Aristotelian philosophical method is deductive, which means that argument begins with one or more general statements or premises and proceeds to a specific conclusion that is what Geisler and Feinberg characterize as "probably true" (43).
Modern methods of philosophical argument include the inductive method, associated with Francis Bacon and John Stuart Mill; the existential method, associated in origin with Soren Kierkegaard; the phenomenological method, associated with Kant, Hegel, and (in the 20th century) Husserl; and the analytic method, associated in its various forms with conceptual logic and a tendency toward ever-increasing verification or clarification of meaning. Geisler and Feinberg cite the work of Ayer, Schlick, and Carnap in this regard, noting analytical efforts to dispose of speculative philosophical method: "[F]or a statement to be meaningful it must be either purely definitional (analytic) or else verifiable (synthetic) by one or more of the five senses. All other statements (ethical, theological, and metaphysical statements) are non-sense, or meaningless" (Geisler and Feinberg 50). Geisler and Feinberg associate the clarification method with Wittgenstein and with untiring empirical activity in pursuit of what language means and how language interprets experience. They comment further:
Analytic thinking is as essential to good philosophy as good instruments and clean hands are to a surgical operation. On the other hand, some analytic philosophers seem to spend so much time on the tool-sharpening and hand-washing that they never get around to the operation! In their preoccupation with meaning, they forget about truth. It is insufficient to place meaning in experience as mediated through language. All experience in itself proves is that one has had experience. . . . Experience as such is not self-verifying. . . . One further caution should be mentioned: "verification" or even "confirmation" are often narrowly con...