Abstract

I argue that philosophy has achieved no appreciable progress in making people better and wiser or solving its own central problems. This lack of progress matters, but I find hope in experimental philosophy. Although philosophical worldviews from Plato's to the present have aided comprehension of how things hang together, their only steady progress has come from adjusting to advances in science. If the power of philosophy were like the power of poetry, this would not matter. Each worldview could be appreciated in its own right. Yet most authors of philosophical worldviews have sought solutions to philosophical problems that would be persuasive to anyone who was willing and able to follow their arguments. Without progress of this kind, philosophy runs the risk of being marginalized. I conclude by arguing that experimental philosophy offers the best hope for philosophy's progress as a problem‐solving discipline and defend the use of intuitions as evidence.