Timothy
Williamson. The Philosophy of Philosophy. Malden/Oxford (Blackwell
Publishing), 2007, 332 pp.
Colin McGinn. Truth by Analysis. Games, Names, and Philosophy. Oxford (OUP), 2012, 189 pp.
The Philosophy of Philosophy is a book on how to do philosophy.
How to
define and how to do philosophy is a topic as old as philosophy itself. As
philosophy, especially nowadays, comes under attack of various claims of
reductionism and charges of being superfluous philosophers devote considerable
effort in defending the usefulness and distinctiveness of what they are doing.
Philosophy is a many and not a one. There are several understandings of
philosophy, and this has been a strength of philosophy as philosophy precedes
any introduction of methodology and restriction on procedure and topic.
Accordingly a philosophy of philosophy had to be monumental to come to terms
with all branches of philosophy and the all the ways to do philosophy (analytic
philosophy, various form of phenomenology, postmodernism, various neo-NN form
of following an important position/philosopher of the tradition [like
Neo-Kantianism, Hegelians …]).
In this
respect Williamson’s book is one-sided and strongly focused. Although he
mentions some other forms of philosophy in the introduction he only concerns
himself with philosophy in the analytic tradition. And he is very outspoken
about its superiority: ‘Analytic philosophy at its best uses logical rigor and
semantic sophistication to achieve a sharpness of philosophical vision
unobtainable by other means.’ (46) – ‘The rise of modern logic from Frege
onwards has provided philosophers with conceptual instruments of unprecedented
power and precision, enabling them to formulate hypotheses with more clarity
and determine their consequences with more reliability than ever before.’(45,
cf.279)
Up to some
arrogance: ‘Impatience with the long haul of technical reflection is a form of
shallowness, often thinly disguised by histrionic advocacy of depth. Serious
philosophy is always likely to bore those with short attention-spans:’(45,
cf.289)
In fact
Williamson argues from a very specific position within current analytic
philosophy, and makes use of a couple of claims controversial within analytic
philosophy (like theories of direct reference and de re modalities,
having a rigid actuality operator, how to understand tacit knowledge
and so forth). Williamson often refers to his own work and results (e.g. in the
theory of vagueness), and accordingly sometimes (e.g. discussing vagueness or
probabilistic reasoning) the discussion seem to be too engaged in setting out
one theory on a topic than reflecting on ways to develop philosophical
theories. So Philosophy of Philosophy could also be titled One Way to
Do Analytic Philosophy. Williamson acknowledges that his book ‘makes no
claim to comprehensiveness. … it explores some interrelated issues that strike
me as interesting and not well understood’ (8).
Philosophy of Philosophy also
makes in some chapters use of the formal devices of analytic philosophy.
Although the formalisms are elementary they presuppose some background in modal
logic and the theory of counterfactuals (as two formal appendices are provided
as well).
The book,
therefore, aims neither at the layman or the general philosopher, but is of oft
interest to analytic philosophers who reflect on their way of doing analytic
philosophy. It is especially worthwhile for those analytic philosophers who
rather disagree with Williamson’s sub-branch of analytic philosophy, as the
book invites them to compare their methodological self-understanding to
Williamson’s and defend it in the light of his criticisms.
Williamson
defends armchair reasoning. He claims that one may arrive at substantial
insights by reflecting on the conditions and consequence of our judgments
(often in present work called ‘our intuitions’, a phrase Williamson does not
endorse at all, cf.215). The precondition to arrive at such insights in
methodological thoroughness. We have to use our faculties (of modal knowledge, inter
alia) and express the conceptual structures we find as clearly as possible.
One
chapter therefore deals with knowledge of metaphysical modality, and one with thought
experiments as a way to do philosophy. Williamson sees our ability to come to
terms with modal knowledge as grounded in our ability to use counterfactuals
and counterfactual reasoning: ‘our overall capacity for somewhat reliable
thought about counterfactual possibilities’ (137). Therefore the book stresses
the importance of formal systems of counterfactual reasoning, and sees the
alethic modalities (‘necessity’ and ‘possibility’) as being reducible to our
use of counterfactuals: ‘metaphysically modal thinking is logically equivalent
to a special case of counterfactual thinking’ (158, cf.162). Thought
experiments exploit this faculty as well: ‘Paradigm thought experiments in
philosophy are simply valid arguments about counterfactual possibilities’ (207).
