Abstract

I begin Chapter 1 with a description of some of the better known attempts to disconfirm proposed philosophical analyses by offering counterexamples to them in the context of thought experiments. After describing the role that appeals to pre-theoretical intuitions play in these thought experiments, I raise several questions about the appropriateness of such appeals. ;The most obvious place to begin the search for answers to the questions I ask is with an examination of some different views on the data of philosophical analysis, of that, whatever it is, to which philosophers turn to support or refute proposed analyses. Thus, I go on to examine and evaluate three views of philosophical analysis. In Chapter 2 I describe and evaluate Richard Fumerton's view of analysis, in Chapter 3 J. L. Austin's view, and in Chapter 4 G. E. Moore's view. I assess each view, paying special attention to how well it facilitates and legitimates the use of thought experiments to disconfirm philosophical analyses. In particular, I consider how well each view countenances the problem raised by Meno's paradox. I examine, that is, how well each view explains the nature and status of pre-theoretical intuitions without rendering analytic work either impossible or somehow insignificant. ;In the final chapter, after a brief review, I note that the criticisms aimed at these views of analysis do not constitute an indictment of all views of analysis nor of all philosophical methods. I point out that there appear to be some philosophical questions the answering of which requires the employment of methods other than analysis alone, but also that the extent to which answering these questions depends on analysis is the extent to which the problems with analysis I have discussed will be encountered. I conclude with a petition to philosophers that they, before firing up their thought experiment generators, give more thought to the details of this, or any other, philosophical methods they intend to employ