What is a method?

Despite intense debates about particular methods in philosophy and science, the general question “What is a method in the first place?” remains surprisingly underexplored. This may be due to Bertrand Russell’s dictum that “Nothing of value can be said on method except through examples,” which is, however, at odds with the amount of theorizing devoted to other key topics, like confirmation or knowledge.This talk challenges Russell’s dictum constructively with a general account of methods as monotelicly coordinated generalized impersonal plans. The account crucially draws on observations about everyday methods.

Despite intense debates about particular methods in philosophy and science, the general question “What is a method in the first place?” remains surprisingly underexplored. This may be due to Bertrand Russell’s dictum that “Nothing of value can be said on method except through examples,” which is, however, at odds with the amount of theorizing devoted to other key topics, like confirmation or knowledge.This talk challenges Russell’s dictum constructively with a general account of methods as monotelicly coordinated generalized impersonal plans. The account crucially draws on observations about everyday methods, e.g., that methods (1) have constitutive goals, (2) are sketchy in practically irresolvable ways, (3) depend on contextual factors, and (4) exhibit goal unclarity. The account is supplemented with accounts of method-adoption and method-application. Roughly, adopting a method consists in personalizing its impersonal plan, and applying a method consists in realizing its generalized plan by a contextually particularized plan. Among other things, the account enables a more systematic examination of method-evaluation in terms of, for example, reliability and efficiency, goal-appropriateness and goal-clarity, and contextual adequacy. The account also sheds light on particular methods and important methodological controversies, such as the debate about “the scientific method” in the philosophy of science, which is plagued by a rigid and unrealistic understanding of methods.

Joachim Horvath is Junior-Professor for Metaphilosophy and Experimental Philosophy at the Institute for Philosophy II at Ruhr University Bochum, and principal investigator of the Emmy Noether Independent Junior Research Group “Experimental Philosophy and the Method of Cases: Theoretical Foundations, Responses, and Alternatives (EXTRA)” (funded by the German Research Foundation DFG). He was previously post-doctoral researcher at the University of Cologne, and managing director of the German Society for Analytic Philosophy GAP. His main areas of research are epistemology, metaphilosophy, experimental philosophy, and argumentation theory, and his work has been published in journals like Mind, Philosophical Studies, and Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.