Talk:Metaphilosophy

Post-philosophy

As pointed out earlier on this talk page, the term post-philosophy as used by Joll has not been explained in Metaphilosophy so a sentence using this word is not clear. Joll uses the term Post-Analytic Philosophy to refer to some current opinions due to Richard Rorty; Hilary Putnam; Robert Brandom; John McDowell and Stanley Cavell. If this is the topic to be designated by post-philosophy, it clearly needs a separate section as done by Joll in his article.

On the other hand, Joll also refers to post-philosophy as follows. In the section Defining metaphilosophy he says:

"A different definition of metaphilosophy exploits the fact that ‘meta’ can mean not only about but also after. On this definition, metaphilosophy is post-philosophy. Sometimes Lazerowitz himself used ‘metaphilosophy’ in that way. What he had in mind here, more particularly, is the ‘special kind of investigation which Wittgenstein had described as one of the “heirs” of philosophy’ (Lazerowitz 1970). Some French philosophers have used the term similarly, though with reference to Heidegger and/or Marx rather than to Wittgenstein (Elden 2004: 83)."

This remark is followed later by the remark:

"The equation of metaphilosophy and post-philosophy is narrow and tendentious"

in which I take "the equation of" to mean simply "equating". What is meant by the 'heirs' of philosophy? Unfortunately Lazerowitz is not available without subscription. However, we have this:

“In his Blue Book (1958) he [Wittgenstein] referred to his own work as "one of the heirs of the subject that used to be called philosophy".

Wittgenstein felt that previous philosophers had tied themselves in knots by asking the wrong sorts of questions. They thought philosophical problems were to do with understanding the nature of the world but Wittgenstein thought they were all problems of language. Sort language out and you could knock philosophy on the head.”

Basically the Wittgenstein reference by Joll appears to refer to the ideas of Wittgenstein that the philosophy extant before his contributions was now "dead", and the new era of "post"-philosophy had begun. Some call this Wittgenstein's "antiphilosophy".

Joll's reference to Elden (Understanding Henri Lefebvre) refers to "Heidegger's fundamental ontology - the project of Being and Time - but closer to his later thought of the Uberwinden, the overcoming of metaphysics. A quote from Lefebvre reads:

"The transition from philosophy to meta-philosophy has been going on for more than a century....that is works... which are already no longer philosophical in the classic sense. (Frankfurt school, Lukács, Heidegger, Axelos, etc.)"

Elton goes on to say: "Lefebvre's notion of metaphilosophy seeks to remedy this: "it answers the question of the philosophers and yet it is no longer philosophy."

Apparently then, metaphilosophy in the sense of post-philosophy by Joll is meant to refer to the notion of meta in the sense of a theory replacing philosophy, a metatheory, a discipline over and above philosophy itself. Brews ohare (talk) 12:02, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Our role is to summarise, not simply quote or synthesis. The article is available in the reference for those who want to do further. I know you like this article, but it is one of several sources and they need to be given equal weight. In particular we cannot state that Joll summarises the situation as that implies his summary has more authority than the others. ----Snowded ^TALK 06:00, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Snowded: In your latest reformation of what Joll has to say you end with the sentence

" He further suggests that 'meta' may be used in the sense of "post-philosophy" "

Now, above is given a very long assessment of the sources Joll invokes along with his use of the term "post-philosophy". The conclusion I draw from looking at this material rather carefully is as you have stated here. However, I fail to grasp what possible use can be ascribed to your sentence in view of there being absolutely no discussion of what "post-philosophy" means in the article. Why do you want to drop this sentence out of nowhere into the article? I simply took it out. Brews ohare (talk) 12:27, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Removal of my 'unsupported opinion'

In this edit Snowded removed the following remark:

"Metaphilosophy is intent upon providing an overview and evaluation of methods philosophy-wide, and is not intent upon taking over the various schools of thought in various sub-disciplines."

His reason is given as: rv unreferenced personal opinion.

