dietrich - 2011 - Essays in Philosophy 12 (2):9.
Progress as a demarcation criterion for the sciences.Paul M. Quay - 1974 - Philosophy of Science 41 (2):154-170.
Consciousness and complexity.Todd C. Moody - 2003 - Progress in Information, Complexity, and Design 2 (3).
Progress: Metaphysical and otherwise.Robert Wachbroit - 1986 - Philosophy of Science 53 (3):354-371.
Lacunae, empirical progress and semantic tableaux.Atocha Aliseda - 2005 - Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 83 (1):169-189.
Unsolvable Problems and Philosophical Progress.William J. Rapaport - 1982 - American Philosophical Quarterly 19 (4):289 - 298.
N-rays and the semantic view of scientific progress.Darrell Patrick Rowbottom - 2008 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 39 (2):277-278.

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-05-29

Downloads
75 (#201,018)

6 months
8 (#158,054)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Todd Moody
Saint Joseph's University of Pennsylvania

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references