Second Philosophy A Naturalistic Method

by Maddy, Penelope

• ISBN13: 9780199273669
• ISBN10: 0199273669
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-05-31
• Publisher: Clarendon Press

Summary

Many philosophers these days consider themselves naturalists, but it's doubtful any two of them intend the same position by the term. In this book, Penelope Maddy describes and practises a particularly austere form of naturalism called 'Second Philosophy'. Without a definitive criterion forwhat counts as 'science' and what doesn't, Second Philosophy can't be specified directly - 'trust only the methods of science!' or some such thing - so Maddy proceeds instead by illustrating the behaviours of an idealized inquirer she calls the 'Second Philosopher'. This Second Philosopher beginsfrom perceptual common sense and progresses from there to systematic observation, active experimentation, theory formation and testing, working all the while to assess, correct and improve her methods as she goes. Second Philosophy is then the result of the Second Philosopher's investigations. Maddy delineates the Second Philosopher's approach by tracing her reactions to various familiar skeptical and transcendental views (Descartes, Kant, Carnap, late Putnam, van Fraassen), comparing her methods to those of other self-described naturalists (especially Quine), and examining a prominentcontemporary debate (between disquotationalists and correspondence theorists in the theory of truth) to extract a properly second-philosophical line of thought. She then undertakes to practise Second Philosophy in her reflections on the ground of logical truth, the methodology, ontology andepistemology of mathematics, and the general prospects for metaphysics naturalized.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

What is Second Philosophy?

Descartes' first philosophy

Neo-Cartesian skepticism

Hume's naturalism

Kant's transcendentalism

Carnap's rational reconstruction

Quine's naturalism

Putnam's anti-naturalism

The Second Philosopher at Work

What's left to do?

An illustration: truth and reference

Reconfiguring the debate

Disquotation

Minimalism

Correlation

A Second Philosophy of Logic

Naturalistic options

Kant on logic

Undoing the Copernican revolution

The logical structure of the world

The logical structure of cognition

The status of rudimentary logic

From rudimentary to classical logic

Caveats

Second Philosophy and Mathematics

Second philosophy of science

Mathematics in application

Second methodology of mathematics

Second philosophy of mathematics

Second metaphysics

Bibliography

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