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Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy Volume 2: Metaphysics Introduction Tom Rockmore It is appropriate to ask about the prospects for metaphysics at the present time as we near the end of a century in which, perhaps more than at any other moment in its long history, metaphysics has been under persistent, unrelenting attack. The traditional concern with metaphysics is very old, depending on the definition, as old as philosophy, even its main theme. Depending on the point of view, much is at stake in the continued viability of metaphysics, including the viability of a central philosophical theme or even the very viability of philosophy itself as a meaningful enterprise. Like many other key philosophical terms, the word "metaphysics," which has no fixed, or non-normative meaning, is used in many ways by many different writers over a very long period now approaching several thousand years. In different ways metaphysics as a distinctive theme is widely present in non-Western thought, for instance in Chinese philosophy, which is very old, and in Indian philosophy, which is considerably older. It is worth emphasizing, since the present volume collects papers presented at a world congress of philosophy, that metaphysics is practiced outside Western philosophy, and that the latter at best innovates in identifying a new approach or a new series of approaches to this venerable theme. It is well known that for Western philosophy, "metaphysics" was originally applied to Aristotle's treatise on being. If the term is understood ontologically, then even in the Western tradition it is older than Aristotle. In the writings of the pre-Socratics, ancient Greek cosmology engaged in pre-scientific speculation about the stuff of the universe. Roughly speaking, the earlier metaphysical concentration on being from various angles of vision continues from ancient Greek philosophy until in the modern period, which may or may not begin with Descartes, it increasingly (but not entirely) gives way to epistemology. In the second half of the eighteenth century, at the time of Hume and Kant, the concern with metaphysics centered on the distinction between good and bad metaphysics. According to Kant, the latter incorrectly took up questions about the world, man (or human being) and God which, since they surpassed experience, could not possibly be answered. In Kant's critical philosophy, good metaphysics is synonymous with an inquiry into the most general conditions of knowledge. For Kant, this inquiry takes different forms, the study of the conditions of objects of experience and knowledge, or the metaphysics of metaphysics, and the more restricted metaphysics of morals and of natural science. The post-Kantian effort to complete Kant's Copernican Revolution in philosophy can be regarded as an effort to state, if not a metaphysical position, at least its presuppositions, understood as a theory of knowledge. Hegel's particular approach to the history of philosophy is often taken as suggesting that philosophy itself comes to a peak and to an end in his thought. If philosophy is metaphysics, and if philosophy ends in Hegel, then metaphysics also ends. In the nineteenth century, widespread skepticism about the possibility of continuing philosophy after Hegel's death was widely reflected in such extra-philosophical figures as Kierkegaard, Marx and Nietzsche. It is reflected more distantly in the attack on metaphysics that has been a dominant theme in this century. In all seriousness, it has been suggested by a number of writers that ours is a period after metaphysics, either because, as the young Hegelians thought, the metaphysical tradition and philosophy in any meaningful sense comes to an end in Hegel, or because as Heidegger thinks it ends in Nietzsche, or again because as Habermas thinks it ends in Kant. Discussion in our time has been characterized by three main attitudes toward metaphysics. Side by side with those who continue metaphysics understood in either of the two main traditional ways as ontology (a term which began to be used and acquired considerable importance in the seventeenth century) or epistemology, our time has seen the emergence of a steady attack on metaphysics which has so far taken two main forms. On the one hand, there is the focused effort to refute bad metaphysics while doing good metaphysics. This effort is closely linked to the Kantian view that all knowledge begins in-but is not limited to-experience. On the other, there is the more diffuse but even more radical effort to equate all metaphysics with bad metaphysics in order to refute metaphysics as such across the board and, if philosophy is metaphysics, philosophy in all its many kinds. This effort is comparable to Kant's rejection of claims to know the whole on the grounds that it cannot ever be an object of experience and knowledge. The narrower attack on bad metaphysics is obviously different from the wider attack on all metaphysics. The two main attacks on bad metaphysics in this century are dissimilar and developed independently. American pragmatism generally follows Peirce's view that meaning is associated with future empirical consequences while rejecting Cartesian efforts at first philosophy. Broadly speaking pragmatists take two main attitudes toward metaphysics which are both found in Peirce. On the one hand, there is the rejection of claims which, although they agree with reason, cannot be studied through their empirical consequences. This attitude is common to Peirce, James and Dewey, the main representatives of the golden age of American pragmatism. On the other hand, there is Peirce's atypical pragmatic concern to do good metaphysics by developing a categorial theory adequate to any and all experience in order to depict reality as it must appear from the scientific point of view. The other main attack on bad metaphysics emerged in the course of the Vienna Circle effort to produce a new scientific world view (wissenschaftliche Weltanschauung), understood as scientific philosophy, or good metaphysics. In The Logical Structure of the World (1928), Carnap reconstructed the main concepts of knowledge through immediate reference to the empirical given. His physicalism in this book rested on a view of reality as ultimately composed of physical entities. On this view, what is real can be known empirically; and what cannot be known empirically is not meaningful, but