Philosophy as a Method of Inquiry

Eleanor V. Stubley, McGill University (1992)

From The Quarterly 3 (1): 44-54. Reprinted in Visions of Research in Music

Education 16 (3), Autumn 2010. http://www-usr.rider.edu/~vrme.

Philosophy Defined

Throughout the centuries, philosophy has been used to designate both a system of ideas and a
method of inquiry.1 Philip Alperson defines the method of inquiry as a self- conscious attempt to
state clearly the nature and implications of our most basic beliefs about the world and to assess
the grounds we might have for holding such beliefs.2 William James has characterized it as a
sustained process of reflection, “a peculiarly stubborn effort to think clearly.”3

[2] Regardless of the tone of characterization, scholars are more generally agreed that
philosophy as a method of inquiry has four essential characteristics. First, philosophy is a
reflective, meditative activity. Second, philosophy seeks clarification and understanding rather
than binding axioms or universal truths. Third, having no particular subject matter of its own,
philosophy takes as its starting point the language used to describe and explain different aspects
of experience.4 Fourth, philosophy achieves its goals by “thrusting ideas against one another”
and challenging underlying assumptions.5 It is an ongoing questioning process, the juxtaposition
of ideas not only identifying contradictions and ambiguities requiring further clarification, but
also exposing underlying assumptions and raising questions about the validity and value of those
assumptions. Socrates put it succinctly when he likened philosophy to a “heated conversation
between earnest minds,” a conversation in which value ultimately “lies more often in the
uncovering of layers of questions, than in conclusive answers.”6

1
“Philosophy,” Encyclopedia Britannica (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica Corporation, 1987).
2
Philip Alperson, “Music as Philosophy,” in What is Music? An Introduction to the Philosophy of Music
(New York: Haven Publications, 1987), 193-210.
3
Cited in Antony Flew, “Philosophy,” in Collier’s Encyclopedia, William D. Halsey (ed.) (New York:
MacMillan, 1981), vol. 18, 701.
4
Until recently this observation has been interpreted to mean that philosophy has concerned itself primarily
with verbal statements and been an essentially linguistic activity. The work of Nelson Goodman [Languages of Art
(Indianapolis: Hackett, 1976), and Reconceptions in Philosophy and Other Arts and Sciences (London: Routledge,
1988)] and Max Wartofsky (“The Liveliness of Aesthetics,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Special Issue
on Analytical Aesthetics, 1987, 211-218) suggests that other symbol systems such as movement, gesture, and the
arts could also potentially sustain such reflective activity.
5
Jerome Stolnitz, Aesthetics (New York: Macmillan Co., 1965), 1.
6
Ibid., 1

Stubley (1992), page 1

The Philosophical Method

[3] There are as many different approaches to philosophical inquiry as there are different
quantitative and qualitative research designs. Each approach, like its scientific counterparts,
reflects a different orientation or way of seeing which specifies the aspects of experience and
types of questions considered most worthy of clarification and the reflective processes through
which clarification will be achieved. Phenomenology, for example, focuses on the intrinsic or
essential structures of phenomena as they are directly given in experience. Linguistic philosophy
seeks understanding through a critique of language, placing why a particular word or expression
is used in different contexts as its primary goal.

[4] At the core of almost all of the different approaches is an analytical process, commonly
described as conceptual analysis, which uses paradigmatic examples to define and clarify the
meanings of particular terms and concepts. Consistent with the definition of philosophy as a
method of inquiry which seeks understanding through the juxtapositioning or challenging of
ideas, examples which illustrate the core meaning of most typical usage of a term are thrust
against counterexamples that illustrate what the term is not. The search for examples is guided
by the motivating need for conceptual analysis, the level of definitional precision or
understanding required, and the specific character or types of distinctions being sought.7 While
the process usually begins with a general sense of direction, the selection of examples clarifies
and orders thought, making answers to the three guiding questions as much a product of the
process as the examples themselves.

[5] The juxtapositioning of examples may involve deductive and/or inductive reasoning,
depending on the particular approach. In deductive reasoning, observations or conclusions
follow necessarily from stated premises, with thought grounded in logical rules which define
how observations and arguments may be linked or connected and the criteria through which the
strength and validity of those connections may be established. Reasoning may proceed from the
general to the general, from the general to the particular, and from the particular to the particular.
In inductive reasoning, observations and conclusions are connected on the basis of “probable”
rather than necessary inference.8 X does not necessarily follow Y on the basis of logical rules as
in deductive reasoning, but it may be argued on the basis of certain evidence that X probably
follows Y. The evidence may involve, direct, analogical, predictive and inverse inference.
Analogical and inverse inference have proven particularly useful in philosophical inquiry.
Analogical inference, analysis of the properties or attributes which two or more things have in
common, helps expose contextual factors which shape meaning, likeness varying not so much

7
Michael Scriven, “Philosophical Inquiry Methods in Education,” in Complementary Research Methods in
Education, Richard M. Jaeger (ed.) (Washington, D.C.: American Educational Research Association, 1988), 136-
139. See also J. Soltis, An Introduction to the Analysis of Educational Concepts (Reading, MA: Addison Wesley,
1978) and Israel Scheffler, Conditions of Knowledge (Chicago: Scott, Foresman, and Company, 1965).
8
C. Reese, Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion: Eastern and Western Thought (Atlantic Highlands,
N.J.: Humanities Press, 1980).

