The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics: Making Sense of Things (142 page)

This second great innovation, despite being of enormous influence beyond the metaphysical study, had much less influence on metaphysicians themselves. Or rather, it had much less positive influence on metaphysicians themselves. It had a profound negative influence on them. For it was something that they struggled hard, for the most part, to avoid. And many of their own greatest innovations were born of their struggles. Thus Spinoza and Hegel, in their very different ways, were both concerned to reenchant the world that Descartes had left disenchanted (
Ch. 1
, §6); to show that man is part of nature, that nature itself makes sense, and that man makes sense of nature by suitably expressing the sense that nature makes. Spinoza’s most profound innovation was to make provision for this by introducing a conception of nature on which everything finite
²¹
is not only a part of nature but a mode of a single substance, expressing, in its own particular way, the essence of that substance. Hegel made very different provision for it. Although he too acknowledged a single substance, he differed from Spinoza in conceiving this substance as a subject. He also identified it with reason. One of
his
many great innovations was thus to cast reason itself in the role of subject. And he sought to reenchant the world by construing nature as the forum in which, through various dialectical processes involving human beings, this subject progresses towards self-knowledge.

Leibniz reacted to Descartes’ separation of mind and matter in a much more direct way: he denied matter any existence beyond how things appear to certain minds. In this he instigated one of the great traditions of modern metaphysics, a kind of idealism in which the non-mental depends for its very existence on the mental. Kant espoused a particularly sophisticated version of such idealism. On Kant’s version the material world depends for its very existence on us, who experience and make sense of it, but the sense that we make of it has no application to the dependence itself, which is utterly different from anything
within
the material world. To grasp such idealism therefore requires a form of sense-making that lies beyond whatever equips us to arrive at knowledge of the workings of that world. In fact it requires a form of sense-making that lies beyond whatever equips us to arrive at
knowledge, period. This is because knowledge of the workings of that world is the only kind of knowledge, in Kant’s view, at which we can arrive. Here we see two of his own great innovations: the very idea of a ‘transcendental’ idealism, whose significance to this enquiry, by now, I need not labour; and a form of sense-making, or at least what he took to be a form of sense-making, that consisted in thinking what could never be known, this being what I have dubbed ‘thin’ sense-making.

Later philosophers found both of these innovations problematical. But they also acknowledged enough of an advance beyond Descartes’ original dualism not to be prepared simply to jettison either of them in favour of a return to the previous order. They demonstrated their own creativity in the variety of ways in which they parted company with Kant without retreating. Fichte developed a ‘thicker’ version of the second (supposed) form of sense-making (
Ch. 6
, §3). Hegel, as we have just seen, called for a reconsideration of the very subject of knowledge, or at least of the ultimate subject of knowledge. At the same time he called for a reconsideration of the forms of sense-making available to it (
Ch. 7
, §§2 and 3). This enabled him to accede to forms of sense-making that were as suitable for grasping the idealism to which he subscribed as they were for grasping the workings of nature. Such were the forms of sense-making involved in the subject’s progression towards knowledge of itself. And if my account of the early Wittgenstein is correct, then he too is an example of a later philosopher who demonstrated his creativity in the way in which he grappled with the Kantian aporia – if not under that description. He too developed his own version of the second (supposed) form of sense-making, which he displayed, in his own unique and artful way, as a non-propositional form of sense-making and which he separated even more sharply than Kant had done from its ‘thick’ counterpart, in his case propositional sense-making, of which it acted as a Kantian precondition. (If anything deserves to be seen as the kind of metaphysical innovation to which his later self would take such exception, this does.)

Frege and Nietzsche, like Hume before them, helped to advance the most general attempt to make sense of things by ensuring that a certain self-conscious attention to sense itself would have a role to play in the enterprise. In Frege’s case the sense concerned was linguistic sense. And had he done nothing more than introduce his ground-breaking account of how names and predicates combine to form declarative sentences, he would have made a signal contribution to the drama, not least by helping metaphysicians to see how much is involved, by way of a commitment to the existence of discrete entities and their features, in the very use of such sentences, nay in the very business of representation (cf.
Ch. 8
, §7(b);
Ch. 12
, §7;
²²
Ch. 16
, §4; and
Ch. 21
, §5(a)). Nietzsche, whose interest in sense extended to all
its varieties, but who also refused to take anything about it for granted, demonstrated his own capacity for innovation in the extraordinary extent to which, and relentlessness with which, he pursued the general critique of sense. He called into question far more than Descartes had done. He did so, moreover, in a spirit of genuine scepticism, as opposed to Descartes’ merely tactical scepticism. Among other things this meant that it would never again be possible, when attempting to make maximally general sense of things, to do so with uncritical confidence in the sense (the point, the purpose, the value) of that very project: the project of making maximally general sense of things. This is yet another example of something on which I have commented often: the enervating power of self-consciousness.

