Tag: Inquiry

• March 22, 2013

  A comparison of the genre of drama with that of philosophical inquiry

  Compare a couple of the playwright David Mamet’s reflections on drama (the full text is available here) with my own thoughts about the genre of philosophical inquiry. (To read an excerpt from my book, The Art of Inquiry, go here): Mamet: We know any drama ends when we find the answer to the question which gave…
• March 14, 2013

  Design ethics: The good life and the art of inquiry

  I’ve been invited to write two chapters for a forthcoming collected volume on design ethics. The first chapter will be concerned with philosophical inquiry and the good life, the second with three different conceptions of ethics: conviction, responsibility, and attention. In my first chapter, I’ll be arguing, at least in part, that (a) philosophical inquiring…
• December 5, 2012

  Rehearsing a line of thought

  Rehearsing a line of thought has its place in philosophical life. Saying this seems, however, to present us with a puzzle. If a philosophical inquiry is “an unrehearsed genre whose principal aims are, first, to reveal to us what we don’t know but thought we did and, second, to bring us a greater sense of…
• November 29, 2012

  Goodbye, New York

  You come to New York thinking that you have a pretty good idea what it is you’re looking for, only to discover that, once you live here long enough you have no pretty good idea at all. New York is a great instructor that way. I remember speaking with a man in his early 40s…
• November 20, 2012

  The relationship between direct speech and philosophical inquiry

  Direct Speech and Philosophical Inquiry I believe we creatures of habit, we too-clever beings have learned all forms of indirect speech. To overcome indirectness, I have sought to teach direct speech. Indeed, I have insisted that a philosophical conversation cannot begun unless the philosophical guide and the conversation partner engage exclusively in direct speech. In…