Stubley (1992), page 2

with the number of properties two things have in common, but the comparative importance of
those common properties in each instance. The identification of examples which illustrate the
opposite of that being inferred or which represent exceptions helps expose and illuminate subtle
distinctions among examples used to make universal inferences or generalizations.

Conceptual Analysis in Action: The Concept of Performance

[6] An analysis of the concept of performance by Thomas Carson Mark effectively illustrates
the different types of reasoning processes involved in conceptual analysis.9 Mark begins by
making a distinction between a work, an instance, and a score as a means of placing the concept
of performance in context and identifying the issues involved in its definition. By comparing
and contrasting the three terms, he infers that a work has many instances, an instance being a live
or imagined sequence of sounds. A score prescribes the sequence of sounds that instantiates a
given work. Performance is a production of a work and proceeds from a score. But, it is not
simply an instance of a work in that it is possible to have an instantiating sequence without a
performance. By supporting his reasoning with the example of a programmed piano player,
Mark focuses attention on the fact that performance is something people do, and in so doing,
Mark describes the conditions which distinguish performance from other types of musical
activity.

[7] Mark begins his exploration of these conditions by viewing performance as a form of
quotation. Quotation is a speech act, and like performance, is something people do. Its context
is also similar to that of performance in that it involves a speaker (performer), un utterance
(sequence of sounds produced by the performer), and a previously uttered statement (sequence of
sounds instantiating work of a composer as prescribed by a score). A more specific definition is
derived from a comparison of different types of speech acts illustrating what quotation is and is
not. Borderline examples which might or might not be instances of quotation serve to clarify
subtle distinctions among the different examples. Mark concludes that quotation is any speech
act in which:

(a) the uttered words are precisely the same as those constituting a particular statement S;

(b) the speaker intends the uttered words to be the same as those constituting S; and

(c) the presentation of this intention points to the congruence between the utterance and S.10

[8] Mark argues that these conditions or essential characteristics may be applied to the
concept of musical performance through analogical inference on the basis of similarities in

9
Thomas Carson Mark, “Philosophy of Piano Playing: Reflections on the Concept of Performance,”
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 1981, vol. 4, 299-324. Readers are encouraged to read Mark’s
original analysis in conjunction with this article for full understanding of both Mark’s ideas and the nature of
conceptual analysis.
10
Ibid., 305.

Stubley (1992), page 3

context, the fact that performance has the same types of elements as those involved in quotation
(speech) raising the possibility that the conditions defining the interaction of those elements are
also similar. Initial examples support the argument. For a musical activity to be performance,
the sound sequence produced by the performer must be identical to that prescribed by the score.
The performer must also intend the sequence to be heard as the work prescribed by the score, and
the presentation must effectively bring about this identity. As Mark illustrates through inverse
inference, while it is conceivable that someone could accidentally or spontaneously present a
sequence of sounds identical to that constituting a particular work, the presentation would not be
a performance of the work unless the performer was aware of this identity and projected this
awareness through the presentation itself.

[9] Having demonstrated a certain degree of congruence between the concepts of

performance and quotation, Mark tests the strength of the analogy by considering the ways in
which the two concepts differ. He proceeds by attempting to identify examples which satisfy the
conditions of quotation but which cannot be considered musical performances. Three such
examples are identified:

(a) the situation where a phrase such as “when Brahms says” is followed by a presentation of
a musical passage;

(b) practice; and

(c) a technically refined, but musically indifferent, presentation of a work.

Analysis of the three examples, with appeals to personal experience and authoritative critical
voices, forces Mark to conclude that, while the conditions defining quotation apply to
performance, performance is more than quotation.

