Philosophy

How is "philosophical progress" made, assuming it is made at all? And on a related note, are philosophical theories ever completely abandoned (considered "wrong"), or do they simply adjust to criticism?

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The philosopher Benson Mates once characterized philosophy as a field whose problems are unsolvable. This has often been taken to mean that there can be no progress in philosophy as there is in mathematics or science. But I believe that solutions are always parts of theories, hence that acceptance of a solution requires commitment to a theory. Progress can be had in philosophy in the same way as in mathematics and science by knowing what commitments are needed for solutions. In a sense, this means that sometimes philosophy "progresses" backwards, by coming to understand what extra assumptions are needed to solve its problems. (I've written about this in a technical paper--"Unsolvable Problems and Philosophical Progress" (American Philosophical Quarterly 1982)--and in an essay for a non-technical audience--"Can Philosophy Solve Its Own Problems?" (SUNY News 1984). There was also a recent symposium on this topic at Harvard, and some of the talks from that symposium can be Googled online.

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