Philosophy In and Out of the Armchair
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Description
One thing philosophers claim to do is: analyze concepts. We do this in language, so our analyses appear as sentences that we claim are conceptual truths. We utter sentences containing a word that expresses a certain concept: ‘green’, say, which expresses the concept green. But a conceptual truth is not just a true sentence that uses a concept: ‘The concept green applies to my shirt’ is a truth but not a conceptual truth. Rather, a conceptual truth is a truth that anyone who has the necessary concepts is in a position to know: e.g. ‘Green is a color’. Nothing more than knowledge of concepts is required to know that this is true. And, surely, knowledge of the concepts expressible in our language is just what all of us have with us wherever we go. As a result, as Tim Williamson once put it, ‘If anything can be pursued in an armchair, philosophy can.’
Source Publication
The Force of Argument: Essays in Honor of Timothy Smiley
Source Editors/Authors
Jonathan Lear, Alex Oliver
Publication Date
2009
Recommended Citation
Appiah, Kwame Anthony, "Philosophy In and Out of the Armchair" (2009). Faculty Chapters. 130.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/130
