Synthetic philosophy: What is it and why should every researcher philosopher adopt it

Abstract

A response to the metaphilosophical debate on whether or not there are regulative criteria in philosophy as an area of research is offered by the so-called synthetic philosophy. This position proposes a way of approaching all philosophy and theorizing on the basis of different proposed criteria, which are generally: semantic clarity, internal coherence, external coherence with the sciences and theoretical fecundity with other fields of study. These naturalistic criteria, in turn, are offered as debatable and extendable to other criteria. The need to demarcate philosophy will be reasoned, and, focusing on its methodology, the previous criteria will be argued in order to promote synthetic philosophy as a general framework of rigorous philosophical work. It excludes from the discipline both that which is not philosophical and that which tries to emulate philosophy without really being so, pseudophilosophy.