Philosophical Progress and Reasonable Optimism

Daniel Stoljar (Australian National University)

Department of Philosophy

University of Birmingham

5pm-7pm, Tuesday the 3rd of June 2014

Room G51, ERI Building, University of Birmingham Campus

(G3 on Campus Map)

Royal Institute of Philosophy, Birmingham Branch

Public Lecture

Daniel Stoljar (ANU): Philosophical Progress and Reasonable Optimism

This lecture is free and open to all. Refreshments will also be provided. For further information, please contact Dr Jussi Suikkanen ([email protected]).

Abstract:

Can there be progress in philosophy?  On the one hand, it is often thought that philosophical problems are perennials for which it is pointless to expect a solution. On the other hand, professional philosophy seems to have organized itself, perhaps unconsciously, around the opposite view: how else to explain the panoply of books, papers, journals, conferences, graduate programs, websites etc.? Who is right? And what turns on who is right?

This paper defends a reasonable optimism about philosophical progress. Optimistic, because I argue that we have answered philosophical questions in the past and therefore should expect to do so in the future.  Reasonable, because the sort of optimism I have in mind does not extend to all kinds of problem reasonably thought of as philosophical nor even to every instance of those kinds of problem.