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An introduction to philosophical method(s)?

Brian Leiter

An undergraduate at Rutgers writes:

I was wondering whether there were any recent books that you would say stand out as works on philosophical methodology these days. I've found a few books on philosophical method dating to the early formation of ordinary language analysis, but might there be more current treatments of the topic that are taken as generally reliable among academic philosophers these days? I often find that introductory books on philosophy seem to cover general philosophical topics and serve as repositories of knowledge in various areas, much like introductory books in Biology or Chemistry, but I was curious whether there was something more like a modern day "how to do a science experiment" book in philosophy, perhaps a "how to make a philosophical argument" or "how to do conceptual analysis", etc. 

My guess is doing philosophy in some area is more useful for understanding the methods than reading about the methods, but I wonder what books readers might recommend in response to the student's query? Maybe there's some good stuff out there.

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14 responses to “An introduction to philosophical method(s)?”

  1. Jacob Williamson

    I remember asking similar questions as an undergraduate, and ended up gathering quite a few suggestions from tutors. The most common recommendation to acquire an understanding of conceptual analysis was Frank Jackson's defence, 'From Metaphysics to Ethics'. Then I guess there's Tim Williamson's 'The Philosophy of Philosophy'. I also appreciated the collection titled 'Rethinking Intuition' and thought it quite relevant to such questions. Other than that, Rawls' brief comments on reflective equilibrium in A Theory of Justice are probably useful? And the early Socratic dialogues really help to see that method in action. Finally, I remember feeling rather enlightened after reading Vlastos' article titled 'The Socratic Elenchus', and Gerry Cohen's 'How to do Political Philosophy'.

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  2. Bernard

    Jay F. Rosenberg, The Practice of Philosophy: A Handbook for Beginners, is one of the best books of this type for undergraduates.

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  3. Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa

    There's not much out there, assuming the student is after something a bit richer than a general introduction to critical thinking. Part of the explanation for this, I think, is that there's not a lot of agreement among practitioners of philosophy about what exactly is going on when one engages in philosophical methods; as a discipline, we're on much firmer ground in discussing the merits of a particular argument than we are when theorizing about what is going on at a deeper, more methodological level. (Nobody can explain in simple and uncontroversial terms how to do conceptual analysis.) There have been a couple of attempts to discuss the methodological questions in an introductory-suitable way, but I'm rather of the opinion that they'll do a young student more harm than good. I agree with Brian: one has to spend some time engaging in first-order philosophical study before one is really in a position to think seriously about how philosophy works.

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  4. A. Flynn

    Maybe this is out of date or not pitched at the right level, but I remember that Jay Rosenberg's "The Practice of Philosophy" was invaluable in my learning to turn hunches and gut feelings into serviceable papers.

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  5. Kathryn J. Norlock

    So the query is for something more than Anthony Weston's Rulebook for Arguments, but perhaps something less than Kripke's Philosophical Troubles?

    My undergraduates seem to prefer Doing Philosophy, by Joel Feinberg and Russ Shafer-Landau. But perhaps this isn't what's being sought?

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  6. Landon W Schurtz

    If I recall correctly, in undergrad, Jim Montmarquet used a little booklet he had written on just this subject. I don't know if he ever published it professionally or not, but I thought it was very useful. I've seen Intro students miss the forest for the trees, as it were, so many times now that I intend to foreground discussion of method in all my first-exposure classes from now on. I think Brian's right, though, so my tactic has been to look for papers that exemplify certain argumentative methods or have an easily-grasped structure, yet which are also (more or less) accessible to first-semester students. I am not sure how feasible this approach really is.

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  7. Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa

    The first two comments appeared while mine was in moderation — I should add that I don't know the Rosenberg book Bernard mentions. Jacob Williamson's suggestions are examples of good and sophisticated methodological reflections, but will be difficult for an undergraduate without quite a bit of guidance.

