What is it for philosophy to make progress? While various putative forms of philosophical progress have been explored in some depth, this overarching question is rarely addressed explicitly, perhaps because it has been assumed to be intractable or unlikely to have a single, unified answer. In this paper, we aim to show that the question is tractable, that it does admit of a single, unified answer, and that one such answer is plausible. This answer is, roughly, that philosophical progress consists in putting people in a position to increase their understanding, where ‘increased understanding’ is a matter of better representing the network of dependence relations between phenomena. After identifying four desiderata for an account of philosophical progress, we argue that our account meets the desiderata in a particularly satisfying way. Among other things, the account explains how various other achievements, such as philosophical arguments, counterexamples, and distinctions, may contribute to progress. Finally, we consider the implications of our account for the pressing and contentious question of how much progress has been made in philosophy.

中文翻译：

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什么是哲学进步？

哲学靠什么进步？尽管人们已经对各种假定的哲学进步形式进行了一定程度的探索，但这个首要问题很少得到明确的解决，也许是因为它被认为是棘手的或不太可能有一个单一的、统一的答案。在本文中，我们的目的是证明这个问题是容易处理的，它确实承认一个单一的、统一的答案，并且这样的答案是合理的。粗略地说，这个答案是，哲学进步在于使人们能够增加理解，其中“理解的增加”是更好地表示现象之间的依赖关系网络的问题。在确定了解释哲学进步的四个必要条件之后，我们认为我们的解释以一种特别令人满意的方式满足了这些必要条件。除此之外，该叙述还解释了其他各种成就，例如哲学论证、反例和区别，如何有助于进步。最后，我们考虑我们的解释对哲学取得了多大进展这一紧迫且有争议的问题的影响。