nonsense. Carnap applied this latter idea in a nontechnical attempt to eliminate pseudoproblems from epistemology. Following the early Wittgenstein's view that metaphysical sentences are unverifiable, hence meaningless, he argued in "Pseudoproblems in Philosophy" (1928) that statements asserting or denying the reality of the external world are mere pseudostatements. He continued this line in another article, "The Elimination of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language" (1932) where he attacked Heidegger in arguing for the meaninglessness of all metaphysics. At this point, Carnap understands "metaphysics" consisting in claims about the essence of things which transcends empirical experience. The still more radical attack on metaphysics (now identified with philosophy itself in all its forms) originated through Heidegger's failure to recover metaphysics in Being and Time (1927). The principal aim of this work was to renew the problem of being as it was first raised by the early Greeks, particularly Aristotle, but later forgotten as philosophy diverged on different paths no longer leading toward but rather away from this original concern. The failure of this effort to go back behind the ensuing philosophical tradition to recover the problem of being as it was originally raised led Heidegger after the mysterious turning in his thought in the early 1930s to reject metaphysics and philosophy in favor of what he began to call thought (Denken). According to this influential view, expressed in piecemeal fashion in his later writings, metaphysics is not possible and, by implication, since philosophy is metaphysics, philosophy is also not possible. For instance, in the lecture courses on Nietzsche, Heidegger argued that Hegel's system is the completion of metaphysics and Nietzsche's reversal of Platonism is its end. Heidegger's view has been influential. His ontological claim about being has been given an epistemological twist by writers such as Derrida, Lyotard and Rorty. Derrida's attack on presence is a type of anti-semantics designed to undercut the idea of definite reference. In his account of postmodernity, Lyotard argues that there is no longer any overarching tale, hence no acceptable legitimation of claims to know. In his attack on epistemology, Rorty maintains in effect that, since analytic foundationalism fails, there is nothing interesting to say about the problem of knowledge. The difference between these attacks on metaphysics is clear and important. Although there is some difference of opinion, in general American pragmatists and Carnap reject bad metaphysics but at least for the former not metaphysics in general. Accordingly, the pragmatists leave the door open for good metaphysics. Heidegger, who is more radical, rejects metaphysics understood as ontology, conceived as identical to philosophy, hence rejects philosophy. Derrida, Lyotard and Rorty agree-although it is difficult to be clear about the former who refuses to define the terms of his argument-that claims to know other than that we cannot know cannot be sustained. Although these attacks on metaphysics in whole or in part have been influential, they are not obviously correct. Both the pragmatic and the Vienna Circle attacks on bad metaphysics from an empiricist angle of vision presuppose a form of verificationism. Quine is an opponent of positivism who on analytic grounds has turned to pragmatism. It is then significant that a commitment to verificationism is still maintained in attenuated form in Quine's naturalism. Yet the very criterion is, as has been pointed out, problematic since it is not itself empirically verifiable. Further, the attack on metaphysics as ontology seems to rest on an approach to ontology, namely the proposed ontological difference, which is difficult to defend and which is not clearly defended after Christian Wolff. This attack does not seem to affect, say Kant, or later writers such as Hegel, Husserl and many others. Finally, various attacks on epistemology presuppose a strong, Platonic conception of knowledge that can simply be abandoned without cost, as in the ongoing turn to pragmatism. For these and other reasons, I believe one should be wary of overly rapid declarations of victory, slow to award the laurel wreath. Despite the vigor of the recent attacks on metaphysics, it seems to me that the record of metaphysical accomplishment in modern times, perhaps ancient times as well, is very strong. As a result of the modern philosophical discussion, at least three ideas now seem to be solidly in place as permanent additions that are unlikely to be dislodged or even seriously shaken by later debate. To begin with, there is the concept of the subject in Descartes. Efforts by Heidegger and recent postmodernists to deconstruct this concept seem unconvincing and caught in a performative contradiction. Second there is the rejection of (naïve) forms of ontology in Kant, who sets a permanent limit to what can be known, in the process undoing the Platonic view, which may not have been Plato's, that under certain conditions it is possible to knowledge independent reality as the goal of philosophy. Finally, there is the turn to history in Hegel which jointly follows from the great French Revolution as well as the failure of the Cartesian foundationalist project. I venture to suggest, although I cannot argue the point here, that the work of the next century will in large part consist in rethinking all the traditional philosophical problems and new ones that will emerge from a historical point of view. My tentative conclusion is that despite the attacks on metaphysics launched in this century, it seems surprising alive, not less robust, less interesting, nor ready to be consigned to the dustbin of history. The essays assembled in this volume, which come from all areas of the metaphysical tradition, are all by authors who are committed to the kind of good metaphysics which Hume and later Kant recommended, although naturally they regard what good metaphysics is in very different ways. The papers included here represent a selection from those presented during the World Congress covering virtually every conceivable aspect of metaphysics as broadly conceived at present. Since the papers were written separately, it would be illusory to expect them to fit cleanly into any set of categories however selected. Although other groupings are certainly plausible, I have chosen to divide the papers into two broad