The Philosophy of Philosophy

<p><b>The expanded new edition of one of the&nbsp;most influential&nbsp;and&nbsp;controversial&nbsp;books&nbsp;about the nature of philosophy published in the past&nbsp;several decades&nbsp;</b>&nbsp;</p> <p><i>The Philosophy of Philosophy</i>&nbsp;presents an original,&nbsp;unified concept of philosophy as a non-natural science.&nbsp;In this provocative work, distinguished&nbsp;philosopher&nbsp;Timothy Williamson&nbsp;challenges widely-held&nbsp;assumptions&nbsp;and&nbsp;clarifies long-standing&nbsp;misconceptions&nbsp;about&nbsp;the methodology&nbsp;and&nbsp;nature&nbsp;of&nbsp;philosophical inquiry.&nbsp;The author&nbsp;rejects the&nbsp;standard narratives&nbsp;of&nbsp;contemporary&nbsp;philosophy&nbsp;developed from&nbsp;naturalism, the linguistic turn, postmodern irony, and other prominent trends of the twentieth century. Viewing&nbsp;the&nbsp;method of&nbsp;philosophy as&nbsp;evolving from non-philosophical&nbsp;pursuits,&nbsp;Williamson&nbsp;provides readers with fresh insight into the&nbsp;&ldquo;self-image&rdquo;&nbsp;of&nbsp;philosophy&nbsp;and offers&nbsp;new ways of understanding&nbsp;what philosophy is and how it&nbsp;actually&nbsp;works.&nbsp;</p> <p>Now in its second edition, this landmark&nbsp;volume&nbsp;comprises the&nbsp;original&nbsp;book&nbsp;and&nbsp;the author&rsquo;s subsequent work. New topics include&nbsp;the&nbsp;recent history of analytic philosophy, assessments of experimental philosophy, theories of concepts and understanding,&nbsp;Wittgensteinian&nbsp;approaches, popular philosophy,&nbsp;naturalism,&nbsp;morally-loaded examples in philosophy, philosophical applications of scientific methods, and many more. This edition features the&nbsp;author&rsquo;s latest thoughts on&nbsp;a variety of&nbsp;issues,&nbsp;autobiographical reflections, and replies to critics.&nbsp;</p> <ul> <li>Proposes an alternative narrative about the nature of philosophy&nbsp;</li> <li>Argues&nbsp;that the common assumption of philosophical exceptionalism is false&nbsp;</li> <li>Highlights&nbsp;the similarities&nbsp;between philosophy and the other sciences&nbsp;in both&nbsp;methodology and subject matter&nbsp;</li> <li>Explores why contemporary philosophy&nbsp;has failed to articulate an adequate&nbsp;methodology&nbsp;</li> <li>Emphasizes&nbsp;increasing&nbsp;the methodological&nbsp;standards of reasoning in philosophy&nbsp; &nbsp;</li> </ul> <p><i>The Philosophy of Philosophy, Second Edition</i>&nbsp;remains essential reading for&nbsp;philosophers, scholars,&nbsp;graduate&nbsp;and&nbsp;advanced undergraduate students&nbsp;in philosophy,&nbsp;and other readers&nbsp;with a sustained interest in&nbsp;the method and rationale of&nbsp;the doing of&nbsp;philosophy.&nbsp;</p>