Reflecting on one’s own philosophical practice

Journal article

Metaphilosophy is defined as philosophical reflection on philosophy itself, and so is part of philosophy. If one lacks the category of philosophy, one can still do philosophy, but one may not be in a position to do metaphilosophy. Cases are discussed of tension between a philosopher’s metaphilosophical theory and their philosophical practice, in epistemology (scepticism), metaphysics (ontological minimalism), and philosophy of language (verificationism and intensionalism). Such tensions often provoke charges of self–defeat. However, the self–defeat turns out to be just one more manifestation of more general inadequacies in the philosophical theory at issue. The epistemology of philosophy is just an application of general epistemology; the philosophy of philosophical language is just an application of general philosophy of language, and so on. These considerations are used to support anti–exceptionalism about philosophy: philosophical thought and talk are much less different from other thought and talk than many philosophers suppose. The second half of the paper describes the author’s own experience of the complex dialectic between metaphilosophy and more general philosophy, in which metaphilosophical disputes about specific aspects of philosophical practice draw attention to more general cognitive phenomena, which require to be understood philosophically, but may also call for revisions of philosophical practice in metaphilosophically significant ways.

Authors: Williamson, T

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Brill
• Journal: History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis
• Volume: 27
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 370-394
• Publication date: 2025-01-13
• Acceptance date: 2024-04-05
• DOI: 10.30965/26664275-bja10100
• EISSN: 2666-4275
• ISSN: 2666-4283
• Language: English
• Keywords: metaphilosophy; theory and practice; scepticism; verificationism; intensionalism; anti-exceptionalism; counterpossibles; conditionals; suppositional heuristic