1. Methods of Philosophy Dr Desh Raj Sirswal,
Assistant Professor (Philosophy),
P.G.Govt. College for Girls,
Sector-11, Chandigarh

2. Introduction
Human reason is the method used by philosophy in inquiring about the nature of things. Philosophical method (or philosophical methodology) is the study of how to do philosophy.
A common view among philosophers is that philosophy is distinguished by the methods that philosophers follow in addressing philosophical questions.
There is not just one method that philosophers use to answer philosophical questions. For our course we will concentrate on only two methods i.e. Critical and Reflective Methods.

3. Critical Method-I
One of the main characteristics of philosophical activities is criticism. Philosophers criticize. Philosophy carries out its function of criticism in two ways:
Poking Holes
Proposition Alternatives
First, philosophy pokes holes in propositions and arguments. It examines propositions to see if they are meaningless, vague, ambiguous, or false; it examines arguments to see whether they are valid or invalid, sound or unsound.
More generally, philosophers test assertions and arguments to see how strong they really are. Appearances in this regard are often misleading – as most of us have learned through hard experience with advertisements, sales pitches, and promises.

4. Critical Method-II
A second way in which philosophers criticize theories is by proposing alternatives to them.
This function of philosophy is important because of the limitations of our individual experience and imagination. Sometimes we ascribe greater strength to a theory than it deserves because we know of no alternative.
Why do philosophers poke holes in propositions and propose alternatives to whatever is claimed? Not because they are quarrelsome people, but in order to advance our pursuit of knowledge.
More abstractly, a proposed solution to a problem must be critiqued in order that we might determine:
Whether it is an adequate solution to the problem.

5. Critical Method-III
Whether it is the only adequate solution or one of two or more adequate solutions
If the latter, whether it is superior, inferior, or equal to the other solutions.
Clearly, our problem solving effort will become more effective and satisfactory when asking these questions becomes second- nature to us.
We might define philosophy in its critical role as an unflinching analysis of all beliefs, including the ones that are most precious to us.

6. Reflective Method-I
Reflection is an important human activity in which people recapture their experience, think about it, mull over & evaluate it. It is this working with experience that is important in learning. We learn through critical reflection by putting ourselves into the experience & exploring personal & theoretical knowledge to understand it & view it in different ways.
According to John Locke, reflection is a form of experience. In this sense, it is purely internal. The ideas that are produced by reflection are the ideas such as love, hatred, pain, pleasure etc. Sometimes it is also interpreted as introspection.

7. Reflective-II
Philosophers used exposition, synthesis, description, speculation, prescription, criticism etc., to discuss various concepts of philosophy and from these methods of philosophy originated. One of the important methods is ‘Speculative Method.” Philosophers speculate. The inherent limitations of synthetic philosophy and descriptive philosophy points beyond themselves to speculative philosophy.
Speculative philosophy “lets our all the stops”. It stops at neither the limits of scientific investigation nor those of ordinary experience. To do speculative philosophy is to ask whether there is anything more to reality rather than that which is revealed by science and ordinary experience.

8. Reflective Method-III
The objective of speculative philosophy is to comprehend the whole of reality by means of reason, so if reason requires that speculative philosophers go beyond the limits of science and ordinary experience in order to account for the whole of reality, then they do so.
Reason is the primary tool of speculative philosophy. We try the following by this:
To determine whether there is or may be more to reality than is given in ordinary experience.
To comprehend the whole of reality - analyzing it into its parts and then comprehending those parts in their dynamic relations to one another, even as the student of a combustion engine must know not only the assembled whole but also the individual parts, and not only the individual parts but how they function in relation to one another in order to constitute a running engine.

9. Reflective Method-IV
We might say that “the whole and its parts” is the motto of the speculative philosopher. The speculative philosopher, in his or her desire to account for the whole of reality, investigates the extent to which reason does or does not require that we postulate the existence of things, such as God, matter, other minds, souls and dimensions of reality other than revealed by sensation and introspection,.
Some of the great works in speculative philosophy are by Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Plotinus, Augustine, Spinoza, Berkeley, Hegel, Marx, and Whitehead.

10. Sources
For more details study of speculative method and other things like “what philosophers do” may be studied Richard E. Creel, Thinking Philosophically: An Introduction to Critical Reflection and Rational Dialogue, Wiley-Blackwell, 2001.