Definition[edit]
The term "philosophical methodology" refers either to the methods used to philosophize or to the branch of metaphilosophy studying these methods.[1][2][3][4] A method is a way of doing things, such as a set of actions or decisions, in order to achieve a certain goal, when used under the right conditions.[3] In the context of inquiry, a method is a way of conducting one's research and theorizing, like inductive or axiomatic methods in logic or experimental methods in the sciences.[2] Philosophical methodology studies the methods of philosophy. It is not primarily concerned with whether a philosophical position, such as metaphysical dualism or utilitarianism, is true or false. Instead, it asks how one can determine which position should be adopted.[5]
In the widest sense, any principle for choosing between competing theories may be considered as part of the methodology of philosophy. In this sense, philosophical methodology is "the general study of criteria for theory-selection". For example, Occam’s Razor is a methodological principle of theory selection favoring simple over complex theories.[5][6][7] A closely related aspect of philosophical methodology concerns the question of which conventions one needs to adopt necessarily to succeed at theory making.[5] But in a more narrow sense, only guidelines that help philosophers learn about facts studied by philosophy qualify as philosophical methods. This is the more common sense, which applies to most of the methods listed in this article. In this sense, philosophical methodology is closely related to epistemology in that it consists in epistemological methods that enable philosophers to arrive at knowledge.[5][8] Because of this, the problem of the methods of philosophy is central to how philosophical claims are to be justified.[9]
An important difference in philosophical methodology concerns the distinction between descriptive and normative questions. Descriptive questions ask what methods philosophers actually use or used in the past, while normative questions ask what methods they should use.[4][9] The normative aspect of philosophical methodology expresses the idea that there is a difference between good and bad philosophy. In this sense, philosophical methods either articulate the standards of evaluation themselves or the practices that ensure that these standards are met.[10][11] Philosophical methods can be understood as tools that help the theorist do good philosophy and arrive at knowledge.[5] The normative question of philosophical methodology is quite controversial since different schools of philosophy often have very different views on what constitutes good philosophy and how to achieve it.[12][13]
Disagreements and influence[edit]
The disagreements within philosophy do not only concern which first-order philosophical claims are true, they also concern the second-order issue of which philosophical methods to use.[4][10] One way to evaluate philosophical methods is to assess how well they do at solving philosophical problems.[9] The question of the nature of philosophy has important implications for which methods of inquiry are appropriate to philosophizing.[4][7][102] Seeing philosophy as an empirical science brings its methods much closer to the methods found in the natural sciences. Seeing it as the attempt to clarify concepts and increase understanding, on the other hand, usually leads to a methodology much more focused on apriori reasoning.[12][103][7] In this sense, philosophical methodology is closely tied up with the question of how philosophy is to be defined. Different conceptions of philosophy often associated it with different goals, leading to certain methods being more or less suited to reach the corresponding goal.[4][12]
The interest in philosophical methodology has risen a lot in contemporary philosophy.[5][13] But some philosophers reject its importance by emphasizing that "preoccupation with questions about methods tends to distract us from prosecuting the methods themselves".[4] However, such objections are often dismissed by pointing out that philosophy is at its core a reflective and critical enterprise, which is perhaps best exemplified by its preoccupation with its own methods. This is also backed up by the arguments to the effect that one's philosophical method has important implications for how one does philosophy and which philosophical claims one accepts or rejects.[4][104][13] Since philosophy also studies the methodology of other disciplines, such as the methods of science, it has been argued that the study of its own methodology is an essential part of philosophy.[4]
In several instances in the history of philosophy, the discovery of a new philosophical method, such as Cartesian doubt or the phenomenological method, has had important implications both on how philosophers conducted their theorizing and what claims they set out to defend. In some cases, such discoveries led the involved philosophers to overly optimistic outlooks, seeing them as historic breakthroughs that would dissolve all previous disagreements in philosophy.[10][3][105]
Relation to other fields[edit]
Science[edit]
The methods of philosophy differ in various respects from the methods found in the natural sciences. One important difference is that philosophy does not use experimental data obtained through measuring equipment like telescopes or cloud chambers to justify its claims.[9][11][43][7] For example, even philosophical naturalists emphasizing the close relation between philosophy and the sciences mostly practice a form of armchair theorizing instead of gathering empirical data.[4] Experimental philosophers are an important exception: they use methods found in social psychology and other empirical sciences to test their claims.[4][84][85]
One reason for the methodological difference between philosophy and science is that philosophical claims are usually more speculative and cannot be verified or falsified by looking through a telescope.[7] This problem is not solved by citing works published by other philosophers, since it only defers the question of how their insights are justified. An additional complication concerning testimony is that different philosophers often defend mutually incompatible claims, which poses the challenge of how to select between them.[9][106][107] Another difference between scientific and philosophical methodology is that there is wide agreement among scientists concerning their methods, testing procedures, and results. This is often linked to the fact that science has seen much more progress than philosophy.[10][5]
Epistemology[edit]
An important goal of philosophical methods is to assist philosophers in attaining knowledge.[5] This is often understood in terms of evidence.[9][4] In this sense, philosophical methodology is concerned with the questions of what constitutes philosophical evidence, how much support it offers, and how to acquire it. In contrast to the empirical sciences, it is often claimed that empirical evidence is not used in justifying philosophical theories, that philosophy is less about the empirical world and more about how we think about the empirical world.[9] In this sense, philosophy is often identified with conceptual analysis, which is concerned with explaining concepts and showing their interrelations. Philosophical naturalists often reject this line of thought and hold that empirical evidence can confirm or disconfirm philosophical theories, at least indirectly.[9]
Philosophical evidence, which may be obtained, for example, through intuitions or thought experiments, is central for justifying basic principles and axioms.[108][109] These principles can then be used as premises to support further conclusions. Some approaches to philosophical methodology emphasize that these arguments have to be deductively valid, i.e. that the truth of their premises ensures the truth of their conclusion.[10] In other cases, philosophers may commit themselves to working hypotheses or norms of investigation even though they lack sufficient evidence. Such assumptions can be quite fruitful in simplifying the possibilities the philosopher needs to consider and by guiding them to ask interesting questions. But the lack of evidence makes this type of enterprise vulnerable to criticism.[5]