Achieving Philosophical Progress -- What Good is the Method of Argument?

Philosophers sometimes romantically self-describe as lovers of wisdom. More boastfully, and perhaps more commonly, we pride ourselves on being in possession of good arguments in support of our philosophical convictions. In this presentation, I ask whether this self-flattery is warranted. What, if anything, has been achieved in philosophy through the use of arguments? More specifically, have the arguments constructed and debated by philosophers in the past resulted in philosophical progress?

The aim of the presentation is, primarily, to reply to what I call Argument Pessimism. This is the view that arguments have not, and cannot, yield valuable cognitive achievements in philosophy. I begin by outlining an argument put forth by David Chalmers, according to which we should endorse (modest) pessimism about philosophical progress on the basis of the centrality and inadequacy of what he calls the method of argument. I then argue that Chalmers’ argument fails to establish its conclusion and that the correct story about the relationship between arguments and philosophical progress is very likely to be a positive one. There is good reason to believe that valuable cognitive achievements can be, and have been, attained through philosophical arguments. While this conclusion is not (yet) enough to vindicate self-flattery or optimism about philosophical progress, it does pave the way for a moderate form of optimism about how much progress has been made in philosophy.