# Philosophical Methodology  ## Metadata - Author: [[readwise.io]] - Full Title: Philosophical Methodology - Category: #articles - Summary: insert summary - My notes: - Summary: Philosophical inquiry should start with data from the area being studied. The next step is to create and evaluate theories based on this data. The authors emphasize that their method, called the Tri-Level Method, effectively applies to various philosophical inquiries. - URL: https://readwise.io/reader/document_raw_content/307159634 ## LLM Chats ## NotebookLM ## LLM Audio ## Highlights > Every theoretical inquiry has its data, considerations that must somehow be handled by a theory that resolves the questions that open inquiry. Across philosophy, examples abound: in philosophy of language, it is a datum that a user of a proper name sometimes knows next to nothing about the person being named; in philoso- phy of perception, that we sometimes suffer vivid illusions and hallucinations; in philosophy of action, that some attempts are unsuccessful; in metaethics, that moral judgments are intimately connected to action; in aesthetics, that certain works of art are masterpieces; in feminist philosophy, that a range of social practices and institutions promote the interests of men over women; and so on. Our aim in this chapter is to achieve greater clarity about the character and role of such data. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgpvx8zfssjcjk3vs7tykqkc)) > Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics is naturally read as proposing that an ultimate proper goal of theoretical inquiry is the acquisition of epistêmê—where this is not mere ordinary knowledge, but a special kind of epistemic ideal that many commentators designate with the term ‘understanding.’13 We endorse a version of this proposal. Let us begin by explaining what we have in mind by an ‘ultimate proper goal’ of theoretical inquiry. We allow that the set of pos- sible goals of inquiry is open-ended. It may include mere psycho- logical states, such as what Charles Sanders Peirce referred to as “the fixation of belief,”14 or accomplishments such as happiness or salvation. No doubt it includes positive epistemic states such as > justified belief, knowledge, and understanding. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgpvhghvdf8r0zcskxmsyyye)) > When the activity is theoretical inquiry, undertaken for its own sake, success or excellence does not consist in scoring points, winning accolades, or cultivating good habits. Rather, it resides in making an intellectual improvement, in the form of an epistemic or alethic achievement. In our view, this is the têlos of inquiry; it is what inquiry is for. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgpvk27ee4hrttke55ven8es))