Philosophers of mind often seek to describe what it is like to undergo a particular experience, yet our phenomenological vocabulary frequently appears impoverished and insufficient for the task. Amy Kind recently argued that this so-called ‘impoverishment problem’ is something that can be overcome, at least in principle. She suggests that (1) we can refine or “enrich” our phenomenological vocabulary and (2) doing so “has the potential to enable us to make progress on a wide number of other philosophical problems connected to the mind” (Kind 2024, 119). I propose to call this view phenomenological optimism. Early phenomenologists, such as Brentano (1874) and Husserl (1911), were also strong advocates of phenomenological optimism. This paper examines the reasons they had for endorsing (1) and (2).

In this talk, I argue that genuine progress in philosophy consists solely in the accumulation of philosophical knowledge among relevant philosophers. This growth has both veritistic and epistemic dimensions. On the veritistic side, progress involves acquiring more true beliefs, organizing them in increasingly systematic and compressed formats, and ensuring they capture more and more levels of reality. Over time, such growth requires the production of general, positive, and explanatory beliefs.

On the epistemic side, what matters is not merely having true beliefs but acquiring knowledge—true beliefs held in ways that reliably exclude error. Otherwise, the pursuit of truth might tolerate a significant number of falsehoods. But this is obviously not compatible with our understanding of progress. Crucially, collective philosophical progress does not depend on all—or even most—philosophers expanding their knowledge. What matters is that relevant philosophers—those at the forefront of inquiry—do so.

I defend this account of philosophical progress against prominent alternatives, including views that disconnect progress from truth, equate it with improved understanding, or define it in terms of problem-solving.

In the second part of the talk, I address several major challenges to the idea of philosophical progress, including the prevalence of negative knowledge, persistent peer disagreement, and the lack of widely accepted evidence in the field. I argue that these challenges can be met if we adopt and consistently apply the account of progress I propose.

What is it for philosophy to make cognitive progress? According to Enabling Noeticism, there is a single, unified answer: 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 (Dellsén, Firing, Lawler, Norton 2024, see also Dellsén, Lawler, Norton 2023). In this talk, I will present Enabling Noeticism. I will explain how it differs from other accounts that measure cognitive progress in philosophy in terms of convergence to the truth (Chalmers 2015, Grundmann 2018), its success in problem solving (Stoljar 2017), or the amount of acquired knowledge (based on, e.g., Bird 2016). Lastly, I will show how progress can be made on this view despite the fact that there is persistent disagreement among philosophical experts on numerous philosophical questions.