The sense of metaphysics / ontology

Kant’s critique of metaphysics clipped its own wings, declaring it incapable of living up to its object, which lies beyond the limits of possible experience. Neo-positivists like Rudolf Carnap considered it to be devoid of any sense altogether, merely a substitute for theology, where the presumably transcendent sources of knowledge are replaced “by natural, yet supposedly trans-empirical sources of knowledge. On closer inspection the same content as that of mythology is here still recognizable behind the repeatedly varied dressing (…). The metaphysician believes that he travels in territory in which truth and falsehood are at stake. In reality, however, he has not asserted anything, but only expressed something, like an artist”. (R. Carnap, The Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical analysis of Language)

Assuming a narrow interpretation of sense, restricted to sensory input and rules of logic its lack is apparent not only in the sentences of metaphysics but also those statements supported by the critics of metaphysics, positivists and neo-positivists especially, e.g. the verifiability principle (’the sense of a sentence lies in the method of its verification’). It seems that the sense of metaphysics exists not only outside the realm of rational discourse but stems directly from it. As already argued by Nicolai Hartmann, the metaphysical residuum is inherent in almost every science and involves the problematics posed to us by the world alone, and thus cannot be removed from it but can be investigated by rational reason. Although metaphysical problematics is elusive “to the scientific method – it permeates all fields of inquiry and reaches back into researchers’ attitudes. The existential roots, the core of reality, rationality and meaning do not yield to the empirical method but are present in every twitch of the atom, in every quantum of the field, in every attempt at understanding”. (M. Heller, Filozofia nauki. Wprowadzenie)

Furthermore, metaphysics in the form of hidden presuppositions, such as ontological naturalism, is often already contained in its critique. It seems that “metaphysics can only be overcome by another kind of metaphysics, and speculation – with another kind of speculation”. The criticism of the traditional concept of being may (in the end) be advanced by its new metaphor of “no longer the gradual system of perfections ascending to the absolute, nor […] the light flowing from the centre or the 'creation of existence’, but […] a grand physical organism with diverse, subtle degrees of functional organisation”. (S. Judycki, Co to jest metafizyka? Trzy wielkie koncepcje Zachodu)

Owing to its critique, metaphysics undergoes constant transformations and cycles of rebirth. Thus, the restriction of the object of rational discourse to phenomena, postulated by Kant, opened the way for phenomenology (M. Heidegger, R. Ingarden, E. Lévinas, J.-L. Marion). The „linguistic turn” in neo-positivism allowed for the return of metaphysical questions in analytic philosophy (P. F. Strawson, W.V.O. Quine, N. Goodman, M. Dummett), even if only in some of its varieties (metaphysical deflationism). These two orientations envisaged their object of study and method differently: on the one hand it could focus on what is directly experienced and grasped, while described and grounded further on; on the other it would pertain to the general conceptual scheme of thinking about the world and which we employ to analyze language.

The rebirth of metaphysics in the aftermath of Kantian and subsequently positivist and neo-positivist critiques is also taking place in other directions, moving towards logic (K. Twardowski, S. Leśniewski), object theory (A. Meinong), but also classical theory of being interpreted by neo-Thomists (J. Maritain, É. Gilson, E. Coreth, M. A. Krąpiec). It proceeds further, away from science and towards intuition and philosophy of life (H. Bergson), as well as vice versa, establishing varying degrees of proximity to the sciences, ranging from process philosophy (A. N. Whitehead, Ch. Hartshorne) and the metaphysics of problems (N. Hartmann), through works of philosophers associated with the metaphysics of science and naturalized metaphysics (M. Bunge, D.M. Armstrong, B. Ellis, K. Fine), or those applying mathematics in their ontology (A. Badiou), and finally philosophical physicists (C.F. von Weizsäcker, R. Penrose). In the Anglo-Saxon world, metaphysics solidifies around new versions of classical problems such as kinds of being, identity and change, the necessity and the possible, universals and particulars, causation, space and time (E. J. Lowe, M. J. Loux).