Defending
arm chair reasoning Williamson does not consider philosophy as a mere
reflection of language or meaning. He proposes – as one chapter title has it –
to take philosophical questions at face value, i.e. to consider them as
concerning their topic (say a theory of properties) directly and not being
about our way of taking about that topic. Philosophers use methods of reasoning
‘required over a vast range of non-philosophical inquiry’ (3). They reflect
often on language, but turning to language to reason about vagueness, say, does
not make vagueness a mere linguistic issue. ‘Many non-philosophical questions
that are not about thought or language cannot be resolved without inquiry into
thought or language.’ (41), which does not make philosophy, according to
Williamson, a discipline reflecting on language.
In this
vain several chapters criticize analytic philosophy in as much as it claims to
rest on a linguistic or conceptual turn of philosophy. In that tradition
philosophy might be seen as conceptual analysis, where conceptual analysis is
understood as following the structure of linguistic meaning. Williamson
disagrees and claims ‘that the differences in subject matter between philosophy
and the other sciences are also less deep than is often supposed’ (3).
Scientific results, because of this, may be important to philosophy. ‘Our
evidence in philosophy consists of a miscellaneous mass of knowledge, expressed
in terms of all kind, some from ordinary language, some from the theoretical
vocabulary of various disciplines. … Whatever we know is legitimate evidence’
(277). In this way philosophy is not set apart from any other science.
Naturalism tries to exploit that. Nonetheless, according to Williamson, neither
reductionism/naturalism nor the philosophy of mind have ‘come to play the
organizing role in philosophy that philosophy of language once did’ (18). And
even if some sentences which express philosophical results are analytic in the
sense that substitution of synonyms turns them into logical truths (i.e. are
‘Frege analytic’): ‘it does not follow that we can gain cognitive access to
them simply on the basis of our logical and linguistic competence’ (70). In
fact completely competent speakers may deny some such truths (often for reasons
of their philosophical background theories); there are no law-like
‘understanding-assent-links’ (85): ‘No given argument or statement is
immune from rejection by a linguistically competent speaker’ (97). Philosophy
so cannot appeal to the linguistically obvious or evident. And what some
practice considers to be obvious or linguistically evident need not be so on
close analysis. ‘What strikes us today as the best candidate for analytic or
conceptual truth some innovative thinker may call into question tomorrow for
intelligible reasons’ (126).
Williamson
regards armchair reasoning (‘in which experience plays no strictly evidential
role’, 169) as detached from empirical reasoning, because the beliefs acquired
in the armchair have no direct link to experience, experience only (formerly
once) played a role in acquiring some judgments, now the object of reflection.
This theory of experience less than ‘evidential’ but more than ‘purely
enabling’ (168, where ‘enabling’ means experience playing a role somehow like
in acquiring a concept) might need further elaboration.
Williamson
attacks several versions of understanding conceptual analysis (e.g. one which
sees conceptual claims grounded in meaning, and thus being a priori and secure
and another one which defines those claims as analytic the very understanding
of which secures assent by competent speakers). He uses strong language again:
‘the conceptual turn and a fortiori the linguistic turn look like wrong
turnings’ (21, cf. 53). These chapters are the most important for current analytic
philosophers, even if they do not agree with Williamson’s diagnosis. One may
ask oneself (as analytic philosopher) at which point one parts ways with
Williamson and which of his presuppositions one therefore has to question. The
common thread of these chapters is the question whether conceptual analysis
delivers substantial insights or ‘just’ analytic statements (considered as mere
trivia). ‘Many philosophically relevant truths are clearly not conceptual
truths in any useful sense’ (49).