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  8. Jay Odenbaugh

    I would recommend Chris Daly's "Introduction to Philosophical Methods." It usefully discusses conceptual analysis, common sense, naturalism along with a variety of "tools" including parsimony and inference to the best explanation. There is a lot it leaves out (of course) but it is good. At the bottom of my webpage, there is a link to a course syllabus Becko Copenhaver and I put together on philosophical methods for the curious — http://jayodenbaugh.squarespace.com/

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  9. V. Alan White

    I have great sympathy for the writer's concerns, as well as Brian's astute comment. For about 25 years I have advocated teaching Introduction to Philosophy as a single-issue course precisely because I think that that important first course should serve as an experience in philosophizing rather than a broad content course about the history/topics of philosophy. My own course focuses on the free will problem, beginning with how law deals with it now (not well), moving through a conceptual analysis of the concept, metaphysical issues tied to an empirical-based language relevant to it, to how compatibilism/incompatibilism relates to empirical views of human nature and finally circling back to the law in application of the various views. Throughout I encourage students to challenge conclusions based on logical possibility and assuming bivalent logic. (Sorry non-classicists.) Of course I have an incomplete and unpublished text I use in the course, and have published/presented about the course in Teaching Philosophy/APA sessions and in a couple of anthologies. I apologize for my self-serving post in that regard, but I have devoted a lot of time and thought to how philosophy should be introduced to the masses of students who may never take another course in it, and this saavy post moved me to encourage my colleagues to consider another way besides the long-standing presumption that intros should just be surveys: intros should systematically guide students through doing philosophy, and not just thinking about its concerns with detached emphasis on matters of argumentation that seem more like a game of gotcha than a plan to reason toward possible truth in long-range, deliberate fashion.

    Ok, to address the issue at hand off my soap-box: any really good intro to a philosophical problem ought at least to exhibit the methods of good philosophizing in the way I suggest my Intro course makes more explicit. For free will, I like Robert Kane's A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will or Ted Honderich's How Free Are You?, though neither is primarily a reflection on the methods used (Honderich is a little better there), and I have reservations about both of their ultimate conclusions about free will.

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  10. Jeremy Goodman

    I second "The Philosophy of Philosophy."

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  11. VOP

    Well, personally, I would hate to see the difference between philosophical methods and methods of good reasoning overemphasized. The latter is of concern to anyone and should be applicable anywhere. Philosophers just try to engage in good reasoning about topics that often can be reached only at the level of argument (arguably, sometimes, for a while). So there are no special "philosophical" methods per se. There's just good and bad reasoning that we hope everyone would be concerned with in the same way that we are concerned with having good vision. Why care about that? Uh…I dunno, so we don't crash into a moose while driving because we denied the antecedent of the premise that if I see a tree, I should swerve? What is good reasoning? Take a critical thinking or logic class. Sorry to be a bit, well, unaccommodating, but I would again hate to see students (or anyone really) given even more reason to dismiss philosophy and thinking "philosophically" as some esoteric abstract discipline or practice that you can take or leave, which at least in my experience is where many students start. This is certainly not directed at the student wishing to examine philosophical methods, but rather at the seeming diminishing opinion of philosophy in general. So, if it were my student, I would direct them to a book that deals with issues of argument and whatnot, but I certainly would tell them that these so-called "philosophical" methods are applicable across the board to everything they believe and conclude and cetera 🙂 I try so hard to emphasize the importance of philosophy in my classes not only in dealing with what are known as philosophical topics, but for living life in general that it is hard for me to rally the troops on this one. Sorry. That's my VO rant for the night. ps: what camp does this squarely put me in on the debates about philosophical methodology anyhow? 😉

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  12. Peter Ludlow

    There is an Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Methodology, in the works under the editorship of Cappelen, Gendler, and Hawthorne. Stay tuned. It should be out before we all retire.

    BL COMMENT: This volume (to which I and one of my PhD students are contributing, hence my familiarity) is pitched probably at the wrong level for someone seeking an introductory treatment. Now Peter, go finish your entry!

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  13. Adrian Bardon

    The Philosopher's Toolkit, by Baggini/Fosl, is an introductory treatment of philosophical methodology, of a very different sort than others mentioned above. Its format may appeal to some people. I agree with the general sentiment, though, that the best way to come to understand philosophy is via carefully-supervised philosophical inquiry.

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  14. grad student

    I can't express how much the Jay Rosenberg book helped me when I was first starting philosophy and trying to figure out what philosophers took themselves to be doing in their papers.

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