Social Meaning and Philosophical Method

Abstract

There are special challenges in writing a Presidential Address: you want to address a very broad group of philosophers with knowledge and abilities that far exceed your own, and you want to say something that will be as engaging as possible. Philosophers have addressed a great many issues, with different methods, and I want there to be space in our discipline for all of them. I myself love arcane philosophical topics – put me in a world where I could spend my time pouring over Aristotle’s Metaphysics and I’d be happy – and I believe that philosophy yields knowledge and that is intrinsically valuable. I also love kinds of philosophy that many would not regard as philosophy at all: philosophy as it emerges in thinking about personal and family issues, philosophy in the context of political activism, and philosophy that is inextricable from empirical research.