[10] The need to distinguish performance from the categories of “practice” and “technically
refined,” but musically indistinct presentation of a work leads Mark to re- explore the concept of
quotation from the perspective of assertion. Assertion, like quotation, is an intentional speech
activity. It involves the utterance of a statement with the intention that the statement will have a
certain force or authority, that it will make some sort of claim about the world. The statement
does not necessarily have to be true, but rather the manner of its presentation must suggest that
the speaker believes it to be true. Quotation can involve assertion when quotation is used to
indicate agreement or confirmation of someone else’s words and when the context, the choice of
quotation, and/or its manner of presentation becomes a statement in and of itself. For example, a
competitor who quotes the famous words of John Paul Jones “I have not yet begun to fight!” in
reply to a question says something about his own character as well as his unwillingness to throw

Stubley (1992), page 4

down the gauntlet.11 As Mark observes, when someone makes an assertion by quoting, the
assertion is not always the same as that made with the same words by the person quoted:

Sometimes it is the same and sometimes it is not, as when a person uses another’s words
ironically. Sometimes the reference of the words is different, so that, though the person
uses the same words and makes an assertion with them, the assertion he makes is
arguably not the same as the other person’s. . . . Furthermore, when someone makes an
assertion by means of a quotation, the total situation takes on a new colour; it is not as if
he had simply produced a sentence on his own.12

[11] On the basis of these observations, Mark argues, again through analogical inference that
performance is a form of assertion through quotation. What distinguishes performance from
both practice and skilled, but musically indifferent, presentations of a work is an intention on the
part of the performer that the sounds he or she produces will be taken by others as having some
authority, “as making some claim about how things are musically.”13 Performance involves the
attribution of “meaning,” in the broadest sense of the word. It conveys an explanation of the
work and its elements, an explanation which reflects the performer’s view of the values inherent
in the work. And, just as a speaker who asserts by quotation will pronounce words and distribute
emphasis in such a way that the intended meaning will seem plausible and have a certain
authority, performers use subtle nuances in execution to convey and give credence to their
particular conception. Different performances of the same work, consequently, differ not so
much in what the performers have to say about the composer, but rather in what they take the
composer to be saying.

[12] Although this summary (see Figure 1 below) does not and cannot do justice to the rich
detail of Mark’s analysis, it does reveal the power of conceptual analysis as a methodological
tool in philosophical inquiry. First, by thrusting examples against one another and constantly
seeking potentially exceptional cases, conceptual analysis provides a means of evaluating or
checking its own effectiveness and thereby avoids the oversimplification and trivialization which
often occurs in explicit or operational definition. The fine discriminations made possible through
the juxtapositioning of examples also exposes the assumptions underlying traditional definitional
lenses and provides a means of assessing the limitations of those lenses. The distinction Mark
makes between a performance and an instance by way of the player piano illustration, for
example, enables him to understand why performance is frequently defined in terms of technical
skills and why this approach is not wholly satisfactory. Such considerations are essential in

11
Ibid., 309.
12
Ibid., 310.
13
Ibid., 312.

Stubley (1992), page 5

philosophical inquiry, understanding, as previously noted, ultimately requiring knowledge of
lenses as ways of both seeing and not seeing.

[13] Perhaps even more importantly in terms of the power of conceptual analysis is the fact
that the very act of identifying limitations serves to clarify and order the analytical process itself.
It exposes the issues and questions that must be addressed in any adequate definition and thereby
suggests different perspectives which could be used to shape new, potentially more effective
lenses. The observation that performance is more than mere quotation, for example, leads Mark
to re-explore his original analysis from the perspective of assertion. This reconception explains
the unique contribution of the performer that Western civilization has attached so much value to
and places that contribution in a context which links the composer, performer, and listener. The
reconception also explains why the contribution of the performer has so frequently defied
definition, any attempt to explicitly define the contribution being foiled by the unique features of
different performances. The concept of assertion avoids the problem by making the individuality
of different performances the focus of attention rather than the specific differences defining the
individuality.

Figure 1. Summary of Mark’s Analysis of Concept of Performance: Conceptual Analysis in Action.

Concept of Performance

Negative Examples 1) What performance is not used to identify context?

Clarification thru Contrast 2) Juxtapositioning of contextual elements--work, instance, and score.

Leads to:

1) Rejection of traditional approaches to definition

New Lens Justified on

2) Essential question: What are the conditions which distinguish performance
Similarity in Contextual
from other types of musical activity?
Elements
Creation of new lenses: Performance as quotation

Performance as Quotation

1) exact similarity in uttered words

Analogical Inference 2) intention that words be the same

3) presentation points to identity

Stubley (1992), page 6

 Leads to:

1) Evaluation of quotation as lens by trying to identify examples which satisfy

conditions of quotation, but which are not usually considered musical
performances
2) Two questions clarifying original essential question:
New Lens Justified on Basis of
Required Distinctions i) distinction between performance and practice

ii) how to account for value attached to performance

3) Creation of new lens: Quotation as assertion

Performance as Assertion Through Quotation

1) Conditions of quotation
Analogical Inference
2) Intent that actions be interpreted as making some claim or authoritative
pronouncement about how things are musically
Leads to:

1) Evaluation of new lens

Appeal to Direct and Negative
Examples, Authority, and
Experience i) identification of potential exceptions, improvisation considered as an example
of assertion without quotation
ii) ability to account for value attached to performance
Predictive Inference:
Potential Long-Term Value iii) ability to meaningfully link performer’s actions with composer and listener

Stubley (1992), page 7