Table Of ContentThe Palgrave Handbook of Philosophical Methods
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The Palgrave Handbook of
Philosophical Methods
Edited by
Chris Daly
University of Manchester, UK
Introduction, selection and editorial matter © Chris Daly 2015
Individual chapters © Contributors 2015
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-34454-0
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First published 2015 by
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Palgrave handbook of philosophical methods / [edited by] Chris Daly,
University of Manchester, UK.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Methodology. I. Daly, Chris, editor.
BD241.P3155 2015
101—dc23 2014049660
Contents
List of Figures vii
Acknowledgments viii
Notes on Contributors ix
Introduction and Historical Overview 1
Chris Daly
Part I Philosophical Inquiry: Problems and Prospects
1 A Priori Analysis and the Methodological A Posteriori 33
David Braddon-Mitchell
2 T he Failure of Analysis and the Nature of Concepts 51
Michael Huemer
3 S ingular Ontology: How To 77
Alexis Burgess
4 P aradigms and Philosophical Progress 112
M. B. Willard
5 D isagreement in Philosophy 133
Jason Decker
6 A gnosticism about Ontology 158
Chris Daly and David Liggins
Part II Philosophical Explanation and Methodology
in Metaphysics
7 M odality, Metaphysics, and Method 179
Boris Kment
8 E xplanation and Explication 208
Paul Audi
9 E mpirically Grounded Philosophical Theorizing 231
Otávio Bueno and Scott A. Shalkowski
10 E t Tu, Brute? 2 58
Sam Baron
11 P roperties are Potatoes? An Essay on Ontological Parsimony 282
Nikk Effingham
v
vi Contents
12 A dvice for Eleatics 306
Sam Cowling
13 P ragmatism without Idealism 331
Robert Kraut and Kevin Scharp
Part III Intuition, Psychology, and Experimental
Philosophy
14 I ntuitions, Conceptual Engineering, and Conceptual Fixed Points 363
Matti Eklund
15 T hought Experiments and Experimental Philosophy 386
Joachim Horvath
16 R ationalizing Self-Interpretation 419
Laura Schroeter and François Schroeter
17 R eclaiming the Armchair 448
Janet Levin
Part IV Method, Mind, and Epistemology
18 P lacement, Grounding, and Mental Content 481
Kelly Trogdon
19 T heory Dualism and the Metalogic of Mind-Body Problems 497
T. Parent
20 K nowing How and ‘Knowing How’ 527
Yuri Cath
21 P hilosophy of Science and the Curse of the Case Study 553
Adrian Currie
22 T hree Degrees of Naturalism in the Philosophy of Science 573
Paul Dicken
Part V Metaethics and Normativity
23 A gainst Pluralism in Metaethics 593
Jens Johansson and Jonas Olson
24 D irectly Plausible Principles 610
Howard Nye
25 M oral Inquiry and Mob Psychology 637
James Lenman
26 T he Methodological Irrelevance of Reflective Equilibrium 652
Tristram McPherson
Index 675
List of Figures
1 The color cylinder 55
2 The color red as a wedge in the color cylinder 56
3 Clusters of objects in the space of possible natures. Each point in
the space represents a nature that something could have. Dots
represent natures of objects actually found in the world 61
4 Two natural ways of grouping clustered objects into conceptual
categories 62
5 Evolving knowledge of the solar system led to the reclassification
of Pluto from a ‘planet’ to a ‘dwarf planet’ or ‘planetoid’ 62
6 The relationship between BELIEF, JUSTIFICATION, and TRUTH in
which KNOWLEDGE could be defined as JUSTIFIED, TRUE BELIEF 63
7 The red region as a proper part of the colored region 65
8 Potato vs. property Identifications 296
9 A map of Champlain’s settlement on St Croix Island 508
vii
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my gratitude to the following people who have greatly
helped in the development and production of this handbook. I would like to
thank the editorial staff at Palgrave Macmillan and the production team, espe-
cially Vidhya, for their thoroughness and attention to detail. I am also grateful
to Natalie Boon for compiling such an excellent index.
Secondly, my thanks to the contributors for their scholarship and hard work
in helping bring this project together. I would also like to thank friends and
colleagues for their comments on the introduction. These include Paul Audi,
Tim Bayne, Pippa Daly, Eve Garrard, Jack James, Harry Lesser, David Liggins,
Joel Smith, Dennis Stampe, and Kelly Trogdon.
Lastly, my thanks to Peter Lipton (1954–2007), who greatly influenced my
career and to whom I am indebted. This book is dedicated to his memory.
viii
Notes on Contributors
Paul A udi is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Nebraska
at Omaha. His main research is in metaphysics and the philosophy of mind.
His publications include ‘How to Rule Out Disjunctive Properties’ (N oûs 2013),
‘Grounding: Toward a Theory of the I n-Virtue-Of Relation’ (T he Journal of
Philosophy 2012), and ‘Properties, Powers, and the Subset Account of Realization’
( Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 2011).
Sam B aron is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Western
Australia. His research focuses on issues in metaphysics and philosophy of
science, particularly to do with realist and anti-realist disputes in the phil-
osophy of time and the philosophy of mathematics. He is the author of a
number of articles including ‘The Priority of the Now’ ( Pacific Philosophical
Quarterly ), ‘Optimisation and Mathematical Explanation: Doing the Levy Walk’
( Synthese ) and ‘There Is No Easy Road to Presentism’ ( American Philosophical
Quarterly ).
David Braddon-Mitchell is Professor of Philosophy at Sydney University.
His research is primarily in philosophy of mind and metaphysics, and crosses
over into philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, ethics and political
philosophy. He is the author (with Frank Jackson) of P hilosophy of Mind and
Cognition (2007) and (with Robert Nola) of Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical
Naturalism (2009).
Otávio B ueno is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Philosophy
Department at the University of Miami. His research concentrates in philosophy
of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of logic, and epistemology.
He has published widely in these areas in journals such as N oûs , Mind , British
Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Philosophical Studies , Philosophy of Science ,
Erkenntnis , Journal of Philosophical Logic, and A nalysis, among others. He is the
author or editor of several books, and editor in chief of S ynthese .
Alexis Burgess is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University. He
works mainly at the intersection of metaphysics and the philosophy of lan-
guage. He is co-author (with John P. Burgess) of T ruth (2011) and co-editor
(with Brett Sherman) of Metasemantics: New Essays on the Foundations of Meaning
(2014).
Yuri Cath is Lecturer in Philosophy at La Trobe University. He has written
a number of papers on the nature of knowledge-how and its relationship to
knowledge-that. He has also written on Frank Jackson’s knowledge argument
ix
