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Metaphilosophy, sometimes called the philosophy of philosophy, is "the investigation of the nature of
philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...
". Its subject matter includes the aims of philosophy, the boundaries of philosophy, and its methods. Thus, while philosophy characteristically inquires into the nature of being, the reality of objects, the possibility of knowledge, the nature of truth, and so on, metaphilosophy is the self-reflective inquiry into the nature, aims, and methods of the activity that makes these kinds of inquiries, by asking what ''is'' philosophy itself, what sorts of questions it should ask, how it might pose and answer them, and what it can achieve in doing so. It is considered by some to be a subject prior and preparatory to philosophy,See for example, while others see it as inherently a part of philosophy, or automatically a part of philosophy while others adopt some combination of these views. The interest in metaphilosophy led to the establishment of the journal ''
Metaphilosophy Metaphilosophy, sometimes called the philosophy of philosophy, is "the investigation of the nature of philosophy". Its subject matter includes the aims of philosophy, the boundaries of philosophy, and its methods. Thus, while philosophy character ...
'' in January 1970. The journa
describes its scope
as: "Particular areas of interest include: the foundation, scope, function and direction of philosophy; justification of philosophical methods and arguments; the interrelations among schools or fields of philosophy (for example, the relation of logic to problems in ethics or epistemology); aspects of philosophical systems; presuppositions of philosophical schools; the relation of philosophy to other disciplines (for example, artificial intelligence, linguistics or literature); sociology of philosophy; the relevance of philosophy to social and political action; issues in the teaching of philosophy."
Many sub-disciplines of philosophy have their own branch of 'metaphilosophy', examples being meta-aesthetics,
meta-epistemology Metaepistemology is the branch of epistemology and metaphilosophy that studies the underlying assumptions made in debates in epistemology, including those concerning the existence and authority of epistemic facts and reasons, the nature and aim ...
,
meta-ethics In metaphilosophy and ethics, meta-ethics is the study of the nature, scope, and meaning of moral judgment. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ethics (questions of how one ou ...
, and
metametaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
(
meta-ontology Meta-ontology is the study of the field of inquiry known as Ontology. The goal of meta-ontology is to clarify what ontology is about and how to interpret the meaning of ontological claims. Different meta-ontological theories disagree on what the go ...
). Although the ''term'' metaphilosophy and explicit attention to metaphilosophy as a specific domain within philosophy arose in the 20th century, the topic is likely as old as philosophy itself, and can be traced back at least as far as the works of
Ancient Greeks Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...
and Ancient Indian Nyaya.


Relationship to philosophy

Some philosophers consider metaphilosophy to be a subject apart from philosophy, above or beyond it, while others object to that idea.
Timothy Williamson Timothy Williamson (born 1955) is a British philosopher whose main research interests are in philosophical logic, philosophy of language, epistemology and metaphysics. He is the Wykeham Professor of Logic at the University of Oxford, and fe ...
argues that the philosophy of philosophy is "automatically part of philosophy", as is the philosophy of anything else. Nicholas Bunnin and Jiyuan Yu write that the separation of first- from second-order study has lost popularity as philosophers find it hard to observe the distinction. As evidenced by these contrasting opinions, debate persists as to whether the evaluation of the nature of philosophy is 'second-order philosophy' or simply 'plain philosophy'. Many philosophers have expressed doubts over the value of metaphilosophy. Among them is
Gilbert Ryle Gilbert Ryle (19 August 1900 – 6 October 1976) was a British philosopher, principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the phrase "ghost in the machine." He was a representative of the generation of British ord ...
: "preoccupation with questions about methods tends to distract us from prosecuting the methods themselves. We run as a rule, worse, not better, if we think a lot about our feet. So let us ... not speak of it all but just do it." Quoted by


Terminology

The designations ''metaphilosophy'' and ''philosophy of philosophy'' have a variety of meanings, sometimes taken to be synonyms, and sometimes seen as distinct. Morris Lazerowitz claims to have coined the term 'metaphilosophy' around 1940 and used it in print in 1942. see also the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy article by Nicholas Joll
Contemporary Metaphilosophy
/ref> Lazerowitz proposed that metaphilosophy is 'the investigation of the nature of philosophy'. Earlier uses have been found in translations from French. The term is derived from
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
word '' meta'' μετά ("after", "beyond", "with") and '' philosophía'' φιλοσοφία ("love of wisdom"). The term 'metaphilosophy' is used by Paul Moser in the sense of a 'second-order' or more fundamental undertaking than philosophy itself, in the manner suggested by Charles Griswold: This usage was considered nonsense by
Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is con ...
, who rejected the analogy between metalanguage and a metaphilosophy. As expressed by Martin Heidegger: Some other philosophers treat the prefix '' meta'' as simply meaning '''about...''', rather than as referring to a metatheoretical 'second-order' form of philosophy, among them Rescher and Double. Others, such as Williamson, prefer the term '''philosophy of philosophy instead of 'metaphilosophy' as it avoids the connotation of a 'second-order' discipline that looks down on philosophy, and instead denotes something that is a part of it. Joll suggests that to take metaphilosophy as 'the application of the methods of philosophy to philosophy itself' is too vague, while the view that sees metaphilosophy as a 'second-order' or more abstract discipline, outside philosophy, "is narrow and tendentious". In the analytical tradition, the term "metaphilosophy" is mostly used to tag commenting and research on previous works as opposed to original contributions towards solving
philosophical problems This is a list of some of the major unsolved problems in philosophy. Philosophy of language Counterfactuals A counterfactual statement is a conditional statement with a false antecedent. For example, the statement "If Joseph Swan had not inve ...
.


