Have We Seen the Last of Metaphysical Systems?
This is from a presentation I gave in my philosophy seminar class. The question, I think, is relevant for more than academic exercise; but here, have a look at the text of the handout first [which follows; or you may download the PDF—117KB].
It seems the history of philosophy has been characterized by the rise (and fall?) of overarching metaphysical systems:
| Presocratics: | 4 elements constitute all (with one as prime, e.g., Heraclitus & fire) |
| Plato: | The relation of Being, Forms, and Matter (also Middle & Neoplatonists) |
| Aristotle: | Prime mover gives rise to all things |
| Stoics: | Logos permeates all, is all |
| Origen: | Scripture : tripartite meaning, corresponding to man (body — soul — spirit) |
| Anselm: | “that than which nothing greater can be conceived;” fides quaerens intellectum |
| Leibniz: | World consists in self-contained, “windowless” units—monads! |
| Kant: | Narrowed focus of metaphysics—science informs us where pure reason fails |
| Hegel: | History has a progressive pattern; all is dialectic |
| Heidegger: | We as Dasein are all intimately familiar with Being; all interconnected… |
Yet now we seem to have entered into an epoch of uncertainty about whether metaphysics is possible at all. Rorty says it’s all conversation, that philosophy qua Philosophy is meaningless, that all is relative. Gadamer concedes that a better hermeneutical understanding is still limited by the asymptotic impenetrability of objective truth-out-there apart from interpretation. Randian “objectivism” dismisses truth-out-there altogether, declaring the supremacy of sense-perception.
Now it seems we’ve returned to a wholly negative reworking of Socrates’ method: from “I don’t know (and neither do you!) but perhaps we together through dialogue can come to an agreement about the nature of reality” to “I don’t know and neither do you—nor can we know—the end. Let’s have a nice sit-down chat about how great America is and is not, but don’t dare make any absolute claims about anything. Except not making absolute claims.”
Are we going to see a resurgence of metaphysicians? Can we make any more ontologically certain claims about the nature of reality apart from resorting to relativism, subjectivism, or other (essentially) absolute claims of ultimate ignorance? Will we (we who?—us, of course!) decide again that by conversation we can achieve some absolute knowledge and re-start the Socratic process over?
The beginning and the end are common on the circumference of a circle. —Heraclitus
Now, the discussion took a turn toward science almost immediately. And that’s right, in an important sense: what the ancient metaphysicians were trying to accomplish—an explanation of how the world is constituted—has been answered in large part by scientific inquiry and technological advancements, especially in the last two hundred years. But it seems that all the disciplines that inquire about the nature of reality are fragmented now, into little factions of empiricists (scientists and analystic philosophers, e.g., Quine), rationalists and poets (Continental philosophers), linguists (and lingua-relativist philosophers like Rorty), &c. So. My question is, will we ever come to an overarching theory of reality that doesn’t try to be politically correct and take into account all the little nuances of people’s potentially-hurt feelings? This, I think, ultimately comes down to a contempt for that attitude in scientific study that equates HOW the world works with WHY it is that way. And philosophers in the American tradition have done nothing to help the system (Rorty, I would say I don’t mean to pick on you, but man, I do, because your emasculation of truth is utterly ridiculous).
Discuss!
