Philosophical Heuristics and Philosophical Creativity

Abstract

They say that anyone of average talent can become a strong chess player by learning and internalizing certain chess heuristics��castle early,� �avoid isolated pawns,� and so on. Analogously, philosophy has a wealth of heuristics�philosophical heuristics�although they have not been nearly so well documented and studied. Sometimes these take the form of useful heuristics for generating counterexamples, such as �check extreme cases.� Sometimes they suggest ways of generating new arguments out of old ones, as in �arguments involving possibility can often be recast as arguments involving time or space.� Sometimes they provide templates for positive arguments (e.g., ways of showing that something is possible). This chapter is partly an introduction to a larger project of mine of identifying and evaluating philosophical heuristics, illustrating them with numerous examples from the philosophical literature. I also intend it to be a contribution to the philosophy of creativity: I argue that such heuristics can enhance one�s ability to make creative contributions in philosophy. Show more