![]() To bring forward my point, in a nutshell, I contend that the armchair methodology of metaphysics can be vindicated by stressing the analogies with logical inquiries: metaphysics should be considered as a form of Logic, broadly understood. 5 In this paper I intend to offer a characterization of the methodology of analytic metaphysics somehow in the middle. ![]() Those willing to undermine metaphysics in favour of science criticize (or just try to ridicule) 3 such a mysterious reliance on intuition, while defenders of metaphysics offered discrepant strategies: some of them put forward elaborated proposals to legitimate rational intuitions, 4 while others claimed that philosophical reliance on intuitions is a mere meta-philosophical myth and the armchair approach can be vindicated in some other way. 5 See Williamson (2007), Cappelen (2012), Deutsch (2015).ĢThe nature and the legitimacy of intuition, however, is the source of further and hot debates. ![]() The idea is that metaphysicians can avoid to dirt their hands with empirical inquiries because they can gather important data by resorting to intuitions of some sort. Indeed, to escape this conclusion and the subsequent forced submission to natural sciences, philosophers have sometimes looked for a suitable sort of magic that could grant the trick, and rational intuition is often proposed as a possible candidate. But how can metaphysicians do that by sitting in a chair? Being able to investigate the deep structure of reality without leaving the armchair seems like magic. On the contrary, metaphysicians usually want to discover authentic truths about the universe. If metaphysics aimed merely at describing our naïve conceptual scheme, an a priori methodology could perhaps be defensible, but metaphysics is not always concerned merely with our folk way of categorizing reality. 2 It is exactly for such an armchair methodology that analytic metaphysics has been the target of ferocious criticisms. See Williamson (2007) or No (.)ġPhilosophy, and analytic metaphysics in particular, is often described as a discipline widely conducted a priori or, as it is sometimes put, from the armchair.
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