Writings

Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is con ...
wrote about the nature of philosophical puzzles and philosophical understanding. He suggested philosophical errors arose from confusions about the nature of philosophical inquiry. In the ''
Philosophical Investigations ''Philosophical Investigations'' (german: Philosophische Untersuchungen) is a work by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, published posthumously in 1953. ''Philosophical Investigations'' is divided into two parts, consisting of what Wittgens ...
'', Wittgenstein wrote that there is not a metaphilosophy in the sense of a
metatheory A metatheory or meta-theory is a theory whose subject matter is theory itself, aiming to describe existing theory in a systematic way. In mathematics and mathematical logic, a metatheory is a mathematical theory about another mathematical theory. ...
of philosophy.
C. D. Broad Charlie Dunbar Broad (30 December 1887 – 11 March 1971), usually cited as C. D. Broad, was an English people, English epistemology, epistemologist, history of philosophy, historian of philosophy, philosophy of science, philosopher of sc ...
distinguished Critical from Speculative philosophy in his "The Subject-matter of Philosophy, and its Relations to the special Sciences," in ''Introduction to Scientific Thought'', 1923. Curt Ducasse, in ''Philosophy as a Science'', examines several views of the nature of philosophy, and concludes that philosophy has a distinct subject matter: appraisals. Ducasse's view has been among the first to be described as 'metaphilosophy'.
Henri Lefebvre Henri Lefebvre ( , ; 16 June 1901 – 29 June 1991) was a French Marxist philosopher and sociologist, best known for pioneering the critique of everyday life, for introducing the concepts of the right to the city and the production of s ...
in ''Métaphilosophie'' (1965) argued, from a Marxian standpoint, in favor of an "ontological break", as a necessary methodological approach for critical social theory (whilst criticizing Louis Althusser's "epistemological break" with subjective Marxism, which represented a fundamental theoretical tool for the school of Marxist structuralism). Paul Moser writes that typical metaphilosophical discussion includes determining the conditions under which a claim can be said to be a philosophical one. He regards
meta-ethics In metaphilosophy and ethics, meta-ethics is the study of the nature, scope, and meaning of moral judgment. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ethics (questions of how one ou ...
, the study of
ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concer ...
, to be a form of metaphilosophy, as well as
meta-epistemology Metaepistemology is the branch of epistemology and metaphilosophy that studies the underlying assumptions made in debates in epistemology, including those concerning the existence and authority of epistemic facts and reasons, the nature and aim ...
, the study of
epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epis ...
.


Topics

Many sub-disciplines of philosophy have their own branch of 'metaphilosophy'. However, some topics within 'metaphilosophy' cut across the various subdivisions of philosophy to consider fundamentals important to all its sub-disciplines. Some of these are mentioned below. * Cognitivity * Systematicity * Methodology * Historicity * Self-reference and Self-application * Immanence and non-immanence * Disagreement and diversity * Primacy of the practical * Philosophy good and bad * Philosophy and expertise * Ends of philosophy * Death of philosophy * Anti-philosophies * Philosophy and assertion * Philosophy and exposition * Philosophy and style * Philosophy as literature * Literature as philosophy * Philosophical beauty * Philosophy as science * Philosophy and related fields and activities * Philosophy and argument * Philosophy and wisdom * Philosophy and metaphilosophy * Philosophy and the folk * Philosophy and 'primitive' life * Philosophy and philosophers * Philosophy and pedagogy


Aims

Some philosophers (e.g.
existentialists Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and valu ...
, pragmatists) think philosophy is ultimately a practical discipline that should help us lead meaningful lives by showing us who we are, how we relate to the world around us and what we should do. Others (e.g.
analytic philosophers Analytic philosophy is a branch and tradition of philosophy using analysis, popular in the Western world and particularly the Anglosphere, which began around the turn of the 20th century in the contemporary era in the United Kingdom, United Sta ...
) see philosophy as a technical, formal, and entirely theoretical discipline, with goals such as "the disinterested pursuit of knowledge for its own sake".''Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy'' (2005) Other proposed goals of philosophy include discovering the absolutely fundamental reason of everything it investigates, making explicit the nature and significance of ordinary and scientific beliefs, and unifying and transcending the insights given by science and religion.''Mastering Philosophy'' by Anthony Harrison-Barbet (1990) Others proposed that philosophy is a complex discipline because it has 4 or 6 different dimensions.