groups to reflect two main approaches to metaphysics as concerns historical figures or particular problems. It must be conceded at once that this division is artificial, since none of the papers is purely historical and none is purely systematic. Many, perhaps all the historical papers take up issues of current metaphysical concern in a historical context. Conversely many of the more systematic papers refer to historical doctrines. It is obvious that some papers which I have put into the historical section could have been placed in the other section and conversely. The historical papers are subdivided into medieval and modern figures covered in chronological order, although there is some overlap. There are three papers devoted mainly to medieval figures. The collection begins with Ludger Honnefelder's effort to show that in meeting the challenge of theology, medieval thinkers (such as Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham) restated metaphysics in the form of first philosophy. John Wippel's attempt to sort out the respective view of the metaphysical subject in Thomas Aquinas and in Siger of Brabant concentrates on their respective dependence on Avicenna. In arguing against Copleston and Duhem, Brian Leftow shows that Thomas Aquinas holds for certain kinds of actual infinities. Three other papers are concerned with the views of modern figures. Adopting a Quinean view of ontological commitment, Robert Greenberg argues that for Kant the a priori can remain necessary and universal only if the existence of objects is kept distinct from it. Herman Philipse takes issue with Heidegger's later understanding of existentialia, or the categories of human existence, in claiming that the position early and late is a form of religious apologetics. In the final paper of the historical section, Peter Van Inwagen provides a brief to Quine's meta-ontology, or answer to the question: What is there? The historical papers approach metaphysical problems mainly from within the position of a single or several historical figures. The second section contains a series of papers on epistemological and ontological problems less closely tied to the views of a historical figure. The first two papers concern causality. In a paper on causation, Fred Dretske examines and rejects extrinsicness of meaning and intrinsicness of causality before denying that epiphenomenalism is the necessary conclusion. In a further paper on the causal theory of action, David-Hillel Rubin discusses various senses of 'part' which might make an amended account plausible before concluding that any such account will be overly permissive in counting as actions many items which clearly are not actions. Acknowledging the difficulty of referring to vague objects, such as the sun, Peter Simons suggests that the key notions of truth-value density and expected truth-value allow us to assign sensible truth-values to propositions about vague. The problem of explanation is covered in three papers. The first two papers deal with what is known in the literature as the explanatory gap and the third paper concerns quantum mechanics. Brian Loar contends that the fact that explanatory concepts are not convertible, since they derive from different sources, places psychological limits on explanation. Robert Van Gulick argues on the contrary that on examination the psychophysical explanatory gap metaphor is finally not all that special. In rejecting a view of chance in quantum mechanics proposed by David Lewis, Philip Percival argues that even if a chance event receives a nontrivial explanation Lewis' view cannot be saved. Two papers discuss aspects of free will. In arguing against the grain of modern discussion, Robert Kane attempts to reconcile incompatibilist free will with new images of human beings emerging in the physical, biological, behavioral, cognitive, and neuro-sciences while avoiding the usual libertarian appeal to obscure or mysterious forms of agency. Relying on Peter Strawson's 'reactive-naturalism', Saul Smilansky defends a novel position based on the descriptively central and normatively neutral role of illusion in the free will problem. Three authors address aspects of identity theory. In a discussion of Mellor's theory of time, Arda Denkal contends that problems in the theory can be avoided by giving up the thesis that objectively time does not flow. In a paper on vagueness, Loretta Torrago draws on Leibniz in arguing that vague identity does not depend on the vagueness of composition, and that the thesis that composition can be vague is actually incompatible with the thesis of vague identity. Roger Wertheimer contends that identity gets misconceived since "="'s syntax is misconceived as a relative term since the real contrast is between proper names (terms without predicative sense) and terms with a predicative sense (predicates and names of properties). Three papers take up ontological or realistic aspects of truth claims. D. P. Chattoppadhyaya rejects a primarily epistemological view of knowledge as untenable in favor of an ontological view in which disclosure is self-revealing, or, as Indians say, sva-prakasa. E. J. Lowe suggests the need to modify Fregean identity criteria in a way to require an independent account of the existence-conditions of properties, although it appears that such a strategy demands the acceptance of the doctrine of immanent realism, or the view that a property exists only if it is exemplified by some object. In responding to realism and conventionalism, Sharon Kaye defends nominalism in its original medieval sense, as developed by William of Ockham, as one possibility that aims to preserve objectivity while positing nothing more than concrete individuals in the world. The next two papers address system. Jay Rosenberg, who notes that genuine systematicity is central to philosophy but difficult to achieve, offers three brief case studies, which illustrate different, but significantly related, ways of failing to achieve it. Beth Singer studies the difference between a philosophic system and the systematic treatment of philosophic as illustrated in her own theory of what she calls "operative rights." Since the theme of the World Congress was Paideia, or education, it is fitting for the volume to close with discussion of the metaphysics of education. In the final paper, Robert Neville addresses the importance of eternity for an understanding of education.
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