Metaphilosopher

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A thinker who examines the foundations, methods and purpose of philosophy as a discipline, rather than working on a particular philosophical question directly
2. Someone who reflects on what philosophy is, how philosophical claims are justified, and what kind of inquiry philosophy amounts to
3. A scholar engaged in second-order reflection on philosophical practice, questioning the concepts and assumptions that first-order philosophy takes for granted

Etymology: "Metaphilosopher" is built from "meta-", a prefix from Greek "meta" meaning "after" or "beyond", and "philosopher". In philosophy, "meta-" has come to mean a study that takes another discipline as its object, so a metaphilosopher is someone who reflects on philosophy itself: what it is, what its methods can achieve, and whether its questions make sense. The prefix followed a similar path in the naming of metaphysics, whose name came from Aristotle's works arranged after his writings on nature, though the sense of "beyond" there reflects a cataloguing accident rather than a deliberate concept. "Metaphilosopher" applies the prefix in its later, more general sense, placing a second layer of thought above the first.