Description
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Why did such highly abstract ideas as truth, knowledge, or justice become so important to us? What was the point of coming to think in these terms? In The Practical Origins of Ideas Matthieu Queloz presents a philosophical method designed to answer such questions: the method of pragmatic genealogy. Pragmatic genealogies are partly fictional, partly historical narratives exploring what might have driven us to develop certain ideas in order to discover what these do for us. The book uncovers an under-appreciated tradition of pragmatic genealogy which cuts across the analytic-continental divide, running from the state-of-nature stories of David Hume and the early genealogies of Friedrich Nietzsche to recent work in analytic philosophy by Edward Craig, Bernard Williams, and Miranda Fricker. However, these genealogies combine fictionalizing and historicizing in ways that even philosophers sympathetic to the use of state-of-nature fictions or real history have found puzzling. To make sense of why both fictionalizing and historicizing are called for, this book offers a systematic account of pragmatic genealogies as dynamic models serving to reverse-engineer the points of ideas in relation not only to near-universal human needs, but also to socio-historically situated needs. This allows the method to offer us explanation without reduction and to help us understand what led our ideas to shed the traces of their practical origins. Far from being normatively inert, moreover, pragmatic genealogy can affect the space of reasons, guiding attempts to improve our conceptual repertoire by helping us determine whether and when our ideas are worth having.
About the Author
Matthieu Queloz is a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College and Member of the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Before that, he completed a PhD at the University of Basel and an MA at the University of Zurich. His articles have appeared in journals such as Mind, Philosophers' Imprint, The Philosophical Quarterly, and Synthese. He received the 2020 Lauener Prize for Up-and-Coming Philosophers.
Reviews
A ground-breaking book ... Queloz not only has given his readers an excellent example of how to do philosophy, but also has done more than anyone in recent times to reanimate debate about what makes philosophy relevant. * Paul A Roth, Analysis *
Unlike a lot of contemporary scholarship, the book is refreshingly ambitious. It tackles big questions like 'What is philosophy about?' and 'How should we investigate its subject matter?' The book is also delightful to read: the prose is colourful, elegant, and sharp, and Queloz has a knack for bringing high-minded ideals down to earth. I wish more philosophers wrote so well. Overall, it is an excellent and important piece of philosophy. * Michael Hannon, MIND *
superb ... [a] splendid book. ... Queloz's The Practical Origins of Ideas will stand as one of the most important pragmatist treatises on conceptual engineering. * Cheryl Misak, Analysis *
this is a great book ... the prose has a kind of effortless elegance that reminds one of the book's primary inspiration, Bernard Williams. It is possible to read it for pleasure, not merely from duty. * Alexander Prescott-Couch, Analysis *
Queloz's prose is clear and the book is never dull, and it will be interesting to those working on methodological issues in contemporary philosophy. . . . there is a tremendous amount to be learned from this very stimulating book. * P J E Kail, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *
Matthieu Queloz's exciting new book ... is clear, impressively erudite, well-structured, sensitive to both historical and systematic questions about genealogy and advances the debate about the genealogical method. It is an invaluable contribution to the ever-growing literature surrounding genealogical arguments and anyone interested in such debates cannot afford to overlook it. * Christos Kyriacou, The Journal of Value Inquiry *
The Practical Origins of Ideas is a substantial contribution of great value ... Queloz presents an important thesis: pragmatic genealogy not only acknowledges the legitimacy of both local historical genealogies and of genealogies that reconstruct an idealised starting situation, but also, and above all, enables us to see these two different approaches as two phases of a single pragmatic genealogical method. * Matteo Santarelli, Iride *
Awards
Winner of Winner, 2022 Amerbach Prize, University of Basel.
Book Information
ISBN 9780198868705
Author Matthieu Queloz
Format Hardback
Page Count 304
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 572g
Dimensions(mm) 240mm * 160mm * 25mm
About the Author
Matthieu Queloz is a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College and Member of the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Before that, he completed a PhD at the University of Basel and an MA at the University of Zurich. His articles have appeared in journals such as Mind, Philosophers' Imprint, The Philosophical Quarterly, and Synthese. He received the 2020 Lauener Prize for Up-and-Coming Philosophers.
Reviews
A ground-breaking book ... Queloz not only has given his readers an excellent example of how to do philosophy, but also has done more than anyone in recent times to reanimate debate about what makes philosophy relevant. * Paul A Roth, Analysis *
Unlike a lot of contemporary scholarship, the book is refreshingly ambitious. It tackles big questions like 'What is philosophy about?' and 'How should we investigate its subject matter?' The book is also delightful to read: the prose is colourful, elegant, and sharp, and Queloz has a knack for bringing high-minded ideals down to earth. I wish more philosophers wrote so well. Overall, it is an excellent and important piece of philosophy. * Michael Hannon, MIND *
superb ... [a] splendid book. ... Queloz's The Practical Origins of Ideas will stand as one of the most important pragmatist treatises on conceptual engineering. * Cheryl Misak, Analysis *
this is a great book ... the prose has a kind of effortless elegance that reminds one of the book's primary inspiration, Bernard Williams. It is possible to read it for pleasure, not merely from duty. * Alexander Prescott-Couch, Analysis *
Queloz's prose is clear and the book is never dull, and it will be interesting to those working on methodological issues in contemporary philosophy. . . . there is a tremendous amount to be learned from this very stimulating book. * P J E Kail, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *
Matthieu Queloz's exciting new book ... is clear, impressively erudite, well-structured, sensitive to both historical and systematic questions about genealogy and advances the debate about the genealogical method. It is an invaluable contribution to the ever-growing literature surrounding genealogical arguments and anyone interested in such debates cannot afford to overlook it. * Christos Kyriacou, The Journal of Value Inquiry *
The Practical Origins of Ideas is a substantial contribution of great value ... Queloz presents an important thesis: pragmatic genealogy not only acknowledges the legitimacy of both local historical genealogies and of genealogies that reconstruct an idealised starting situation, but also, and above all, enables us to see these two different approaches as two phases of a single pragmatic genealogical method. * Matteo Santarelli, Iride *
Awards
Winner of Winner, 2022 Amerbach Prize, University of Basel.
Book Information
ISBN 9780198868705
Author Matthieu Queloz
Format Hardback
Page Count 304
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 572g
Dimensions(mm) 240mm * 160mm * 25mm
