Explication, description and enlightenment

Schroeder, S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4480-6458 and Preston, J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3740-2308 (2019) Explication, description and enlightenment. In: Analysis and Explication in 20th Century Philosophy. Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy, 22. Brill, pp. 106-120.

Abstract/Summary

Rudolf Carnap introduced and endorsed a philosophical methodology which he called the method of ‘explication’. P.F. Strawson took issue with this methodology, but it is currently undergoing a revival. In a series of articles, Patrick Maher has recently argued that explication is an appropriate method for ‘formal epistemology’, has defended it against Strawson’s objection, and has himself put it to work in the philosophy of science in further clarification of the very concepts on which Carnap originally used it (degree of confirmation, and probability), as well as some concepts to which Carnap did not apply it (such as justified degree of belief. We outline Carnap’s original idea, plus Maher’s recent application of such a methodology, and then seek to show that the problem Strawson raised for it has not been dealt with. The method is indeed, we argue, problematic and therefore not obviously superior to the ‘descriptive’ method associated with Strawson.

Item Type	Book or Report Section
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/82707
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Humanities > Philosophy
Publisher	Brill
Download/View statistics	View download statistics for this item