PHI 3083: Introductory Questions

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PHI 3083 Introductory Questions

• What are your goals in taking this course?
• What is research?
• What do you understand by philosophical method?
• Have you written a philosophical research paper?
  If so, what was it (your most recent one if you
  have written several) about? How did you write
  it?
• Why do philosophical research?
• How do you choose a topic?

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What is Research?

• Research late 16th century The noun is from
  from the obsolete French recerche, based on
  cerchier to search. The prefix re- here is an
  intensifier of the meaning. (The Oxford
  Dictionary of Word Histories)
• An intensive search
• Verb to search or investigate exhaustively
  (Merriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary, 11th
  ed.)
• To gather information to answer a question that
  solves a problem (Craft of Research 10)

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What do you understand by philosophical method?

• Method late middle English Originally a method
  referred to a prescribed medical treatment for a
  disease. The word came via Latin from Greek
  methodos pursuit of knowledge, based on hodos
  way. (The Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories)
• So, perhaps we can define research method as
  an intensive search to find a way to ease ones
  discomfort in the lack of understanding.
• Is the ease found through the search itself or
  through the result of the search?

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A Digression on Punctuation

• What is research?
• What is research?
• What is research?
• What is research?
• This is the right way.
• This is the right way.
• This is the right way.
• This is the right way.
• Manual for Writers, 3.106-107, 5.17

• right
• wrong
• right
• wrong
• right
• wrong
• wrong
• right

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Some Major Philosophical Ways

• Socratic Method
• Dialectic question and answer, the importance of
  the method is that questions lead to more
  questions and not answers
• Irony the pose of ignorance on the part of the
  teacher, who may know more than he lets on
• Elenchos cross-examination, refutation
• Midwifery (maieutic) eliciting ideas already
  present in the pregnant subjects mind

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Descartes Discourse on Method (1637)

• Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the
  Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences
  http//www.classicallibrary.org/descartes/discours
  e/index.htm
• The first was never to accept anything for true
  which I did not clearly know to be such that is
  to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and
  prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my
  judgement than what was presented to my mind so
  clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground
  of doubt.
• The second, to divide each of the difficulties
  under examination into as many parts as possible,
  and as might be necessary for its adequate
  solution.
• The third, to conduct my thoughts in such order
  that, by commencing with objects the simplest and
  easiest to know, I might ascend by little and
  little, and, as it were, step by step, to the
  knowledge of the more complex assigning in
  thought a certain order even to those objects
  which in their own nature do not stand in a
  relation of antecedence and sequence.
• And the last, in every case to make enumerations
  so complete, and reviews so general, that I might
  be assured that nothing was omitted.

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Hans-Georg Gadamers Truth and Method (1960)

• Philosophical hermeneutics
• A method for interpreting texts which emphasizes
  that meaning is a function of fusing the
  historical horizons of the author and the reader.
  One should try to make the prejudices of each as
  clear as possible, but they all cannot ultimately
  be avoided.
• There is no final truth or interpretation of a
  text, only a dialogue between text and readers
  that continues indefinitely.
• Questioning and the hermeneutical circle
• Historically effected consciousness
• Philosophy as dialogue

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How did you write it?

• The importance of a rhetorical community
• Writing for others demands more from you than
  writing for yourself. (CR 14)
• You will understand your own work better when
  you explicitly try to anticipate your readers
  questions.
• Writing a research report is thinking in print,
  but thinking from the point of view of your
  readers. (CR 15)

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Why do philosophical research?

• Truth, Rhetoric, and Pleasure
• Develop your understanding and approach or unveil
  the truth
• Develop valuable skills for any future career
• The sheer pleasure of it!
• Power? Peace of Soul?
• The expression of maturity and mastery in the
  midst of doing, creating, working, and
  willingcalm breathing, attained freedom of the
  will. Twilight of the Idolswho knows? Perhaps
  also only a kind of peace of soul. (Nietzsche)

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How do you choose a topic?

• Chapter 3 If you are free (40).
• A philosophical question Do you choose your
  topic or does your topic choose you?
• Practical guidance
• Start with what interests you most deeply
• Generally, a topic is too broad if it can be
  stated in four to five words (43)
• Forget the Internet
• Begin with questions that others have asked
  (e.g., Am I free to choose what I do?) (Manual
  2.23, 3.78)
• Summary (52)

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Research Problems

• Research problems are defined by incomplete
  knowledge or flawed understanding. You solve it
  not by changing the world but by understanding it
  better. (CR 59)
• Having a topic to read about is (not) the same
  as having a problem to solve. (60) In philosophy
  many topics can easily be changed into problems
  by asking whether a particular view or position
  is consistent and cogent.
• What are some tips for finding a good research
  problem?

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An Example

• Topic
• I am studying Gallaghers contribution to the
  discussion of free will and consciousness and the
  conflict between libertarians and deterministic
  neuroscientists,
• Question
• because I want to find out how an
  interdisciplinary approach to free will sheds
  light on this concept and whether it is cogent
  and conclusive,
• Significance
• in order to help my readers better understand the
  nature of human actions in the world and avoid
  the pitfalls of many contemporary accounts found
  in philosophy of mind, psychology, and
  neuroscience.

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Another Example

• Topic
• I am studying the central features of the ethical
  visions of Spinoza and Kierkegaard,
• Question
• because I want to find out how closely these
  positions are related given their opposing
  theological foundations,
• Significance
• in order to help my readers better understand
  that an ethics of love does not need to be based
  on a particular conception of God.

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A New Example

• Topic
• I am studying Spinozas view of the ethical
  treatment of animal species,
• Question
• because I want to find out how he could accept
  the slaughter and destruction of different
  species given his ethical vision of the unity of
  nature and his ethics of love and nobility,
• Significance
• in order to help my readers better understand the
  inadequacy of this speciesism.