Boundaries

Defining philosophy and its boundaries is itself problematic;
Nigel Warburton Nigel Warburton (; born 1962) is a British philosopher. He is best known as a populariser of philosophy, having written a number of books in the genre, but he has also written academic works in aesthetics and applied ethics. Education Warburton r ...
has called it "notoriously difficult". There is no straightforward definition, and most interesting definitions are controversial. As
Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...
wrote: While there is some agreement that philosophy involves general or fundamental topics, there is no clear agreement about a series of demarcation issues, including: *that between first-order and second-order investigations. Some authors say that philosophical inquiry is second-order, having concepts, theories and presupposition as its subject matter; that it is "thinking about thinking", of a "generally second-order character"; that philosophers study, rather than use, the concepts that structure our thinking. However, the ''
Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy ''The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy'' (1994; second edition 2008; third edition 2016) is a dictionary of philosophy by the philosopher Simon Blackburn, published by Oxford University Press. References * Blackburn, Simon (0052008), 2nd rev. ...
'' warns that "the borderline between such 'second-order' reflection, and ways of practicing the first-order discipline itself, is not always clear: philosophical problems may be tamed by the advance of a discipline, and the conduct of a discipline may be swayed by philosophical reflection". *that between philosophy and
empirical science In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empiri ...
. Some argue that philosophy is distinct from science in that its questions cannot be answered empirically, that is, by observation or experiment. Some analytical philosophers argue that all meaningful empirical questions are to be answered by science, not philosophy. However, some schools of contemporary philosophy such as the pragmatists and naturalistic epistemologists argue that philosophy should be linked to science and should be scientific in the broad sense of that term, "preferring to see philosophical reflection as continuous with the best practice of any field of intellectual enquiry". *that between philosophy and
religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
. Some argue that philosophy is distinct from religion in that it allows no place for faith or
revelation In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing of some form of truth or knowledge through communication with a deity or other supernatural entity or entities. Background Inspiration – such as that bestowed by God on the ...
: that philosophy does not try to answer questions by appeal to revelation, myth or religious knowledge of any kind, but uses reason, without reference to sensible observation and experiments". However, philosophers and theologians such as
Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known wit ...
and
Peter Damian Peter Damian ( la, Petrus Damianus; it, Pietro or ';  – 21 or 22 February 1072 or 1073) was a reforming Benedictine monk and cardinal in the circle of Pope Leo IX. Dante placed him in one of the highest circles of '' Paradiso'' ...
have argued that philosophy is the "handmaiden of theology" (''ancilla theologiae'').


Methods

Philosophical method (or philosophical methodology) is the study of how to do philosophy. A common view among philosophers is that philosophy is distinguished by the ways that philosophers follow in addressing philosophical questions. There is not just one method that philosophers use to answer philosophical questions. Recently, some philosophers have cast doubt about intuition as a basic tool in philosophical inquiry, from Socrates up to contemporary philosophy of language. In ''Rethinking Intuition'' various thinkers discard intuition as a valid source of knowledge and thereby call into question 'a priori' philosophy.
Experimental philosophy Experimental philosophy is an emerging field of philosophical inquiry Edmonds, David and Warburton, NigelPhilosophy’s great experiment, ''Prospect'', March 1, 2009 that makes use of empirical data—often gathered through surveys which probe ...
is a form of philosophical inquiry that makes at least partial use of
empirical research Empirical research is research using empirical evidence. It is also a way of gaining knowledge by means of direct and indirect observation or experience. Empiricism values some research more than other kinds. Empirical evidence (the record of ...
—especially ''
opinion polling An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll (although strictly a poll is an actual election) is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions ...
''—in order to address persistent philosophical questions. This is in contrast with the methods found in analytic philosophy, whereby some say a philosopher will sometimes begin by appealing to his or her intuitions on an issue and then form an argument with those intuitions as
premise A premise or premiss is a true or false statement that helps form the body of an argument, which logically leads to a true or false conclusion. A premise makes a declarative statement about its subject matter which enables a reader to either agre ...
s. However, disagreement about what experimental philosophy can accomplish is widespread and several philosophers have offered criticisms. One claim is that the empirical data gathered by experimental philosophers can have an indirect effect on philosophical questions by allowing for a better understanding of the underlying psychological processes which lead to philosophical intuitions. Some analytic philosophers like Timothy Williamson have rejected such a move against 'armchair' philosophy–i.e., philosophical inquiry that is undergirded by intuition–by construing 'intuition' (which they believe to be a misnomer) as merely referring to common cognitive faculties: If one is calling into question 'intuition', one is, they would say, harboring a skeptical attitude towards common cognitive faculties–a consequence that seems philosophically unappealing. For Williamson, instances of intuition are instances of our cognitive faculties processing counterfactuals (or subjunctive conditionals) that are specific to the thought experiment or example in question.