Williamson
rightly stresses that serious analytic philosophy cannot forsake the claim that
analysis provides substantial insight: ‘we should not assume that analytic
truths are insubstantial in any further sense’ (52, cf.71), i.e. being obvious
or trivial. Once this is granted one may even soften Williamson’s attack on
conceptual analysis.
One could
somewhat more clearly than Williamson differentiate between ‘analytic’ as a
description of the procedure or a classification of the result of
philosophy. Even if analytic sentences rest on definitional or conceptual
structures definitions may be useful or not. Useful definitions capture facts
corresponding to these definitions. A truth resting on such definitions, maybe expressed
as analytic truth, may thus nevertheless be a substantial truth. This may
be even more so in case of concepts long in use where we discover by reflection
the structures they try to capture. Following this line of reasoning one may
agree with Williamson: ‘nothing has been done to rule out the hypothesis that
[the analytic truth] expresses a profound metaphysical necessity about the
nature of the world’ (61, cf.63).
These
chapters (about half of the book) are worthwhile reading – and maybe arguing
against – for anyone reckoning him- or herself to be part of the analytic
tradition. The Philosophy of Philosophy is far from comprehensive as
philosophy goes, but it is superb in coming to grips with one’s methodological
self-understanding as analytic philosopher.
Cappelen’s main concern is to refute the ‘Centrality Thesis’, which claims
that contemporary analytic philosophers rely on intuitions as evidence for
philosophical theories. The crucial term in this thesis is, of course, “intuition”.
Cappelen’s whole argument depends on the manner “intuition” is defined. He
separates his refutation of the Centrality Thesis into two parts: (i) the
claim that on those occasion when philosophers do engage in “intution”-talk,
the reference to ‘intuitions’ can be substituted by a reference to folk theories,
prejudices or common knowledge, (ii) the claim that in those supposedly paradigmatic
examples of philosophy centring on ‘intuitions’ (mostly when philosophers
invoke thought experiments) intuition in the crucial sense of the Centrality
Thesis play no role. Both claims are empirical, since they depend on a comprehensive
or at least representative survey of ‘contemporary analytic philosophy’ (given
a suitable definition of, at least, “belonging to the analytic tradition”
and “contemporary”). Such a survey might require a research project of its
own. And thus whether Cappelen’s claims are empirically adequate is hard to
tell. With respect to the sought for uses of “intuition” we have to remember
what the logician says: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence!
Let us suppose that Cappelen’s claim (i) has been established. What does this
show? It shows that describing the philosopher’s data or sources does not
require casting these as “intuitions”. It does not show that philosophy does
not, as Cappelen likes to argue, rely on a special onset of its investigations.
An Ordinary Language Philosopher may reply to Cappelen: Ordinary Language
Philosophy does not rest its claims on 'intuitions'. “Intuition” has too many
different meanings: these range from opinions based on 'common sense' or folk
theories (so that claiming something to be 'intuitively' so may hedge the
claim made, as Cappelen points out) to the intellectual apprehension of conceptual
insight (e.g. in some philosophies of mathematics). One might call reliance
on one's unsystematic (i.e. pretheoretical) understanding of language rules
'intuitive', but as the term has been used for quite different forms of belief,
it may be better to speak of an expression of language competence or linguistic
judgement or meta-linguistic beliefs. In Ordinary Language Philosophy we investigate
possible cases under the directive of what we would say if. The evidence which
turns up with this rests on linguistic judgements or pre-theoretical knowledge
of language. Philosophical 'intuitions' either appeal to shared convictions
in some (folk) theory, which carries little argumentative weight, or are guided
by a (partial) apprehension of rules of word usage. Intuitions in this latter
sense are philosophically useful and necessary as an element of analysis.
Positively one may surmise that the new fashionable recourse to 'intuitions'
stems from a dissatisfaction with 'naturalism' and mere stipulation of language
forms. Pleas to 'intuitions' want to come close to a source of philosophical
insight, where this source better be language.
