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Julian Baggini. The Philosopher's Toolkit
Table of Contents
Guide
Pages
THE PHILOSOPHER’S
A Compendium of PhilosophicalConcepts and Methods
Acknowledgements
Alphabetical Table of Contents
Preface
1 Basic Tools for Argument
1.1 Arguments, premises, and conclusions
Argument and inference
Argument vs explanation
The place of reason in philosophy
Premises and conclusions
Grounds for premises and Agrippa’s trilemma?
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1.2 Deduction
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1.3 Induction
Defining induction
The problem of induction
A misleading similarity
Assuming the uniformity of nature?
A deeper complexity
A groundless ground?
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1.4 Validity and soundness
Defining validity
The truth machine
Soundness
Importance of validity
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1.5 Invalidity
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1.6 Consistency
Apparent and real inconsistency: the abortion example
Exceptions to the rule?
Poetic, religious, or philosophical inconsistency?
Consistency ≠ truth
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1.7 Fallacies
Formal fallacies
Informal fallacies
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1.8 Refutation
Refutation tools
Inadequate justification
Conceptual problems
Using the tool
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1.9 Axioms
Defining axioms
Axiomatic vs natural systems of deduction
First type of axiom
Second type of axiom
Axioms for all?
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1.10 Definitions
Free trade example
Too narrow or too broad?
A rule of thumb
A long tradition
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1.11 Certainty and probability
Types of certainty
The sceptical problem
Objective and subjective probability
Certainty and validity
Philosophical theories
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1.12 Tautologies, self‐contradictions, and the law of non‐contradiction
Valid arguments as tautologies
Law of non‐contradiction
Self‐refuting criticism
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2 More Advanced Tools
2.1 Abduction
The problem of enumerative induction
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2.2 Hypothetico‐deductive method
The problem of assumptions
Testability problems: universal claims, technical limits, and ravens
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2.3 Dialectic
Plato: oneness and otherness, collection, and division
Hegelian dialectic
Dialectical materialism
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2.4 Analogies
Analogies in reasoning
Argument, illustration, intuition
Strong and weak: the fallacy of false analogy
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2.5 Anomalies and exceptions that prove the rule
Weakening the rule
Amending and defending a rule
Fallacy of accident
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2.6 Intuition pumps
Use of the tool
Problems
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2.7 Logical constructions
Type 1: the Internet
Type 2: the average Briton
A complication: holism and individualism, realism and nominalism
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2.8 Performativity and speech acts
Meaning, acting, and performing
Gender and identity
The emperor has no clothes?
Queering and jamming performances
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2.9 Reduction
Simplified water
Application in philosophy
The many and the one
Ethics
Ordinary language opposition
A heuristic device
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2.10 Representation
The mirror of nature
Correspondence of content
Formal or structural correspondence
Intention and action
Pragmatic and functionalist approaches
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2.11 Thought experiments
Experimental method
Possible worlds and Twin Earth
Mapping the conceptual universe
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2.12 Useful fictions
Different from most thought experiments
Use in explanation
Caution!
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3 Tools for Assessment
3.1 Affirming, denying, and conditionals
Fallacy of affirming the consequent
Fallacy of denying the antecedent
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3.2 Alternative explanations
Free‐will example
Good advice for prosecutors
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3.3 Ambiguity and vagueness
‘A’ cause for ‘everything’
Two types of ambiguity and two related fallacies: equivocation and amphiboly
Ambiguity ≠ vagueness
Two types of vagueness: degree and context
Clarity and rationality
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3.4 Bivalence and the excluded middle
Too simple?
Fuzzy logic
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3.5 Category mistakes
Mind and will examples
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3.6 Ceteris paribus
Limiting the unusual
In decision procedure
In counterargument
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3.7 Circularity
Definition
The Cartesian circle
Breaking the circle: merely apparent circularity
Hermeneutical circles, conceptual wholes, and coherence
The inductive circle?
