Daniel Stoljar presents a persuasive rejection of the widespread view that philosophy makes no progress. He defends a reasonable optimism about philosophical progress, showing that we have correctly answered philosophical questions in the past and may expect to do so in the future. He offers a credible vision of how philosophy works.

• 1: Introduction


• 2: Matters Arising


• 3: An Argument for Optimism


• 4: The Argument Defended


• 5: Extending the Argument


• 6: The Extension Defended


• 7: Two Arguments from Disagreement


• 8: Six Further Arguments


• Conclusion

Daniel Stoljar is Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University in Canberra, a member of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and the current President of the Australasian Association of Philosophy. He is the author of Ignorance and Imagination: The Epistemic Origin of the Problem of Consciousness (OUP 2006) and Physicalism (Routledge 2010).