An article titled “Philosophical Method,” by Associate Professor of Philosophy Russell Marcus, appears in the current issue of The Philosopher's Magazine. The issue includes a forum on doing philosophy, and Marcus’ piece is about the way in which philosophers appeal to intuitions, largely in response to thought experiments, in developing their theories.
He describes how philosophers construct theories in attempts to figure out what to believe, but that no philosophical theory is a bulwark against skepticism.
According to Marcus, “We can't settle on the perfect theories of the world, absolute truth known once and for all. But we can and do improve our beliefs. The process of doing so involves some methods that might seem suspicious, but are just artifacts of the limitations of sense experience to show how all our different theories fit together.”