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3.8 Composition and division
Parts and wholes, players and teams
Holism and individualism
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3.9 Conceptual incoherence
Woman’s true nature example
Incoherence vs confusion
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3.10 Contradiction/contrariety
Dialetheism, paraconsistent logics, and extra‐logical discourses
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3.11 Conversion, contraposition, obversion
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3.12 Counterexamples
Good = pleasant example
Importance of the strange
Limits of modification
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3.13 Criteria
Wittgenstein and criteria
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3.14 Doxa/para‐doxa
Arguing, disrupting, and transforming
Follow the bliss
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3.15 Error theory
Demanded by revision itself
Flat Earth example
Plausibility not soundness
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3.16 False dichotomy
Example: Austin and sensation
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3.17 False cause
Some metaphysical issues
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3.18 Genetic fallacy
Origin vs justification
General application
Example of evolutionary psychology
Caveat
Some historical uses
The upshot
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3.19 Horned dilemmas
Definition
Mill example
Defensive strategies
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3.20 Is/ought gap
The logical point
The meta‐ethical point
Back to logic
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3.21 Masked man fallacy
The property of ‘being known’
Descartes example
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3.22 Partners in guilt
Strengths and weaknesses of the tool
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3.23 Principle of charity
The main point
Problem of interpretive imperialism
Avoids straw men
Plato example
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3.24 Question‐begging
Descartes example
Assumptions and implications
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3.25 Reductios
A powerful tool
Complexities
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3.26 Redundancy
Redundancy vs refutation
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3.27 Regresses
Fodor example
The sceptical regress
Not a slippery slope
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3.28 Saving the phenomena
The critical point
The demands of explanation
Limitations of the critical point
Levels of explanation
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3.29 Self‐defeating arguments
Examples
Commonplace in philosophy
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3.30 Sufficient reason
Schopenhauer’s fourfold
Reasons and causes
Hume’s doubts
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3.31 Testability
Testability and science
Falsifiability to the rescue?
Relation of the two principles
Testability and holism
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4 Tools for Conceptual Distinctions
4.1 A priori/a posteriori
A priori knowledge and the ‘always‐already’
Origin vs method of proof
A posteriori knowledge
Historical importance
Critique of the distinction
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4.2 Absolute/relative
Two views of time
Application: ethics and social science
Three cautions
Political import
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4.3 Analytic/synthetic
Psychology or logic?
Quine and containment
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4.4 Belief/knowledge
The offspring of Theaetetus 201d–210a
The ethics of belief
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4.5 Categorical/modal
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4.6 Cause/reason
Reasons and causes in the natural order
Reason, causes, and human action
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4.7 Conditional/biconditional
The treachery of ‘if’
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4.8 De re/de dicto
Necessity
Use and mention
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4.9 Defeasible/indefeasible
Defeasibility and knowledge
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4.10 Entailment/implication
Entailment
Implication
Good advice
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4.11 Endurantism/perdurantism
Different parts in different locations
Objects as worms or noodles
Accounting for meaningful language about past and future
The persistence of things through time
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4.12 Essence/accident
Historical modifications
Political uneasiness
A contextual approach
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4.13 Internalism/externalism
Thought and meaning
Reasons
Justification
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4.14 Knowledge by acquaintance/description
Russell’s approach
Knowledge as usage
Using this tool
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4.15 Mind/body
The long pedigree of mind, soul, intellect
Different qualities
The hard problem
What it’s like to be a bat
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4.16 Necessary/contingent
Events and claims
Determinism, Spinoza, and necessity
Quine and contingency
Example: the existence of God
Problem: the future and the excluded middle
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4.17 Necessary/sufficient
One or many, joint or separate
Application in definition
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4.18 Nothingness/being
The long shadow of Parmenides
The problem of the absolute vacuum
Transcendentals and being as nothing
Negative facts
Existential freedom
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4.19 Objective/subjective
Objectivity and ethics
Knowledge, perspectivism, and the hermeneutic circle
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4.20 Realist/non‐realist
Varieties of realism
Varieties of non‐realism
À la carte
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4.21 Sense/reference
Not so easy
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4.22 Substratum/bundle
A basis for inherence and particularity, an explanation for language
The senselessness of substrata
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4.23 Syntax/semantics
Uses in logic
Importance in artificial intelligence
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4.24 Universal/particular
Realists and nominalists about universals
What makes universals particular?