Cappelen’s second claim depends not just on his examples being chosen representatively,
but foremost on his definition of “intuition”. Cappelen defines “intuition”
by three features: (i) intuitions supposedly come with a phenomenality that
makes what one intuits seem true, (ii) intuitive judgments need no justification,
they provide justification (have ‘rock status’), (iii) they are based on conceptual
competence. Cappeln then goes on to show that the eight paradigm cases of
contemporary analytic philosophy supposedly relying on intuitions (ranging
from Perry’ shopping cart case to Chalmer’s zombies) do not rely on intuitions
in the sense defined by Cappelen. Again let us suppose that he has established
this. What does it show? It might very well show that the definition made
unrealistic demands on ‘intuitions’. Most crucial in this respect is feature
(ii), heavily relied upon by Cappelen in his analysis of the paradigm cases.
In my experience the extensive reference made to ‘intuitions’ in the philosophy
of language and epistemology (and especially so in philosophical logic, although
Cappelen at one point seemingly wants to exclude that area) does not include
the non-revisability of intuitions at all. Often special emphasis is put on
the progress from our initial to our ‘reflected’ intuitions. So it seems Cappelen
is chasing a man of straw here.
Nonetheless Cappelen’s book, apart from the laudable – even so partial – liberalism
with respect to philosophy’s methods, is a valuable advance in metaphilosophy:
it challenges all those who use ‘intuition’-talk and rely on ‘intuitions’
in their philosophical methodology to come up with clarifications what they
mean by that and how they meet Cappelen’s challenge.
McGinn might be understood as taking up that challenge by boldly stating that
philosophy investigates the essence of things in the world by conceptual analysis
(i.e. relying on our conceptual competence). McGinn’s defense of conceptual
analysis on first sight might be seen as reminding philosophers on a viable
method, set aside because of too much undeserved bad press (on the hands of
Quine and many others). McGinn, however, claims that philosophy is nothing
but conceptual analysis. Such methodological imperialism has done philosophy
no good in its history, and the opposite claim might be more recommendable:
philosophy refers to any viable method used anywhere in the sciences and adds
some special methods (like formalization and – contrary to Cappelen, Quine
and many others – conceptual analysis). Conceptual analysis cannot be all
of philosophy. For a start: that philosophy is conceptual analysis had to
be established by conceptual analysis itself. The concept of philosophy had
to entail that philosophy is nothing but conceptual analysis. McGinn does
not establish this.
McGinn puts forth only a few conceptual analyses in fact. Centre stage he
rejects the undefinability of the concept of ‘play’ and sides and endorses
Suits’ analysis of it [the repetition of which here would distract us too
long]. He defines ‘knowledge’ as ‘non-fluky true belief’. Although this gets
the (in)famous Gettier-cases of the backs of the theory of knowledge, one
may doubt whether this goes far enough. Why not define “knowledge” as “true
belief”? There is nothing inconsistent about both the following sentences:
“Peter knew it, but only by accident”, “Peter knew it, but could give no reasons”.
In any case one may agree with McGinn that conceptual analysis is viable and
useful. How far does he want to carry it? Is there a conceptual analysis of
the concepts of ‘stone’ or ‘rose’? Although McGinn mentions on the sidelines
Strawson’s idea of ‘connective analysis’, which elucidates the links between
concepts, his main idea of analysis seems to be decomposition into necessary
and sufficient combinations of constituent concepts (some of which finally
have to be atomic). The tradition of Ordinary Language Philosophy includes
many more methods (ranging from substitution tests over the controversial
paradigm case arguments to contrastive analysis and rephrasing by assertability
conditions, inter alia). McGinn, however, foams about the ‘linguistic turn’.
He wants it ‘burned’ and to be ‘stamped out’.