It's fair to say the removed statement is unreferenced, but to suggest that it is simply a "personal opinion" needing further support is ludicrous. There is no philosopher that would disagree with this remark, as is fully evident from the few sentences (fully sourced) that precede it in the lead. Its purpose here is very simply to underline the fact that meta-philosophy is not to be confused with philosophy proper and its classical sub-fields, a confusion that can result from skimming over the introduction, as shown by some confusion expressed in the RfC underway on Talk:Philosophy here. Brews ohare (talk) 00:17, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Can you say what it would mean for metaphilosophy to take over certain schools of thought in sub-disciplines? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:22, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

SlimVirgin: That's an interesting question. I suppose if it were to happen that careful examination of the methods of philosophy demonstrated some problems of methodology in some sub-field, that would provoke a revolution in that area. It wouldn't be a take-over, exactly. More like reinforcing old buildings so they were more earthquake resistant. What do you think? Brews ohare (talk) 00:49, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

If its self-evident why say it? No one is claiming the negative intent and there is no literature to support it. ----Snowded ^TALK 11:33, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Simple questions

The following paragraph seems to capture the idea of 'metaphilosophy' rather simply for the average (non-philosophical) reader:

"What is philosophy? How should we do it? Why should we bother to? These are the kinds of questions addressed by metaphilosophy - the philosophical study of the nature of philosophy itself."

I suggest it be added somewhere in the introduction as an easier and less dry approach to the subject that makes clear what 'mataphilosophy' is about. It is similar to the introduction to the article Contemporary Metaphilosophy, which begins:

What is philosophy? What is philosophy for? How should philosophy be done? .

This choice indicates that Nicholas Joll also thinks this is a good approach for an introduction. Brews ohare (talk) 16:59, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I think that could make a very good quote to include after the lede. --Pfhorrest (talk) 23:08, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

"Or, worst of all: 'What is philosophy?' Most students and practitioners of philosophy, we suspect, have felt something of the unease Ayer expresses in this quote... Indeed, this conception of philosophers and philosophy has long been lampooned... That people have misconceptions about what philosophy is and what philosophers do is not peculiar to Philosophy. Some people don’t know ... about the astronomer’s profession. What may be peculiar to philosophy, however, is its practitioners’ feeling that the request for clarification is, as Ayer puts it, the ‘worst of all’ — worse than the common misunderstandings... The astronomer might well become irritated by requests for horoscopes, but, again, he will hardly experience the embarrassment so well known to the philosopher... It is no easy matter to explain what we do... it isn't obviously the case that there is a particular region of objects... that philosophers make it their special business to study... what philosophers actually do seems hard to communicate expect by getting people to do some philosophising themselves... Partly, however, our embarrassment at the question of what we do may also reflect the fact that, to put this a bit provocatively, we do not know."

— Overgaard, Gilbert and Burwood, An Introduction to Metaphilosophy

It was reverted for belaboring "the investigation of the nature of philosophy". Readers asking "What is philosophy?" should see the philosophy article... Those who are asking "what it is to ask what philosophy is" are the target audience, i.e. "the average (non-philosophical) reader".—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 07:40, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

MachineElf: There are three views of what metaphilosophy is, all documented in the WP article and in Contemporary Metaphilosophy. There is the school to which apparently you subscribe that metaphilosophy is the metatheory of philosophy. That position, while not denied, is labeled "narrow and tendentious". The second position held by Heidegger and by Williamson among others, is that there is no metaphilosophy, only the 'philosophy of philosophy', part of philosophy. The term 'philosophy of philosophy' is mentioned in the lead to metaphilosophy. The third position, taken to be that of Lazerowitz who coined the term (according to him), is that metaphilosophy encompasses both these views and advantages itself by straying back and forth over this boundary as the discussion requires. With this latter more general view of the subject, the musings over ‘What is philosophy? How should we do it? Why should we bother to?’ are within the scope of metaphilosophy, as explained in detail in the article and in Contemporary Metaphilosophy and, of course, in the Cambridge University Press's concept of An Introduction to Metaphilosophy. Brews ohare (talk) 14:07, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

To push this point a bit further, given the general approach of the article, and the misconceptions of its content that apparently are possible given the present lead, it would be salutary to include these questions in the lead to make the meaning more obvious to the casual reader. Brews ohare (talk) 14:20, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I've added two sources to the lead that might make the matter clearer. Brews ohare (talk) 18:52, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Further reading

• Hampl M., (2000) Reality, Society and Geographical/Environmental Organization: Searching for an Integrated Order, Prague: Charles University, Faculty of Science, ISBN 80-902686-2-5

62.168.13.98 (talk) 14:22, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

/*/*description consensus needed*/*/

-Just found this Metaphilosophy article in Wikipedia; (editors) could change the first two "philosophy" descriptions in this Metaphilosophy article and the Philosophy article, and make them the same-please, thanks...Arnlodg (talk) 22:31, 22 March 2019 (UTC)