Moreover, does he need to challenge his own presuppositions? We can do that!
Moreover, does he need to challenge his own presuppositions? We can do that!
> I think that sometimes being overly opinionated and incapable of changing your mind is potentially harmful to others, yes… Is it not potentially dangerous to advocate for various political realities based solely on unexamined/individual opinion-based constructs?
How can I disagree with this? Yes there is hazard in advocating for anything. Moreover, there is hazard in doing anything. But I see what you're getting at. There is some line we draw in our own minds between philosophy, that is the pursuit of truth, and political - the realm of opinions.
Where is the line? Most would say that it is when the philosopher argues in good or bad faith. Thus, we are in the realm of the unknowable, the motivations of all around us. Also, not to comment on the notions of whether it's possible for an individual's to be "good" or "bad", but I don't want to digress.
To return, I think you're saying that making statements result in harm to individuals is bad. I agree, but this is a political question, not a philosophical one. Thus providing a philosophical justification or contradiction for your statement is moot.
As in literally asking the question: What is Philosophy about?
The only answer we can give is political.
I feel like your expectations for how philosophers ought to behave aren't based on any significant familiarity with the work of actual philosophers, just your suppositions about how philosophy ought to be done.
Philosophy is a conversation, and valid argumentation is that starting point of any treatise. The work of contending philosophers is to challenge one another, so there should be no hesitation in using less-than-certain (that is to say, all) presuppositions.
Moreover, Feser does comment on his presuppositions in this very article.
> I would qualify this by saying that metaphysics is prior to logic if “logic” is understood in sense (b) described above, though not if understood in sense (a). Naturally, we have to presuppose certain canons of reasoning when reasoning about anything, including metaphysics. But it doesn’t follow that we have to presuppose the codification enshrined in some particular formal system – such as, for example, modern propositional and predicate logic rather than traditional Aristotelian logic, or rather than some system that tries to capture the best of both worlds (such as that of Fred Sommers).