McGinn’s rejection of analysis of language is one of the shortcomings of his
book. This may rest on a confusion about the role of language in linguistic
analysis: language need not be taken by linguistic philosophers as the primary
object of philosophy, but analysis of language (usage) is taken as one crucial
or even the privileged method of getting at concepts. “Definition” applies
to words at least as well as to concepts. Proposing a definition and testing
it with cases (similar to proposing a hypothesis and testing it) explores
whether the definition covers all cases by testing our judgements to the applicability
of a term (the meaning of which contains the concept referring to the property
ultimately under investigation). If language was not methodological essential
one has (i) to account in some other way for the shared possession of concepts,
which on the other hand every theory of concepts has to do, and (ii) to find
some other way to identify a concept in question intersubjectively. Methodologically
language helps to identify a concept in question as the core of the meaning
of an expression employed. Further on, many concepts (especially those for
social institutions) depend on language and rule governed communities. Concepts
like ‘marriage’ cannot be separated from special speech acts that constitute
respective social facts. Many if not most of the concepts interesting philosophers
will be of this kind. Epistemological concepts like ‘knowledge’ are at least
indirectly tied to language (e.g. by the link from feasible assertions to
know something to justifying them towards an audience, of course using language
and appealing to shared conventions). Moreover, one may argue that concepts
involving powers of reflection and self-representation in thought need language
('inner speech') as representational device. This applies to all forms of
shared knowledge ('common knowledge') essential for conventions, and arguably
to a full-fledged concept of ‘belief’, as this involves reflecting on one's
beliefs and their interrelations, and their relation to the world. So, although
conceptual analysis – by definition – aims at concepts, the privileged method
to do so is linguistic analysis. As conceptual analysis aims at concepts shared
between individual natural languages, no individual natural language is essential
for it, and all its cases of analysis have to be transferable in principle
from one language to another.
The other main difficulty one should have with McGinn’s book is his claim
that philosophy discovers the essence of things (“things” used here generically
for all types of entities) by conceptual analysis. Two questions can be raised
immediately: (i) what are ‘essences’ and (ii) why can we rely on concepts
being properly tied to the essences of things?
The second question can only be answered by a theory of concept acquisition,
possession or evolution. We need a theory why our conceptual equipment hooks
up properly to properties in reality. Maybe some form of cognitive evolutionary
theory can deliver that much. At points it seems that McGinn supports a representational
theory of concepts (like concepts being types in the ‘language of thought’).
Still evolution may have equipped us in many cases only with conceptual hook-up
good enough for reproduction, not fit to capture the essence of things.
What are ‘essences’ anyway? Linguistic analysis answers this question by reducing
essential truth to analytic truth, and thus finally to meaning constitutive
definitions or conventions. Consider the following three sentences:
(1) “Cats are mammals” is analytic/necessary true.
(2) The concept ‘cat’ contains the concept ‘mammal’.
(3) Cats are essentially mammals.
We can freely move from (1) to (3), and back, by the authority of language:
language developed and was adapted in its definitions of words to be successfully
applied (interwoven with non-linguistic practices), the meaning of a word
containing crucially a concept expressed, this concept referring to a property
in reality. The essence captured thus is foremost a linguistic essence, due
to definitions, but we are prone to revise or replace our definitions in the
light of new important discoveries. It is ‘foremost a linguistic essence’
as the necessity involved is that of the linguistic framework. Many, McGinn
included, want to have metaphysical essences (i.e. essences expressed in generalizations
stronger than empirical/inductive generalizations, but not dependent on ‘mere
linguistic conventions’). Again, there may be feasible theories for such a
concept of essences (like two-dimensionalist semantics), but McGinn does not
deliver one, his hints link essences to natural kinds, thus hinting at identifying
essences with the nature of natural kinds. A non-trivial problem for such
a theory will be its compatibility with a theory of concept possession as
mentioned in the last paragraph: concepts as representations in our brain
hook-up to reality by natural laws, but natural laws can vary while metaphysical
identities stay constant, thus conceptual links need not coincide with metaphysical
links. McGinn has to work out these parts of his theory.
McGinn’s book, therefore, on the one hand presents a strong case for the viability
of conceptual analysis and thus defends a method philosophy should not forego.
On the other hand, McGinn’s approach needs a lot more detailed exposition
of its methodology and metaphysical background.
Although Cappelen and McGinn will not like it, one may do best by combining
Cappelen’s open methodology with a dose of McGinn’s conceptual analysis, and
thank them both for their attacks on Experimental Philosophy’s much too lose
methodological reflection.
Manuel Bremer, Heinrich-Heine-Universität
Düsseldorf, Germany