# The Philosophy of Philosophy ![rw-book-cover](https://readwise-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/media/reader/parsed_document_assets/413983793/r_3AmN-EhYCcVyiXyemgGc3FDwrf03JOzK7AxvvlT7E-cove_g2lk7l5.png) ## Metadata - Author: [[Timothy Williamson]] - Full Title: The Philosophy of Philosophy - Category: #articles - Summary: insert summary - My notes: - Summary: Philosophy should use abductive reasoning to find the best explanations, which helps determine if theories are meaningful and true. This method accepts that some theories may be wrong but values clear and testable ideas to learn from mistakes. Philosophers can also rely on evidence from other fields to improve their theories and avoid confusion or errors. - URL: https://readwise.io/reader/document_raw_content/413983793 ## LLM Chats ## NotebookLM ## LLM Audio ## Highlights > I propose that philosophy *should* use a broadly abductive methodology. Indeed, to some extent it already does so. I propose that it should do so in a bolder, more systematic, more self-aware way. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgfqxz7tn4p5zs8pyxw1qhqa)) > Unsurprisingly, abduction in philosophy is and should be less "pure" than in mathematics. The evidence on which it does and should depend is often exogenous, generated from outside the discipline itself. It is perfectly proper for philosophers of time to appeal to Einstein's theory of special relativity, for philosophers of perception to use experimental results from the psychology of perception, and for political philosophers to consider the historical outcomes of attempts to apply various political theories. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgfrndyv341mfdhfsm6g5zpb)) > Of course, it is not only in philosophy that arguments rarely produce switches in allegiance between rival theories. In a famous passage quoted by Thomas Kuhn, Max Planck wrote: "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it" (Planck 1949: 33–4, quoted at Kuhn 1970: 151). Human obstinacy and pride are potent factors in all intellectual life. Individual irrationality may even contribute to group rationality, by helping ensure that a theory's resources for dealing with problems are fully explored, so that it is not given up prematurely. The concern about the deductivist methodology in philosophy is not that it produces so few conversions, but that it channels energy in unproductive directions. For example, an *ad hoc* hypothesis with little explanatory potential may nevertheless be very hard to refute in a deductivist sense. Yet a deductive argument for any theory incompatible with that hypothesis must deductively rule out the hypothesis. Thus considerable time may be spent in trying to refute a hypothesis of no serious interest. That time would have been better used in exploring the explanatory potential of more promising theories. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgfs2kkf93dxsakbzbn75gga)) > Of course, it is not only in philosophy that arguments rarely produce switches in allegiance between rival theories. In a famous passage quoted by Thomas Kuhn, Max Planck wrote: "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it" (Planck 1949: 33–4, quoted at Kuhn 1970: 151). Human obstinacy and pride are potent factors in all intellectual life. Individual irrationality may even contribute to group rationality, by helping ensure that a theory's resources for dealing with problems are fully explored, so that it is not given up prematurely. The concern about the deductivist methodology in philosophy is not that it produces so few conversions, but that it channels energy in unproductive directions. For example, an *ad hoc* hypothesis with little explanatory potential may nevertheless be very hard to refute in a deductivist sense. Yet a deductive argument for any theory incompatible with that hypothesis must deductively rule out the hypothesis. Thus considerable time may be spent in trying to refute a hypothesis of no serious interest. That time would have been better used in exploring the explanatory potential of more promising theories. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgfs2shp4xj0f01eb2sk663s)) > Using uncontroverted principles of logic, one may succeed in showing that an opponent's universal generalization is inconsistent with an uncontroverted description of an example, or even with itself. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgfrwcdzzg8pksd5d08w9mds))