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[Lagayascienza]

A friend has asked me what the point of metaphysical speculation is. I found it a difficult question to answer. My friend thinks that metaphysics is just unanswerable questions endlessly regurgitated and pointlessly chewed over. So, I’m asking whether anything useful ever comes from metaphysics? Can we expect answers from metaphysics?

And even if we cannot expect answers, is metaphysics necessary? For example, must all areas of enquiry necessarily rest on some metaphysical foundation? For example, do the physical sciences, particularly physics, rest on a materialist metaphysical foundation? Does theology rest on a supernatural metaphysical foundation without which it would make no sense? Would study of these and other subjects be impossible without some metaphysical commitment?

[LuckyR]

To me, the "point" of metaphysics is to address... the metaphysical. Profound, right? Thus asking if metaphysics provides "answers" (meaning answers to objective questions) is a conceptual error. There are no shortage of subjective questions (demanding subjective answers). In fact many would say that subjective questions are more personally important than objective ones.

[Pattern-chaser]

Thus asking if metaphysics provides "answers" (meaning answers to objective questions) is a conceptual error. There are no shortage of subjective questions (demanding subjective answers). In fact many would say that subjective questions are more personally important than objective ones.

Yes! And not only that, but the journey we take, as we think about, and discuss, these things, offers value in itself, I find. After all, if we ask questions that have no answers, we can't really expect to reach any ('objective') conclusions, can we?

[Lagayascienza]

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Thanks for the responses.

Metaphysical speculation is inherently interesting for me. I see it as exercise for the mind. And it doesn’t need to be at all esoterica. It can be stuff ordinary folks think about. Even non-philosophers ask metaphysical questions without necessarily realizing that they are engaging in metaphysics. For example, when people wonder whether anything will exist for them after death, they are engaging in metaphysical speculation. This is an age-old question for which no definitive answer has been forthcoming. But asking the question can at least bring the logical possibilities into focus and helps us see what we would need to find out in order to decide such questions. Sometimes we are led to the conclusion the that a particular question is intrinsically unanswerable. Which, I guess, is an answer of sorts.

Idealism and materialism are two metaphysical positions that have divided philosophers for millennia. However, we are still in no position to decide which, if either, is right, and we may never be so. Whether the fundamental stuff of the universe is “material-stuff” or “mind-stuff” may be one of those essentially unanswerable questions.

If we are uncomfortable with not having objective answers, then we often fall back on a metaphysical position that subjectively appeals to us the most. For example, on the issue of Idealism vs materialism, I go with “material-stuff”. Others prefer “mind-stuff”. There is no way of deciding which, if either of them, is true.

But then we can ask, as my friend did, whether it was worth asking the question in the first place. That is where my friend was coming from when he asked me what the point of metaphysical speculation was if it couldn’t provide answers.

In the end, the only answer I can give him is that metaphysics is inherently interesting. That’s the point. Lots of pursuits don’t provide answers, or have any ultimate point, but we still like them. What’s the point of Sudoku ? There’s no ultimate point to it but I enjoy doing it. I don’t see that there needs to be any justification beyond it being interesting. So that’s the answer I’ll give my friend if he asks again. But if it’s the “meaning of life” he’s after, then metaphysics cannot help him.

[Gertie]

Yes I'd go with interesting. I'm not someone who finds technical, pernickety detailed stuff interesting, but I like to understand the fundamentals of things. But I have a mixed feelings about metaphysics, because as you say when you delve into it there tend not to be answers. At least I can know why there aren't! And I'm comfortable with that, knowing why there aren't answers is enough to settle my curiosity.

Except for practical things which would affect me - I'd really like to know for sure if there's life after death, or a judgy god and what the criteria for heaven are. Useful stuff like that.

[Pattern-chaser]

Yes I'd go with interesting. I'm not someone who finds technical, pernickety detailed stuff interesting, but I like to understand the fundamentals of things. But I have a mixed feelings about metaphysics, because as you say when you delve into it there tend not to be answers. At least I can know why there aren't! And I'm comfortable with that, knowing why there aren't answers is enough to settle my curiosity.

So, even though there are often no answers, you have learned something on your journey: "knowing why there aren't answers is enough to settle my curiosity". That is why metaphysics is worth the trouble — because of what we learn when we consider it, even though there can be no conclusions drawn from the main consideration.

[Lagayascienza]

When I was young and doing an arts degree at university, and later when I studied law, we touched on a little philosophy but didn't delve deeply. I only started reading philosophy seriously after I retired. I was a bit naive at the outset and hoped philosophy might actually provide answers to the "big questions" that had bothered me when I was younger. But, the more I read, the more I came to realize that philosophy provides no such answers. For example, it cannot provide objective answers to moral questions or tell us the "meaning of life" or whether the universe is fundamentally mind-stuff or material-stuff. I guess that, unlike other subjects such as, for example, science or law, philosophy is not a body of knowledge to be taught and learned. Rather, philosophy teaches us how to think effectively by being alert to assumptions and biases. And that is an important skill which does carry over into those other subject areas. There is the philosophy of this and the philosophy of that but in each case they circle around deep questions but provide objective answers to none. Still, it's interesting to find out that some questions are unanswerable and I'm glad I started reading philosophy.

