Philosophy Research Seminar on Applied Ethics, The Empirical and the Defeasible A Priori presented by Associate Professor Adrian Walsh, University of New England.
Event Details
- Date:
- Friday, 22 May 2015
- Time:
- 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm
- Room:
- Room E302
- UQ Location:
- Forgan Smith Building (St Lucia)
- Event category(s):
Event Contact
- Name:
- Serena Bagley
- Phone:
- 52795
- Email:
- s.bagley@uq.edu.au
- Org. Unit:
- Historical and Philosophical Inquiry
Event Description
- Full Description:
- In recent years there has been a remarkable increase in scepticism about the existence of a distinct method that philosophers have at their disposal. Some philosophical naturalists, claim that philosophical and scientific methods are of a single kind. Presumably such naturalists see a much greater role for the empirical in philosophical analysis than has traditionally been assumed.
What might be the implications of this thesis for the more applied areas of philosophy, including applied ethics and political philosophy? If there is no distinctive method in philosophy in general then surely the same holds for applied philosophy? If philosophy is ultimately an empirical pursuit—if that is what it means to say there is no distinctive philosophical method—then how could applied philosophy be anything other than empirical?
In this paper I explore how applied philosophy is possible as a distinctively philosophical form of analysis and make some general claims about what good applied philosophy involves. Answering these questions about the nature of applied philosophy involves thinking carefully about how philosophical analysis differs from the sciences, since applied philosophy necessarily engages with the empirical realities of the practical problems it confronts. In explaining how applied philosophy is possible and what makes for good applied philosophy, I begin with the claim that the defeasible a priori is at the heart of philosophical method and then provide a taxonomy of ways in which applied philosophy engages with the empirical. I also suggest that this line of inquiry might well shed light on philosophical method more generally.
Directions to UQ
- Google Map:
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- Directions:
- St Lucia Campus | Gatton campus.
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