What Is Philosophy?

A First-Person Perspective

Richard Fumerton (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

172 Seiten

2023
Routledge (Verlag)
978-1-032-12205-2 (ISBN)

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Over the course of nine engaging and accessible chapters, Fumerton shows that answering fundamental philosophical questions requires one to take a radical first-person perspective that divorces the truth conditions of philosophical claims from the kind of contingent truths investigated by the empirical sciences.

As philosophy departments attempt to define their unique value amid program closures in the humanities and the rise of interdisciplinary research, metaphilosophy has become an increasingly important area of inquiry. Richard Fumerton here lays out a cogent answer to the question asked in the book’s title, What Is Philosophy?. Against those who argue that philosophy is not sharply distinguishable from the sciences, Fumerton makes a case for philosophy as an autonomous discipline with its own distinct methodology.

Over the course of nine engaging and accessible chapters, he shows that answering fundamental philosophical questions requires one to take a radical first-person perspective that divorces the truth conditions of philosophical claims from the kind of contingent truths investigated by the empirical sciences. Along the way, Fumerton briefly discusses the historical controversies that have surrounded the nature of philosophy, situating his own argument within the larger conversation.

Key Features

Illuminates the unique role of thought experiments and especially the "paradox of analysis" in understanding the purpose and value of philosophy
Shows that philosophy asks fundamental questions, unanswerable by the sciences, that are critical to thinking clearly and rationally about the world
Highlights the distinct character of philosophical questions in specific subject areas: philosophy of language, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science
Concludes by making a unique case for philosophy’s contribution to cross-disciplinary work in ethics, politics, mathematics, and the empirical sciences
Written in a way to be engaging and accessible for advanced undergraduate readers

Richard Fumerton is the F. Wendell Miller Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa. He is the author of, among other books, Realism and the Correspondence Theory of Truth (2002), Epistemology (2006), Mill (co-authored with Wendy Donner) (2009), Knowledge, Thought and the Case for Dualism (2013), and A Consequentialist Defense of Libertarianism (2021). With Diane Jeske, he has also edited Philosophy Through Film (2009), and An Introduction to Political Philosophy (2012).

1. Introduction 2. The Paradox of Analysis and Methodological Solipsism 3. What’s Left? 4. Philosophy of Language 5. Epistemology and Metaepistemology 6. Ethics and Rationality/Metaethics and Meta-rationality 7. Philosophy of Mind 8. Philosophy of Science and Metaphysics 9. The Relevance of Philosophy Proper

Erscheinungsdatum	20.03.2023
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Gewicht	1120 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Erkenntnistheorie / Wissenschaftstheorie
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Ethik
ISBN-10	1-032-12205-6 / 1032122056
ISBN-13	978-1-032-12205-2 / 9781032122052
Zustand	Neuware