[Gertie]

Yes I'd go with interesting. I'm not someone who finds technical, pernickety detailed stuff interesting, but I like to understand the fundamentals of things. But I have a mixed feelings about metaphysics, because as you say when you delve into it there tend not to be answers. At least I can know why there aren't! And I'm comfortable with that, knowing why there aren't answers is enough to settle my curiosity.

So, even though there are often no answers, you have learned something on your journey: "knowing why there aren't answers is enough to settle my curiosity". That is why metaphysics is worth the trouble — because of what we learn when we consider it, even though there can be no conclusions drawn from the main consideration.

For me, yes. I mean I'd love to know the answers to the Big Questions, but the journey alone takes me out of the mundanity of everyday life in ways I enjoy. And I'd say I've firmed up my ideas a lot on things like epistemology and morality by framing them within philosophical contexts. In fact I'd say I've arrived at an actual answer re morality. (she says modestly!).

You strike me as someone who gets a lot out the process, and is happy to sit with uncertainty.

I do miss the people who were well educated in philosophy who used to post here, as I'm not into reading long difficult texts, and they helped me clarify my thoughts and knock around some ideas.

[Pattern-chaser]

You strike me as someone who gets a lot out [of] the process, and is happy to sit with uncertainty.

Yes, to the former. As for the latter, I accept uncertainty because to do otherwise would simply be baying at the moon, yes?

[Lagayascienza]

Metaphysics is fun and interesting. If one reads widely, then some understanding of metaphysics helps one to identify the metaphysical commitments that writers have. This, in turn, helps one reach conclusions about whether a writer is writing sense or nonsense.

[Hereandnow]

Lagayascienza wrote

Metaphysics is fun and interesting. If one reads widely, then some understanding of metaphysics helps one to identify the metaphysical commitments that writers have. This, in turn, helps one reach conclusions about whether a writer is writing sense or nonsense.

Does depend on who you read. Unfortunately, metaphysics has been ignored in anglo american philosophy, and what you could call a metaphysics of science has taken its place. Not that physics is metaphysics, but that there are assumptions built into what physics does that are simply dismissive, making this an anti metaphysics metaphysics, but you can never just, as Rorty and philosophers like him do, declare metaphysics nonsense, because when thought goes to basic assumptions, one is not simply wandering off into never never land. To take, say, a naturalist position, then ask how nature is discovered in the first place, one is now in a very real epistemological question.

To answer this question is the beginning of metaphysics. To ask this question as a confrontation with the world can lead to mysticism. See Meister Eckhart's sermons, for example.

I would keep in mind that philosophical questions really are very few, and timeless. But these are not conspicuous questions. They lie unnoticed in the margins of familiar meanings and take a lot of thinking to expose their nature.

[Lagayascienza]

Thanks, Hereandnow. What you say is correct.

One can take different metaphysical positions. For example, materialism is a metaphysical position. Idealism is a metaphysical position. Supernaturalism is a metaphysical position. The point I was making is that once this is understood, it makes reading in different areas easier because we can tell where the writer of a paper or book is coming from, we can discern the metaphysical position from which the author starts.

[Lagayascienza]

Most scientific writing, particularly in the hard sciences, starts from a materialist metaphysical position. Some philosophical writing, particularly Continental philosophy, starts from a different metaphysical position. And writing in the arts and social sciences can start anywhere and often mixes up the metaphysical positions.

[Lagayascienza]

Some writers are unaware they they bring metaphysical commitments to their writing. They may not even know what a metaphysical position is and that they start from one, even if only implicitly.

[Hereandnow]

Lagayascienza wrote
One can take different metaphysical positions. For example, materialism is a metaphysical position. Idealism is a metaphysical position. Supernaturalism is a metaphysical position. The point I was making is that once this is understood, it makes reading in different areas easier because we can tell where the writer of a paper or book is coming from, we can discern the metaphysical position from which the author starts.

But is it merely a "position"? As one might have a position on some minor indeterminacy regarding knitting or doing the back stroke. Or is there, as James put it, that something momentous is in the balance? Sure, philosophy can trivialize anything because everything that can be thought is therefore bound to the possible errors inherent in language meanings, and if you read someone like Derrida, you see this point clearly: the moment one speaks at all, the terms in play are subject to critical analysis, for language itself is "in play". There comes a point where all there are, are positions, with no non positional and determinate center. Then it would appear that metaphysics is the realization of just this. But on the other hand, is the world just this empty? Of course not; just the opposite, the world is full of meaning. Metaphysical inquiry begins with doubt and question, but it ends where it started, though at the start one didn't realize where one was. It ends with a confrontation with the world's existence. But now, after the liberating process of reviewing "positions," those of Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Husserl and on and on, one no longer sees the world as one did.

Metaphysics can be and should be the hard work of theology, real theology, not just the bad guesswork of medieval minds, for when one gets to that point where arguments are spent and one has to clear the air (Heidegger and Wittgenstein), left behind are centuries belief and culture have led to this critical juncture, that of post modern theology

Ever read Meister Eckhart's sermons? Karl Rahner? Michel Henry? There is a movement emerging this past 50 years or so in the Catholic church that has been called the Heideggerian theology, which is ironic since Heidegger rejected traditional metaphysics, but Heidegger was the very nontraditionalist who gave an exposition of the human soul, as I call it, which he called dasein.

When is a position not a position? When it is a solid fact, if there is such a thing. Then where are the metaphysical "facts" to be found? This is the question.