Philosophy

Does it put me in any particular philosophical camp to believe that most questions taken as philosophical questions could be made more tractable by first settling (or agreeing not to settle) issues of definition and acceptable evidence?

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You would be in very good company, as the pursuit of careful definitions was key to Socrates' philosophical dialectic. Great care for the definition of words is also a key part of Confucius' philosophy. In the 20th century, the practice of focussing on definitions and conceptual clarity was key to what is commonly known as analytic philosophy. Represenatitives include G.E. Moore and Bertrand Russell and, more recently, Roderick Chisholm. While the tools of analytic philosophy are (in my view) essential, these can be over done (hence a book came out in response to extreme analytic philosophy called: Clarity is Not Enough).

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