Progress and Pluralism in Philosophy

Abstract

The methods of Philosophy deliver a certain sort of philosophical understanding. But those methods are not able – not all on their own – to reveal the truth-value of substantive philosophical claims. This inability plays a key role in this paper’s argument for the conclusion that Philosophy has made a lot of progress despite persisting disagreement among philosophers about substantive philosophical claims. Moreover – so this paper maintains – this disagreement constitutes a welcome intellectual pluralism, allowing those with a wide variety of philosophical views to fully participate in the discipline of Philosophy. This paper then applies the above points to the relation of metaphysics to theology.