Political suspicions about universals
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4.25 Thick/thin concepts
Use in moral theory
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4.26 Types/tokens
Origins
Identity
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5 Tools of Historical Schools and Philosophers
5.1 Aphorism, fragment, remark
Not a trivial history
The pithy point
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5.2 Categories and specific differences
Speaking, thinking, being
The critical power of difference
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5.3 Elenchus and aporia
Refutation and recognition
The discoveries of doubt
Aporia and deconstruction
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5.4 Hegel’s master/slave dialectic
Domination, its inversion, and its overcoming
The political import
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5.5 Hume’s fork
The first type
The second type
Sceptical import
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5.6 Indirect discourse
Kierkegaard’s ‘indirect communication’
What can be said and what can only be shown
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5.7 Leibniz’s law of identity
Mind–brain example
Space and time, different but indiscernible?
Problems of personal identity
Problem of change
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5.8 Ockham’s razor
Principle of method
Metaphysical principle
Simplicity vs completeness
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5.9 Phenomenological method(s)
Reduction and epochē
To what end?
What it’s like to be …
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5.10 Signs and signifiers
Peirce and Saussure: the science of signs
Baudrillard and Bakhtin: the politics of signs
Keep the terminology straight
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5.11 Transcendental argument
Defining it
The status of the given
The quality of transcendental reasoning
Copernican revolution
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6 Tools for Radical Critique
6.1 Class critique
Using the tool
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6.2 Différance, deconstruction, and the critique of presence
Wider import
Using the tool
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6.3 Empiricist critique of metaphysics
Critique of meaning and intelligibility
Critique of truth
Using the tool
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6.4 Feminist and gender critiques
Wide‐ranging implications
A recognition of complexity
Queering gender
Using the tool
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6.5 Foucaultian critique of power
Archaeological method
Genealogical method
Microphysics of biopower
Normalisation
Using the tool
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6.6 Heideggerian critique of metaphysics
Forgetfulness of Being
Not a thing but no‐thing
Using the tool
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6.7 Lacanian critique
Using the tool
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6.8 Critiques of naturalism
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6.9 Nietzschean critique of Christian–Platonic culture
The cure
Using the tool
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6.10 Pragmatist critique
Metaphysics and religion
Using the tool
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6.11 Sartrean critique of ‘bad faith’
Examples
Using the tool
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7 Tools at the Limit
7.1 Basic beliefs
Variations on a theme
Can God be basic?
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7.2 Gödel and incompleteness
Precisely what?
General application
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7.3 Hermeneutic circle
A hermeneutic wheel?
A hermeneutical dialectic: parts to wholes and wholes to parts
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7.4 Philosophy and/as art
Philosophy as art
Art as philosophical argument
Art as philosophy through its own special tools
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7.5 Mystical experience and revelation
Hostility to mysticism
What if?
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7.6 Paradoxes
Paradox Type 1: when reason contradicts experience
Paradox Type 2: when reason itself leads to a contradiction
Paradox type 3: when experience contradicts reason
The value of paradoxes
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7.7 Possibility and impossibility
Logical impossibility
Physical impossibility
Other kinds of possibility
Application
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7.8 Primitives
Example of ‘good’
Observation statements and ostensive definition
Holism
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7.9 Self‐evident truths
Laws of logic
Analytic statements
Observation statements
Clear, distinct, and adequate ideas
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7.10 Scepticism
History
Positive scepticism
The problem of the criterion
Too high a standard?
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7.11 Underdetermination and incommensurability
Examples
The indeterminacy of radical translation
Incommensurability
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Index
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