"Are There Any Successful Philosophical Arguments?" (2017)

Being, Freedom, and Method, 2017

Philosophical Studies

Peter van Inwagen proposes a criterion of philosophical success. He takes it to support an extremely pessimistic view about philosophy. He thinks that all philosophical arguments for substantive conclusions fail, including the argument from evil. I'm more optimistic on both counts. I'll identify problems with van Inwagen's criterion and propose an alternative. I'll then explore the differing implications of our criteria. On my view, philosophical arguments can succeed and the argument from evil isn't obviously a failure.

2020

In this article, a new, idealizing-hermeneutic methodological approach to developing a theory of philosophical arguments is presented and carried out. The basis for this is a theory of ideal philosophical theory types developed from the analysis of historical examples. According to this theory, the following ideal types of theory exist in philosophy: 1. descriptive-nomological, 2. idealizing-hermeneutic, 3. technical-constructive, 4. ontic-practical. These types of theories are characterized in particular by what their basic types of theses are. The main task of this article is then to determine the types of arguments that are suitable for justifying these types of theses. Surprisingly, practical arguments play a key role here.

In Mitch Green & Jan Michel (eds.), William Lycan on Mind, Meaning, and Method

Lycan (2022) sums up his (2019) _On Evidence in Philosophy_ as a “dolorous” book. This is primarily because the book claims that the field is infected with non-rational socio-psychological forces (fashion, bias, etc.) and that there is a persistent lack of consensus on philosophical questions. In this paper, I primarily rebut Lycan's second reason for dolorousness. For one, if we attend carefully to his text, his metaphilosophical despair seems to die a death of 1000 qualifications. For another, several of the most important qualifications to such pessimism have been omitted. In attending to these, we shall see that philosophy has much to be proud of. I also offer an explanation for why many optimistic signs for philosophical progress tend to escape our notice.

2023

Philosophy begins and ends in disagreement. Philosophers disagree among themselves in innumerable ways, and this pervasive and permanent dissent is a sign of their inability to solve philosophical problems and present well-established substantive truths. This raises the question: “What should we do with our philosophical beliefs in light of philosophy's epistemic failure?” In this open access book, János Tozsér analyzes the possible answers to this question, develops them into comprehensive metaphilosophical visions, and argues that we cannot commit ourselves to any of them in peace, with a clear intellectual conscience, and without self-deception. Tozsér calls this disheartening insight “the experience of breakdown,” claiming that no matter how we struggle, we are unable to create substantive philosophical knowledge that goes beyond the cost-benefit analysis of philosophical theories. He makes the case that, at the same time, we cannot suspend all of our beliefs about the most fundamental facts of our world once and for all, and so forever give up on seeking substantive philosophical truths.

Informal Logic, 2010

Evidence, Persuasion & Diversity. Proceedings of Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation Conference, Vol. 12 (2020)., 2020

In this article, a new, idealizing-hermeneutic methodological approach to developing a theory of philosophical arguments is presented and carried out. The basis for this is a theory of ideal philosophical theory types developed from the analysis of historical examples. According to this theory, the following ideal types of theory exist in philosophy: 1. descriptive-nomological, 2. idealizing-hermeneutic, 3. technical-constructive, 4. ontic-practical. These types of theories are characterized in particular by what their basic types of theses are. The main task of this article is then to determine the types of arguments that are suitable for justifying these types of theses. Surprisingly, practical arguments play a key role here.

Animal Rights, 2011

Here we turn to some important distinctions that everyone needs to know. These distinctions can become very technical and academic if one wishes to go that way, but the basic issues are relatively easy to understand. This chapter starts with the key distinction between...

Forthcoming in Cambridge Companion to Philosophical Methodology, (eds: Overgaard and D'Oro) Many philosophers (and non-philosophers) think persistent disagreement is a characteristic feature of philosophy. This thought is central is much scepticism about philosophy as a discipline: Surely, the thought goes, if the goal is to find answers to important questions, philosophers have failed: they've been at it for more than 2000 years and they haven't managed to agree on anything! This paper is an extended response to that line of thought and also an exploration of the sources of persistent disagreement in philosophy. 1 I argue for three central theses: 1. We have no evidence that there is more persistent disagreement in philosophy than in relevantly similar disciplines.

The Philosophical Forum, 2016