Standards of philosophical quality

Socrates vs. the sophists

Philosophical style

Obscurity, precision, reasoning vs. other literary styles

Philosophical rigour

Not applying rules in mathematics vs. not applying rules in philosophy

Philosophical virtues

Curiosity and integrity

Reflectiveness

Seriousness

Realism and common sense; relevance

Reading: Goldberg, S. 2013. Defending Philosophy in the Face of Systematic Disagreement. In Diego E. Machuca(ed.), Disagreement and Skepticism. Routledge. pp. 277-294.

Systematic peer disagreement in philosophy

Skepticism: no justified belief or knowledge

Should philosophersbelievewhattheysay, or what else?

Goldberg’s proposal

Attitude: regarding-as-defensible (attitudinal speculation)

Warrant: depends on adjusted epistemic expectations about assertion

Sincerity: given suitable epistemic expectations, it can obtain without belief

Philosophy and truth

The status of philosophical claims

Descriptive, normative, nonsense?

Focus on Rorty’sview of philosophy

Philosophy produces metaphors

Pragmatism on truth

Social justification

Contingency of language

Historicism

Ethnocentrism

Philosophy as poetry

Irony and solidarity

Carnap and Cappelen on nonsense in philosophy

Main reading: Cappelen, H. 2013. Nonsense and illusions of thought.Philosophical Perspectives27 (1):22-50.

Characterizing nonsense: Carnap's way

Philosophical nonsense

Illusions of thought

Cappelen: Against the impossibility of thought illusions

Cappelen: Verificationism is not needed for nonsense

Leading theories of meaning: use, function, externalism: All admit fallibility

Discovering nonsense

Signs of failure

Case studies: Lacan, ‘intuition’

Analytic vs. continental

Extension and intension

Husserl, Heidegger and the analytics

Defining analytic vs. continental

Essentialism

via Topics

vis Doctrines

via Methods

via Style

Revisionism and Scepticism

Family resemblances