Comte de Saint-Germain wrote:Reposted, though slightly updated. Last paragraph added.
What does it mean to say "Metaphysics is an error"? It means to ask the question "What do we mean when we say this or that exists?" and to find the answers we find in philosophy and outside unsatisfactory. It is not a profession of faith that metaphysics is impossible, but rather a profound scepticism, a lack of affiliation with any one claim that states it holds the answer to the question what 'existence' means.
Why is this scepticism? Why is this criticism? Because it surpasses being a simple contrarian. One must first understand metaphysics, what has been proposed under the banner of metaphysics before one can find it unsatisfactory, and it is criticism, because it demolishes an important concept, whilst providing a new, more subtle, more elevated value.
Beside this, it is important to note that not existence is an error, but metaphysics. The critique, and the scepticism, is not directed at the word existence, which in the human language can fluctuate from denoting the problematic metaphysical keystone to some precisely defined scientific state. We could easily imagine that 'existence' is defined as 'measurable'. In that case, the word escapes the critique, but metaphysics does not. One is immediately warned, however, that such business of defining often is committed in the area of equivocation, where on one side, existence has a metaphysical face, and on the other side, it is this highly defined scientific state of measurability.
This, clearly can not stand. Unless there is some evidence or argument to demonstrate that measurability has any metaphysical implications, then clearly, such an equivocation is unwarranted and can not - as of yet - be accepted. One observes, this criticism and the scepticism is dipped in knowledge, not ignorance of metaphysical theories.
Generally I think I find this all agreeable.
If we should avoid equivocating "metaphysics" with "existence", and "existence" with "measurable", what becomes the subject matter of metaphysics? My first response would be to say "the study of the difference between appearance and reality". But this itself is hugely ambiguous and problematic. To be clear, is the metaphysician undertaking what is essentially a linguistic-semantic enquiry, or does he perhaps see his (mis)use of language as some sort of divining tool? Personally, I wouldve thought our conceptual structures were based on the non-conceptual world rather than vice versa. I mean, sure, with words we can create worlds, but lets not conflate this story-telling capacity with that of
logos: "Let there be light", and then there was light.
It should immediately become clear that the essential problem here is 'satisfactory'. Some people might argue that the evidence and argument has been satisfactorily provided for the existence of God. Similarly, we can expect people to state that evidence and arguments have been satisfactorily provided that existence itself makes any sense. The question of God is related to that of existence, of course, and to be sceptical of existence means to be sceptical of God specifically as well.
What does this mean? It means that if metaphysics is removed, one is only left with the 'apparent' world, the empirical world - what may now be called the real world. It means that if there is to be any room for God, it is as an empirical concept, not as some supra-empirical concept.
Again, I agree with your sentiments here. My problem with many Platonic-Kantians is that whilst I can agree that there is a distinction to be made between "appearance" and "reality", the distinction is by no means absolute nor exclusive. Put crudely, "appearance" is a subset of "reality",
not a duality. Plato made the distinction an ontological duality, whilst Kant endorsed an epistemic dualism. Whilst I find these conclusions/metaphysics unsound, I certainly empathise with some of the basic premises. The problem lies not so much with the concepts these thinkers begin with, but, as you noted earlier, what they supposed these concepts (appearance, reality)
implied.
The argument here enters its most difficult stage. Not that it is difficult in itself, but because people seem unwilling to keep to the argument. It seems so obvious to many people that all things must be caused (even though a causal relationship is used with reliability in the empirical world, and there's no reason to believe that its usage in metaphysics is valid) that empirical reality must be caused by 'something else', and that this something else must be of some quality that is metaphysical. The idea that one should refrain from speaking of such things is seen to be as cowardice, precisely because it is assumed that 'there is something out there'. The extension, the implication is that there is something to be described, even when it might be unknowable.
Certainly, and how does the metaphysician perform his sleight of hand? He notes that we talk of things appearing, and things being real. So, the idea of a world of appearance and a real world is pulled forth from his hat; the real world underlies the apparent world. Again, I think this dualism can be enticing precisely because it is based on a quite ordinary distinction between "appears" and "really". One need only contemplate why, and when, we make the distinction in everyday discourse in order to see the perversion the metaphysician undertakes.
The point is, however, that the methods not of getting to metaphysics, but the methods of coming to the idea of metaphysics, the methods by which one makes the assumption that there is something that can be covered by the term existence are suspect. This, of course, is highly problematic, not in the least because it is apparently assumed that denying the existence of the sun would mean to deny the sun as an empirical phenomenon, when nothing like that is intended. The sun is empirical and can be measured, but the idea that it is caused by some 'metaphysical sun', some 'thing-in-itself', this idea comes with suspect methods. That is to say, methods that have never been successfully argued for or provided evidence for.
A whole lexicon of terms has been invented to further propogate the metaphysicians duality; I find this process intriguing at least from the perspective of genealogy. The metaphysician is in this regard some sort of pseudo-alchemist, trying to make immiscible what is essentially an epistemic distinction.
What do we end up with? We end up with the four great problems of Metaphysics. One, that metaphysical content - the concept of thing-in-itself - has no argument or evidence going for it. We have no way of measuring 'reliability' within metaphysics, or what that would mean. Within the empirical world, science is the most reliable tool for measurement. Reliable simply means that it (often) makes accurate predictions. However, the empirical world is a construct of predictions, so even the world 'reliable' CAN NOT be used in reference to metaphysics. We'll get to that later.
Im not sure Id say the empirical world is a construct of predictions, that dosnt sound quite right. Id perhaps say that the empirical world provides the criteria by which our predictions (as concepts) are structured. Im not quite happy with that either, though. At any rate, Im content to merely draw a distinction between our conceptual structures and the non-conceptual world which provides the criteria for their use. Of course, Im not claiming that our conceptual structures lie "outside" the non-conceptual world.
The second great problem of metaphysics is the problem of the possibility of Metaphysics. It is conceivable (leaving alone possible) that we have evidence and arguments that metaphysics is possible, but that we simply have none for specific content. Meaning that there is something ineffable that we ineptly express with 'existence' when used metaphysically, but that it still denotes something. For this, no evidence or argument has ever been posited. No philosopher hitherto has seen fit to explore this issue.
Thats a good point. But then I dont think metaphysics has ever been concerned with specific content, as such.
Third, there are very great doubts whether it is possible to mount an argument or evidence for either of the above problems. This means, the third great problem of metaphysics is that there is no reason to believe that we are able to ever do metaphysics. This means, put simply, that there is no basis on which to assume that either arguments or evidence, respectively, ratio or senses, are capable of providing the sort of information that would qualify as evidence of the possibility of metaphysics. Quite clearly, metaphysical content is not empirical, and we have no evidence or argument to believe that our minds are capable of anything beyond rudimentary problem solving.
I think metaphysics is possible in the sense that it is a spandrel of our linguistic-cogntive systems. To be pedantic, I would rephrase your claim to something like "Is it possible to have evidence of which, if any, metaphysical judgments are true?" How do we determine which metaphysical judgments are true, and which are not?
Fourth is a problem of linguistics. Earlier the observation was made that 'reliable' is a concept rooted in empiricism. There's no reason to believe that in metaphysics, concepts/words from empiricism will still work. Take, per example, the term 'causality'. Within empiricism, it denotes a relationship between two events. Namely, that the occurrence of one event necessitates the other. If event A, then event B. There's no reason to believe that this idea applies to metaphysics. The idea that 'the empirical world must be caused', per example, is assuming that causality applies outside of the empirical world. There is no argument or evidence for this. Put short, it is assumed that a domain-specific concept can be used as domain-general. Again, sans evidence, and sans argument.
Im entirely uncomfortable with the idea that the "empirical world" is anything but a metaphorical container; what does it mean for something to be outside the empirical world? I think it was Ayer who pointed out the Cartesian error of taking metaphors as literal facts about the world.
