Overview
- Empirically, the goal of analytic philosophical debates is not truth but mere persuasion
- Logical inference barriers are recast as persuasion barriers
- All metaphysics breaches such barriers and must be abandoned
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Table of contents (6 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
Who carries the burden of proof in analytic philosophical debates, and how can this burden be satisfied? As it turns out, the answer to this joint question yields a fundamental challenge to the very conduct of metaphysics in analytic philosophy.
Empirical research presented in this book indicates that the vastly predominant goal pursued in analytic philosophical dialogues lies not in discovering truths or generating knowledge, but merely in prevailing over one’s opponents. Given this goal, the book examines how most effectively to allocate and discharge the burden of proof. It focuses on premises that must prudently be avoided because a burden of proof on them could never be satisfied, and in particular discusses unsupportable bridge premises across inference barriers, like Hume’s barrier between ‘is’ and ‘ought’, or the barrier between the content of our talk or thought, and the world beyond such content.
Employing this content/world barrier for a critical assessment of mainstream analytic philosophical methods, this book argues that we must prudently avoid invoking intuitions or other content of thought or talk in support of claims about the world beyond content, that is, metaphysically significant claims. Yet as content-located evidence is practically indispensable to metaphysical debates throughout analytic philosophy, from ethics to the philosophy of mathematics, this book reaches the startling conclusion that all such metaphysical debates must, prudently, be terminated.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Conny Rhode’s research at the University of York focused on philosophical methodology and argumentation theory, beside forays into the philosophy of science, post-Kantian philosophy, and political and moral philosophy, often employing a feminist perspective. In light of the conclusion derived in this book, Rhode has left academic philosophy and now insists on appropriate evidence in accountancy instead.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Burden of Proof upon Metaphysical Methods
Authors: Conny Rhode
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27777-1
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-27776-4Published: 04 May 2023
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-27779-5Published: 05 May 2024
eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-27777-1Published: 03 May 2023
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVII, 205
Topics: Metaphysics, Philosophy, general