The Philosophy of Philosophy

Timothy Williamson is the Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford University and Whitney Griswold Visiting Professor at Yale University. He was previously Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at Edinburgh University, and has been Visiting Professor at MIT, Princeton University, University of Michigan, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His books include Identity and Discrimination, Vagueness, Doing Philosophy, Knowledge and its Limits, Modal Logic as Metaphysics, and Suppose and Tell.

Preface to the Second Edition xi

Preface to the First Edition xxx

Acknowledgments xxxiii

Part I 1

Introduction 3

1 The Linguistic Turn and the Conceptual Turn 12

2 Taking Philosophical Questions at Face Value 25

3 Metaphysical Conceptions of Analyticity 50

4 Epistemological Conceptions of Analyticity 75

5 Knowledge of Metaphysical Modality 136

6 Thought Experiments 181

7 Evidence in Philosophy 210

8 Knowledge Maximization 249

Afterword Must Do Better 280

Appendix 1 Modal Logic within Counterfactual Logic 295

Appendix 2 Counterfactual Donkeys 307

Part II 311

9 Widening the Picture 313

9.1 How Did We Get Here from There? The Transformation of Analytic Philosophy 313

9.2 Abductive Philosophy 351

9.3 Model-Building in Philosophy 372

9.4 Morally Loaded Cases in Philosophy 386

9.5 Reply to Dennett and Kuznetsov on Abductive Philosophy 401

9.6 Reply to Kuznetsov and Stoljar on Model-Building in Philosophy 404

10 Experimental Philosophy 406

10.1 Reply to Weinberg 406

10.2 Philosophical Expertise and the Burden of Proof 413

10.3 On Joshua Alexander’s Experimental Philosophy: An Introduction 431

10.4 Philosophical Criticisms of Experimental Philosophy 440

10.5 Reply to Dennett, Knobe, and Kuznetsov on “Philosophical Intuitions” 464

11 Naturalism 467

11.1 Reply to Kornblith 467

11.2 Reply to Stalnaker 471

11.3 Reply to Bianchi 481

11.4 What is Naturalism? 484

11.5 The Unclarity of Naturalism 488

11.6 On Penelope Maddy’s What Do Philosophers Do? Skepticism and the Practice of Philosophy 491

12 Concepts, Understanding, Analyticity 497

12.1 Reply to Jackson 497

12.2 Reply to Boghossian 502

12.3 Reply to Peacocke 512

12.4 Reply to Mišc¡evic´ 520

12.5 Reply to Smokrovic´ 529

12.6 Reply to Trobok 533

13 Wittgensteinian Approaches 538

13.1 Reply to Moore 538

13.2 Reply to Horwich 543

13.3 Reply to Frascolla 553

13.4 Reply to Marconi 556

13.5 Reply to Tripodi 560

13.6 On Paul Horwich’s Wittgenstein’s Metaphilosophy 563

14 Miscellany 569

14.1 Reply to Ichikawa 569

14.2 Reply to Martin 575

14.3 On Robert Brandom’s Reason in Philosophy: Animating Ideas 579

14.4 On Peter Unger’s Empty Ideas: A Critique of Analytic Philosophy 586

14.5 Plato Goes Pop 591

14.6 Popular Philosophy and Populist Philosophy 595

Bibliography 598

Index 619