On what it is: Perspectives on metaphilosophy
CONTENTS, INTRODUCTION
Contents
Acknowledgements
Zsolt Kapelner: Introduction
Nenad Miščević: History as the Fundamental Reality
Thomas J. Spiegel: Naturalism, Quietism, and the Concept of Nature
Tamás Paár: Meta-Skepticism, Experimentalism, Cartography
Vítor Hirschbruch Schvartz: The Challenge of Rustic Skepticism as Metaphilosophy
Tamás Hankovszky: Incongruence of Philosophy and Theology
Tolgahan Toy: Advocacy of Science vs. Scientific Methodology
Serdal Tümkaya: The Overlaps between Philosophy and Science
Adrienne Gálosi: Philosophy without Art
Botond Csuka: Aesthetics and Its Histories
Ádám Smrcz: Philosophers' Salon des Refusés
Marosán Bence Péter: The Optics of Philosophy
Ferenc Takó: "at least as we like to think"
Ádám Tamás Tuboly: On the Origins of Carnap's Aufbau
Josef Ehrenmüller: On the Psychodynamics of Doing Philosophy
Zsolt Kapelner: What Can We Offer?
Introduction
Philosophy is unique in that its metadiscipline, metaphilosophy, belongs to it. While the theoretic tools and principles of physics cannot reveal what physics is, it has to turn to the philosophy of science for such insight, the corresponding question in the case of philosophy can and should be answered through philosophical reasoning. From Plato's Sophist (and his missing dialogue the Philosopher) to Deleuze and Guattari's What is philosophy, and Timothy Williamson's The Philosophy of Philosophy philosophers have been implementing vast theoretical resources to characterize the properties and methods of philosophy, and the nature of philosophical knowledge.
When the world in which philosophers need to work and on which they ought to reflect starts changing rapidly, asking such questions becomes especially pressing for the philosopher. When new scholarly disciplines pop up radically restructuring the academic world, problems concerning the place of philosophy among other disciplines need to be addressed. When new kinds of problems enter the world and the public consciousness, philosophers have to be able to tell whether their conceptual tools make them suitable to deal with those. And when the very purpose and nature of academic research and scholarship transforms due to technological, social, and economical advancements, philosophy has to redefine its place in academia and society.
Today these changes seem to take place more rapidly and more frequently than ever before, which makes it necessary again to reconsider the very foundations of philosophy, and to put on the table ancient as well as novel puzzles and questions concerning its purpose, methods, and the possible directions it might take in the coming decades. Upon observing this, the students and teachers of the Philosophy Workshop of Eötvös József Collegium in Budapest decided to bring together senior experts and young scholars from all over the world to discuss issues in metaphilosophy. The On What It Is? conference took place in Budapest in February 2015, on occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the foundation of the Philosophy Workshop. The three-day event is among the major successes of the Workshop as it attracted scholars from 11 countries and 4 continents.
The papers in this volume are based on some of the most outstanding talks delivered in Budapest. As the conference itself, these articles address a wide range of topics all connected to the ultimate question: what is philosophy and how should it be done? This multi-layered question is approached from many different angles. Some take into account the connection between philosophy and other disciplines and types of inquiry, such as natural science, art, or even theology. Others attempt to provide answers to the much investigated question: is philosophical knowledge possible at all? Should we even bother studying philosophy? Yet others take a historical approach arguing that the inquiry of past philosophers' conception of their discipline may provide useful lessons even today.
...