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(2015) Synthese 192 (2).
Creating truths by winning arguments
the problem of methodological artifacts in philosophy
Abraham Graber
pp. 487-503
In this paper I will argue that there is a bi-directional relationship between philosophy and meaning such that doing philosophy can change the meaning of terms. A rhetorically powerful work of philosophy that garners widespread interest has the potential to change how people use a predicate. This gives rise to three concerns. First, one’s conclusion can become right in virtue of one doing a particularly good job arguing for it. Second, it may be implausible to take philosophy to be a primarily descriptive enterprise. Part of the job of the philosopher is to proselytize about the correct usage of a word. Lastly, and most worrisome of all, the age-old method of the dialectic, a centerpiece of the philosophical project for thousands of years, threatens to plunge a range of domains of philosophical discourse into incoherence.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/s11229-014-0580-5
Full citation:
Graber, A. (2015). Creating truths by winning arguments: the problem of methodological artifacts in philosophy. Synthese 192 (2), pp. 487-503.
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