Progress

A prominent question in metaphilosophy is that of whether or not philosophical progress occurs and more so, whether such progress in philosophy is even possible. It has even been disputed, most notably by
Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is con ...
, whether genuine philosophical problems actually exist. The opposite has also been claimed, for example by Karl Popper, who held that such problems do exist, that they are solvable, and that he had actually found definite solutions to some of them.
David Chalmers David John Chalmers (; born 20 April 1966) is an Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist specializing in the areas of philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. He is a professor of philosophy and neural science at New York Univers ...
divides inquiry into philosophical progress in metaphilosophy into three questions. #The Existence Question: is there progress in philosophy? #The Comparison Question: is there as much progress in philosophy as in science? #The Explanation Question: why isn't there more progress in philosophy?


See also

* Antiphilosophy * Metacognition *
Metatheory A metatheory or meta-theory is a theory whose subject matter is theory itself, aiming to describe existing theory in a systematic way. In mathematics and mathematical logic, a metatheory is a mathematical theory about another mathematical theory. ...
*
Meta-knowledge Meta-knowledge or metaknowledge is knowledge about knowledge. Some authors divide meta-knowledge into orders: * ''zero order meta-knowledge'' is knowledge whose domain is not knowledge (and hence zero order meta-knowledge is not meta-knowledge ''p ...
*
Metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
*
Metapolitics Metapolitics (sometimes written meta-politics) is metalinguistic talk about politics; a political dialogue about politics itself. In this mode, metapolitics takes on various forms of inquiry, appropriating to itself another way toward the discourse ...
*
Metasemantics In the philosophy of language and metaphysics, metasemantics is the study of the foundations of natural language semantics (the philosophical study of meaning). Metasemantics searches for "the proper understanding of compositionality, the object o ...
*
Non-philosophy Non-philosophy (French: non-philosophie) is a concept developed by French Continental philosopher François Laruelle (formerly of the Collège international de philosophie and the University of Paris X: Nanterre). Non-philosophy according to La ...
*
Unsolved problems in philosophy This is a list of some of the major problems in philosophy. Metaphilosophy Philosophical progress A prominent question in metaphilosophy is that of whether or not philosophical progress occurs and more so, whether such progress in philosop ...
*
Theory of everything (philosophy) In philosophy, a theory of everything (ToE) is an ultimate, all-encompassing explanation or description of nature or reality.Rescher, Nicholas (2006a). "Holistic Explanation and the Idea of a Grand Unified Theory". ''Collected Papers IX: Studies ...


References


Further reading

* Double R., (1996) ''Metaphilosophy and Free Will'', Oxford University Press, USA, , * Ducasse, C.J., (1941
''Philosophy as a Science: Its Matter and Its Method''
* Lazerowitz M., (1964) ''Studies in Metaphilosphy'', London: Routledge * Overgaard, S, Gilbert, P., Burwood, S. (2013) ''An Introduction to Metaphilosophy'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press * Rescher N., (2006), ''Philosophical Dialectics, an Essay on Metaphilosophy'', Albany: State University of New York Press * Rescher, Nicholas (2001). ''Philosophical Reasoning. A Study in the Methodology of Philosophizing''. Blackwell. * Williamson T., (2007) ''The Philosophy of Philosophy'', London: Blackwell * Wittgenstein Ludwig, ''
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus The ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'' (widely abbreviated and cited as TLP) is a book-length philosophical work by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein which deals with the relationship between language and reality and aims to define th ...
'', trans. David Pears and Brian McGuinness (1961), Routledge, hardcover: , 1974 paperback: , 2001 hardcover: , 2001 paperback: ; ** ''Philosophische Untersuchungen'' (1953) or ''
Philosophical Investigations ''Philosophical Investigations'' (german: Philosophische Untersuchungen) is a work by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, published posthumously in 1953. ''Philosophical Investigations'' is divided into two parts, consisting of what Wittgens ...
'', translated by G.E.M. Anscombe (1953) *


External links

* *
''Metaphilosophy'', journal published by Blackwell
* * *
Peter Suber Peter Dain Suber (born November 8, 1951) is a philosopher specializing in the philosophy of law and open access to knowledge. He is a Senior Researcher at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Director of the Harvard Office for Scholarl ...

Metaphilosophy Themes and Questions – A Personal List
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