Topics Philosophy

Question I have recently seen references to a "branch" of philosophy (or perhaps a discipline unto itself) called "metaphilosophy." Apparently, metaphilosophy is the examination of the nature of philosophy itself (e.g. what questions it addresses, how it answers questions, etc). The existence of such a branch or discipline is surprising to me, though. I had always thought philosophy was open to every possible question in some way, and so how could anyone justify such a new discipline? Isn't philosophy itself "metaphilosophy"? And, of course, what happens if someone wants to ask what question should be addressed in metaphilosophy? Do we then need a "meta-meta-philosophy"? Is "metaphilosophy" taken seriously in professional academic circles, or is it just a budding internet fad? Is such a branch of study really necessary?

Accepted:
June 3, 2010

Comments

Metaphilosophy is a perfectly legitimate branch of philosophy. After all, if there can be a "philosophy of X" for (almost?) any X, then surely there can be a philosophy of philosophy. As with any "philosophy of X", it studies the fundamental assumptions, methods, and goals of philosophy, investigating what philosophy is and how it canbe done. Some people might think that the philosophy of philosophy isthe height of "gazing at your navel", but it's really what's involvedwhen you think about thinking. So its existence shouldn't really surprise you. It's certainly not "a new discipline": It has probably been around at least since Socrates's (or maybe Plato's) time, though probably not so-named. The journal Metaphilosophy has been around for 40 years and is taken seriously, so metaphilosophy is certainly not "budding" or an "Internet fad". I wouldn't say that (all of) philosophy is metaphilosophy, though all of metaphilosophy is philosophy. (In fact, philosophy is one of the few academic disciplines that studies itself; history is another one that comes to mind (who else would study the history of history, if not historians?), and there is a branch of mathematics (well, at least a branch of logic) called "metamathematics": the mathematics of mathematics.) As to whether it is necessary or not, I would have to say that it is; after all, you needed an answer to your question, didn't you? I would agree, however, that it is possible that this answer to your question is, instead, an example of meta-metaphilosophy :-)