The Practical Origins of Ideas

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 ofIdeas Matthieu Queloz presents a philosophical method designed to answer such questions: the method of pragmatic genealogy. Pragmatic genealogies are partly fictional, partly historical narratives exploringwhat 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 thateven 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 asystematic 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 ourconceptual repertoire by helping us determine whether and when our ideas are worth having.

Winner of Winner, 2022 Amerbach Prize, University of Basel.

“"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”

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
Matthieu Queloz's The Practical Origins of Ideas is a valuable contribution to the ongoing debate over the role of concepts in philosophy. By synthesizing genealogy and conceptual engineering, Queloz offers a novel approach to understanding the origins and development of philosophical ideas ... a significant step forward in the study of conceptual engineering and genealogy, offering new tools for the analysis and improvement of philosophical concepts. Syumbel Zainullina, Philosophy
Matthieu Queloz's exciting new book revisits the pragmatic genealogical method in philosophy and aims at clarifying its operation and workings, review some of the most important genealogical work carried out in philosophy (both historical and contemporary) and defend the philosophical value of applying the pragmatic genealogicalmethod to philosophical problems. The book is clear, impressively erudite, well-structured, sensitive to both historical and systematic questions about genealogyand advances the debate about the genealogical method. It is an invaluable contribution to the ever-growing literature surrounding genealogical arguments and anyoneinterested in such debates cannot afford to overlook it. Christos Kyriacou, Springer

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.

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 ofpragmatic 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 byhelping us determine whether and when our ideas are worth having.

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