The Heuristic View

Abstract

As a response to the increasing irrelevance of philosophy, this chapter lists the characteristics philosophy should have in order to be fruitful. This results in a view of philosophy that may be called the heuristic view, according to which philosophy aims at knowledge and methods to acquire knowledge. In listing the characteristics philosophy should have according to the heuristic view, the chapter systematically compares them with those of classical analytic philosophy. This is motivated by the fact that, in the past century, classical analytic philosophy has been the prevailing philosophical tradition. The characteristics of philosophy listed in the chapter are not intended to suggest that philosophies without such characteristics are bad, but only that they cannot be expected to be legitimized in the face of science.