The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Methodology

by Herman Cappelen (Editor), Tamar Szabó Gendler (Editor), John Hawthorne (Editor)

This is the most comprehensive book ever published on philosophical methodology. A team of thirty-eight of the world's leading philosophers present original essays on various aspects of how philosophy should be and is done. The first part is devoted to broad traditions and approaches to philosophical methodology (including logical empiricism, phenomenology, and ordinary language philosophy). The entries in the second part address topics in philosophical methodology, such as intuitions, conceptual analysis, and transcendental arguments. The third part of the book is devoted to essays about the interconnections between philosophy and neighbouring fields, including those of mathematics, psychology, literature and film, and neuroscience.

Genres: Philosophy

770 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2016

Reviews

[Mackenzie B · Rating 5 out of 5]

I only read the first 450 pages, since I thought the last third was irrelevant.

I've been studying philosophy as a hobby for about three years. This book cleared up a lot of the disputes that appear in upper level philosophy (or once one gets one's feet wet so to speak). Some of the things they point out cut out a lot of the BS and thought loops that appear when one gets into unsolvable tracts of philosophical ponderings (think minds in vats, is this chair a chair, ship of theseus, etc.).

That being said, the price point is outrageous. The only reason I bought this book is that I intended to put an end to my endeavor of studying philosophy. It accomplished the task, and I will only be reading a finite number of remaining texts for my philosophy studies.

Tl:dr: If you feel you've been spending too much time studying philosophy, or are too deep into it to get out, or simply find yourself ruminating on a single problem for ages... read this book and you might be able to return to living a normal life (and finally leave the ivory tower and touch some danged grass).


Edit: First Reviewer :D