But we've always got some myth to live in - we don't stay out at night, under the great emptiness of the sky (Frayn,1974: 246).
And what a static universe the question [What exists?] suggests! (ibid: 283).
On several occasions, we have discussed “metaphysics” at PH campfire. These discussions have been diffuse, even by PH standards, and probably because we all have different ideas as to what is meant by the term “metaphysics”.
P.H. Strawson identified a number of ways in which the term is used and I have summarised them below in the hope that they will help us have further discussions in which we are all talking about the same thing!
It will be apparent to the reader that this piece is an extract from a much longer piece but I trust that due allowance for that can be easily made. (It was written 15 years ago and embarrasses me now!) I have included the full bibliography since it might be of interest.
P. F. Strawson (1989) offers a particularly cogent account of the usages of the term “metaphysics”. As well as summarising it below, I have also attempted to identify some "general connections" between the various usages (ibid: 203). However, the substratum that I identify is dissimilar from Stawson's, and, no doubt, rather more idiosyncratic.
The first characteristic of metaphysics identified by Strawson is the area of concern found in Aristotle's Metaphysics, the very title of which is revealing! This title, given to the text by Aristotle's editors, is the first ever use of the term, and it is not unreasonable to expect some semiotic clarity to emerge from the investigation of its original meaning. However, even such a sensible course runs into ambiguity. We may, on the one hand, take seriously R.G. Collingwood's (1940) determinedly sober suggestion that the title means nothing more than the manuscript written chronologically after (meta) the Physics; or, on the other hand, we may prefer H. Skolomowski's (1992) interpretation that the title indicates a subject matter that is beyond (meta) physics. Personally, I like to imagine Aristotle's editors enjoying the ambiguity. Whatever the intentions of its editors though, the Metaphysics (1961) is certainly concerned with what is purportedly more fundamental than physics. As Strawson puts it, "[Aristotelian] Metaphysics is a comprehensive study of what is fundamental in the order of knowledge, explanation and existence (Strawson op cit: 203)." Thus we find in the Metaphysics (1961) an extended analysis of "substance", the fundamental (imperishable) aspect of being, and necessitated by that, the elucidation of the laws of logic, "the principles about which it is impossible to be mistaken " (ibid: 123).
The second usage of "metaphysics" noted by Strawson denotes "the study of reality as opposed to mere appearance " (Strawson op cit: 203). This usage is, as Strawson points out, linked to the Aristotelian usage, in that what is thought to be fundamental, (that is, revealed by rational enquiry), may be honoured as "the real", with what is immediately "apparent" (as the starting point of enquiry) being relegated to the secondary. Indeed, "the apparent", the world as given to us by the senses, (as it appears), is identified by Aristotle as being in opposition to "the real", for example, when he criticises Anaxagoras for having "identified reality with the sensible world " (Aristotle op cit: 136). Metaphysics, on this account, presupposes, then, that the real is distinguished from what is immediately obvious in our experience: like the inhabitants of Plato's cave we only perceive shadows. The business of metaphysics is to study the origin of those shadows.
The next usage identified by Strawson takes it that the subject of metaphysics "is, or has been, what transcends experience " (Strawson op cit). The connection is clear with the first two usages: the real (i.e. the fundamental), in being distinct from the apparent, is not immediately available to the senses. The method of investigating the real is therefore "a priori rather than empirical " (ibid).
So far, the various meanings seem logically connected. The quest for the fundamental will inevitably give rise to a real/apparent distinction and the real will be thought to transcend experience (the God's eye view is seen with the mind's eye) and its investigation will involve a priori method. But the real/apparent distinction can be seen as resulting from the enthusiasm of the metaphysician who is really (!) (only!) offering a new way of looking at the world. A new metaphysics "proposes a revision of the set of ideas in terms of which we think about the world, a change in our conceptual scheme, a new way of talking (ibid)," and the metaphysician claims that this new way of looking uncovers the real. What he or she wants us to regard as the fundamental is honoured as "reality" and concomitantly our previous or ordinary conceptions have to be seen as delusions. This characterisation of "metaphysics", which Strawson attributes to Wittgenstein and Wisdom, somewhat undermines the metaphysicians' claim to identify and deal with the "real" by placing their efforts in a historical and cultural context, a manoeuvre which makes those claims seem grandiose. And here, something of the pejorative, modern, sense of the term is evident. For Strawson, though, the admitted grandiosity of the "revisionary" kind of metaphysics described above does not preclude the legitimacy of a more modest "descriptive" metaphysics which confines itself to clarifying the general structure of our common sense thinking and its scientific extensions (Strawson, 1959).
The latter is the last of Strawson's usages and it coheres the least well with the others. It identifies metaphysics as the activity which "is, or ought to be, the study of the intellectual equipment and limitations of human beings " (Strawson, 1989 op cit: 203). This is the project which arose out of Hume's exasperation with the endless, empirically undecidable quarrels between rival metaphysical systems, and which was modified and developed by Kant. What coherence there is between this and the other characterisations of metaphysics relies on the fact that Kant and Hume regard the study of human understanding as necessary for "the determination of what is fundamental in the order of knowledge and explanation " (ibid: 204); that is, they still have the metaphysicians' concern "to get to the bottom of things". We could, perhaps, also meaningfully attach the term metaphysics to the Humean/Kantian project in that it grows out of the tradition which is metaphysical in the other senses, albeit as a criticism of that tradition.
However, as Strawson points out, the criticisms made by both Hume and Kant contain features of the very metaphysics they criticise, (and on this count alone can be characterised as metaphysical). Strawson's reading of the Kantian criticism of metaphysics has it that metaphysicians inevitably use the concepts of our ordinary understanding in ways which stand outside of "the empirical conditions of their employment " (ibid: 205), and that this is illegitimate. But, Strawson continues, both Hume and Kant do this same kind of violence to certain concepts. Kant's doctrine that only the unknowable in-itself is "real", for instance, violates the concepts of knowledge and reality as they are actually used. Similarly, Hume's doctrine that imagination causes us to believe in physical things violates the ordinary usage of the concept imagination.
Bibliography
Aristotle (1961,1st. ed. 1956) Metaphysics. (Warrington J. ed. & translator)
Burrt, E.A. (2nd. ed. 1932, 1st. ed. 1924) The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science. London & Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul
Collingwood, R.G. (1940) An Essay on Metaphysics.
Frayn, Michael (1974) Constructions.
Hofstadter, Douglas R. (1979) Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. Harmondsworth: Penguin
Plato (1973) Theaetetus. (McDowell, J., translator)
Rorty, R. (1989) Contingency, irony, and solidarity.
Russell, B. (1984) A History of Western Philosophy.
Skolimowski, H. (1992) Living Philosophy.
Stcherbatsky, T. (1993) Buddhist
Strawson, P.F. (new edn.1989) "Metaphysics" in The Concise Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy & Philosophers. (Urmson & Ree eds.)
Strawson, P.F. (1959) Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics
No comments:
Post a Comment