1.1.1 Philosophical Method

Version 1.4 August 2016                               (Previous Version)

Have you ever wondered why philosophers always seem to disagree with each other?  It’s because there is no agreed method of resolving any question in philosophy.  But that doesn’t mean we can't come to some reasonable conclusions as we go through these topics ourselves.

Philosophy has changed over the past three thousand years.  It used to cover almost everything.  Now a lot of what used to be called philosophy is covered by science and history.  So what is covered in philosophy here now is the stuff that isn't yet, and may never be, covered in science or history.  In this part we also cover the philosophy that is the basis of science, history and religion. 

A lot of the apparent disagreement is caused by philosophers growing up in different times and in different places.  The societies they grow up in have different sets of knowledge, so they come to different conclusions.  For instance, philosophers in ancient times were inclined to say that the world was made up of only a few elements, which they thought were earth, air, fire and water.  Now we know there are 92 naturally occurring elements, and none of the above is an element.

Philosophy helps us understand how we use language and some of its limitations. 

Now many groups of philosophers agree on many approaches and background ideas.  These are called schools of philosophy.  But the schools still differ from each other in fundamental beliefs.  And within a school the group members disagree amongst themselves.  That’s the way it is.

What philosophers share is the agreement to calmly and politely (“philosophically�) debate the issues that they think matter or they can shed some light on.  We can aspire to do the same.

There are many proposed methods for working out what is the truth, which is the study of epistemology, the subject of this chapter.

In epistemology, pluralism is the position that there is not one consistent means of approaching truths about the world, but rather many. Often this is associated with pragmatism or cultural relativism. 

·       Pragmatists think the function of language or thought is not to describe, represent, or mirror reality, but they are instruments or tool for prediction, problem solving and action.  Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics—such as the nature of knowledge, language, concepts, meaning, belief, and science—are all best viewed in terms of their practical uses and successes.

We need to be aware of the risk of adopting unjustifiable pragmatic positions, but our goal in these pages it to work out what we, as global citizens, can believe and value, and how we are to behave, so to that extent we may adopt pragmatic positions.

·       Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual person's beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual's own culture, and many followers say that we cannot judge people from cultures other than our own.

We are also aware of the risk of unjustifiably adopting what we perceive to be global or universal positions that might simply reflect our cultural bias.  This is why we request feedback, especially from people from non-English speaking backgrounds.

We suggest the following summary: