What Is Metaphysics

What is Metaphysics?
Saturday, February 4, 12 1
Metaphysical Inquiry Aim of Metaphysics Possibility of Metaphysics Root and ground of Metaphysical Inquiry
- Central Problems of Metaphysics (CPM), 1-6
Saturday, February 4, 12
WHAT GOES ON IN METAPHYSICAL INQUIRY?
! wherever the human being extends his intellectual questioning to embrace the whole of reality; ! seeking to pull together all the obvious multiplicity and diversity into some kind of intelligible unity; ! with the inquiry subjected to and guided by the critical testing of the thinkers own personal intelligence according to the evidence available to him; ! with the results articulated in some sort of systematic way.
- (CPM, 1)
WHAT GOES ON IN METAPHYSICAL INQUIRY?
! wherever the human being extends his intellectual intellectual questioning questioning to embrace the whole of reality; ! seeking to pull together all the obvious multiplicity and Multiplicity and diversity into some kind of intelligible unity; Intelligible unity diversity ! with the inquiry subjected to and guided by the critical testing of the thinkers own personal intelligence acWhole of reality cording to the evidence available to him; ! with the results articulated in some sort of systematic Systematic way way.
- (CPM, 1)
The difference that makes the difference What distinguishes the metaphysician within philosophical inquiry is his thrust toward ARTICULATING A VISION OF REALITY AS A WHOLE, not just some part of it like the human being, or nature, or society. ( CPM1)
What is the Aim of Metaphysics?
We focus our inquiry explicitly on the ultimate context of all experience, that of reality or being itself, as such - rather than on any particular part of it.
!
discover the essential, universal properties and structures of all beings as real, their ultimate principles of intelligibility, and their interrelationships to form an intelligible whole.
!
TRUTH?
What is the Aim of Metaphysics?
i.e., the ultimate laws of intelligibility of being as being!
Recall:
- metaphysics: metaphysical inquiry - aim of metaphysics: focus inquiry on the ultimate context of all experience, reality itself. discover the essential, universal properties and structures of all beings, i.e., the ultimate laws of intelligibility of being as being. TRUTH?
Is this metaphysics possible at all?

! impossible to study all beings at once, because being is not some distinguishing trait, is perfectly empty conceptually and tells us nothing in particular! no distinctive subject matter, but it has a distinctive point of view; it considers only the most general all-embracing laws of all things, precisely as REAL, as existing.
7
Is this metaphysics possible at all?
Metaphysics draws out into the explicit light of reflection what all other human thought leaves implicit and takes for granted - existence itself.
But it can be done only by reflective insight and analysis.
8
Every human intellect is thus a finite, perspectival vision-of-the-whole. Capax totius entis (St. Thomas). Metaphysics is impossible because the human being is finite.
In other words Although metaphysics in its thrust or intention can be universal and absolute, its expression will always be limited, incomplete, i.e., perspectival, from within a given culture and limited framework of thinking, speaking, imagining, feeling, within human history.
Every human intellect is thus a finite, perspectival vision-of-the-whole. Capax totius entis (St. Thomas).
PARADOX of the human mind: - at once only finite, unrestricted in its drive to know all that there is to know about all that there is. - infinite, inexhaustible capacity to know...limitless horizon of inquiry, precisely as intellect (whose formal object or defining horizon is being itself). - human intellect is mysteriously co-equal with the whole universe, a part that is also a whole embracing all wholes, at least by thrust and intention, though vaguely and imperfectly in its own finite way.
10
Root and Ground of all Metaphysical Inquiry

unrestricted drive to know all that there is to know about all that there is.
!
radical dynamism of the human spirit is innate, the a priori condition of our being able to carry on any inquiry into the intelligibility and meaning of things at all.
!
11
Root and Ground of all Metaphysical Inquiry
involves a lived, at least implicit, commitment to the intelligibility in principle of all being, even if I may not in fact achieve this myself, and a radical desire to achieve it as a fundamental good for me as human.
!
12
Important Implication . . .
If the search for the ultimate intelligibility of all things is to make sense and the human being is not to be a monstrous living absurdity, BEING or the REAL must in principle be intelligible, that the quest for intelligibility is not futile, that being itself is not radically unintelligible, absurd, opaque, to intelligence.
13
Method of Metaphysics
Descriptive: involves the discovery and description of the basic properties and categories of being by comparative reductive analysis (search for basic common properties and irreducible modes of being) and reective insight.
Explanatory: search for ultimate explanatory hypotheses which render intelligible the nite changing realities of our experience which are shown to be not adequately intelligible by themselves (do not contain their own sufcient reason within themselves).
14

What Is Metaphysics

Încărcat de

Informații document

Descriere originală:

Titlu original

Drepturi de autor

Formate disponibile

Partajați acest document

Partajați sau inserați document

Opțiuni de partajare

Vi se pare util acest document?

Este necorespunzător acest conținut?

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

What Is Metaphysics

Încărcat de

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

What is Metaphysics?

What is the Aim of Metaphysics?

What is the Aim of Metaphysics?

i.e., the ultimate laws of intelligibility of being as being!

Is this metaphysics possible at all?

Is this metaphysics possible at all?

But it can be done only by reflective insight and analysis.

Root and Ground of all Metaphysical Inquiry

Root and Ground of all Metaphysical Inquiry

S-ar putea să vă placă și