What Is Pseudo-Philosophy? Two Accounts of Metaphilosophical Demarcation

Piotr Paszkowski

University of Warsaw

The philosophical status of an author’s work is sometimes the subject of emotional debate (cf. [1]), often accompanied by the charge that it is a piece of pseudophilosophy [2]. Notwithstanding, there are few texts addressing the issue of the demarcation between true philosophy and ‘false’, ‘bogus’ or ‘pseudo-philosophy’ ([3], [4], [5]). All the approaches so far share a similar structure – pseudo-philosophy is defined in terms of certain relation to the standards of true philosophy. The difference between these approaches lies only in the different definition of this relationship. This shared structure of the previous theories of pseudo-philosophy results in an impasse. Firstly, it entangles the issue in the problem of uninformativeness, since there is no agreement on the content of the ‘standards of true philosophy’. Secondly, it fails to grasp the difference between pseudo-philosophy and ‘bad’ philosophy, i.e. low-quality deliberation. In my talk, I will review previous approaches and describe the problems mentioned above. I will then present my own attempt to overcome the impasse in considering pseudo-philosophy. Drawing on the analogy to Goldman’s social epistemology [6], I shall call it ‘social metaphilosophy’, i.e. an approach to the discipline that shifts the focus from philosophical rules, values and essential properties to the socio-institutional aspects of philosophizing. I will attempt to argue that social metaphilosophy elucidates the notion of pseudo-philosophy better than the traditional ‘individual’ approach.

Bibliography
[1] Gildea, N. (2019). Jacques Derrida’s Cambridge Affair: Deconstruction, Philosophy and Institutionality. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield International.
[2] Hansson, S. O. (2025). How Well‐Defined Is Pseudophilosophy? Theoria 91 (4), pp. 1-4.
[3] Rescher, N. (1995). Pseudo-philosophy. W T. Honderich (Red.), The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (str. 765). New York: Oxford University Press.
[4] Merrill, G. H. (2021). False Wisdom: The Principles and Practice of Pseudo-philosophy. Bowker.
[5] Moberger, V. (2020). Bullshit, Pseudoscience and Pseudophilosophy. Theoria, 86(5), pp. 595-611.
[6] Goldman, A. I. (1999). Knowledge in a Social World. Oxford: Clarendon Press

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