Abstract

What follows lays out and rebuts methodological objections to metaphysical analysis. Metaphysical analysis must be distinguished from conceptual or semantic inquiry, and also from the mere search for necessary biconditionals, which can fail to provide the metaphysical explanation of special interest to the philosopher. Clarity on the metaphysical project of analysis protects a traditional form of armchair analysis from two radically different attacks. Section 1 will lay out that traditional approach, which turns out to be safe from the objections aimed against more familiar approaches in Timothy Williamson’s _Philosophy of Philosophy_. Section 2 will rebut the x-phi critique of the armchair, with a defense based in part on the results of Section 1.