Creating truths by winning arguments

the problem of methodological artifacts in philosophy

Abraham Graber

pp. 487-503

in: Synthese 192 (2), 2015.

Abstract

In this paper I will argue that there is a bi-directional relationship between philosophy and meaning such that doing philosophy can change the meaning of terms. A rhetorically powerful work of philosophy that garners widespread interest has the potential to change how people use a predicate. This gives rise to three concerns. First, one’s conclusion can become right in virtue of one doing a particularly good job arguing for it. Second, it may be implausible to take philosophy to be a primarily descriptive enterprise. Part of the job of the philosopher is to proselytize about the correct usage of a word. Lastly, and most worrisome of all, the age-old method of the dialectic, a centerpiece of the philosophical project for thousands of years, threatens to plunge a range of domains of philosophical discourse into incoherence.