Bergson introduced the concept of the virtual. This was a concept which, in the form in which he introduced it, had no real precursor in the history of Western philosophy.
²³
This in turn subserved his idea of intuition, a whole form of sense-making of which he took metaphysics in particular to be a paradigm and which he distinguished from the sense-making involved in the natural sciences. Bergson claimed that this idea of intuition had always been prominent on the philosophical radar. In this he did a disservice to his own originality (
Ch. 16
, §2). Meanwhile Husserl too had the idea of a form of sense-making, in his case phenomenological sense-making, of which metaphysics (suitably understood) was a paradigm and which was to be distinguished from the sense-making involved in the natural sciences. But unlike Bergson he did not divorce such sense-making from the use of language. So he was free, as Bergson was not, not only to promote it in his own written work, but straightforwardly to practise it there.

As I indicated in §7(b) of the last chapter, Deleuze, whose meta-metaphysical stance I take this flurry of examples to corroborate, was himself responsible for creating many new concepts, both in his own sense of ‘concept’ and in the analytic philosopher’s sense, as well as reworking many more familiar concepts (event, sense, possible world,
²⁴
…). He also displayed a great capacity for the creative redeployment of philosophical ideas, sometimes producing results quite unlike what the originators of the ideas could themselves ever have envisaged. In general, Deleuze was both a supreme innovator and a supreme eclectic. What was remarkable about his work was the way in which he managed to be each of these by being the other.

In the light of all of this, that is to say in the light of this array of self-conscious attempts by metaphysicians over the past four hundred years to make sense of things in ways that are radically new, one would need
to take an astonishingly dim view both of what has been perpetrated in modern metaphysics and of the levels of self-understanding achieved by those who perpetrated it to return a negative answer to the Novelty Question.

5. Metaphysics as a Humanistic Discipline

Whether or not a given metaphysical undertaking results in a radically new way of making sense of things, indeed whether or not it results in a way of making sense of things at all, there are other grounds on which it can be assessed. Here again I take myself to be largely in agreement with Deleuze, who reminds us that the principal dimensions of assessment for a metaphysical undertaking have to do with such factors as its interest, its relevance to other undertakings, and its capacity to stimulate and to empower (
Ch. 21
, §6). This connects with what I argued in §7 of the Introduction, namely that metaphysics matters, and that it matters not principally because of whatever intrinsic value it has, but because of the various ways in which it can
make a difference
. That said, the most important and the most exciting way in which it can make a difference is by enabling us to make radically new sense of things, or more specifically – this is something that I urged in that same section – by providing us with radically new concepts by which to live. As for the idea of ‘living by’ a concept, I explained that what I had in mind was the action-guidingness of some concepts. The paradigmatic action-guiding concepts are what Bernard Williams calls ‘thick’ ethical concepts. I briefly discussed these. But they are not the only examples.
²⁵
And even if they were, this would be enough, I argued, to account for the capacity of metaphysics to make this kind of difference. In sum: metaphysics can have, does have, and had better have, repercussions for what we think and do beyond metaphysics.
²⁶

It certainly has had. Here is a list of especially prominent examples:

• the way in which the image that many of us have of ourselves, as embodied souls, has been fostered both by the Cartesian view that each of us is part physical object and part mental substance and by the Kantian variation on that theme whereby each of us appears now in the guise of animal, now in the
guise of free rational agent

•
Hume’s empiricist assault, and its refinement in the hands of the logical positivists, on the more speculative aspects of religious thought

• the recovery of those aspects from that assault under the restorative influence, first of Kant’s separation of faith from knowledge, and later of Wittgenstein’s appeal to the many different kinds of sense that we can make

• the materialistic development, in Marx’s theory of history, of Hegel’s vision of a world spirit progressing through dialectical stages towards its ultimate fulfilment
²⁷

and

• the secularist legacy of Nietzsche’s work, in particular his devastating critique of a God-fearing morality and his own attempt, in the wake of that, to overcome nihilism.
²⁸

But having repercussions is one thing. Having beneficial repercussions is another. We need to beware of ways in which metaphysics can inflict damage beyond itself. (It seems scarcely deniable that it
has
on occasion inflicted damage beyond itself. After all, some of the examples above act as correctives to others.
²⁹
) Nothing that I have just said is intended to give metaphysicians
carte-blanche
to make whatever difference they will and to expect to escape all censure.

We need to beware, for that matter, of ways in which metaphysics can inflict damage, not only beyond itself, but also upon itself. I have tried at various points in this enquiry to signal ways in which, as it seems to me, metaphysics has indeed inflicted damage upon itself, and ways in which such damage has later been repaired. Here again is a list of especially prominent examples:

• Descartes’ separation of the mind from a disenchanted world and his associated commitment to the paradigm of representation, subsequently challenged by Spinoza, among others (
Ch. 1
, §6)

• Leibniz’ and Hegel’s shared idea that metaphysics can bring good news, in that it can show that affliction, anguish, and adversity are a finite
price to be paid for something of infinite value,
³⁰
an idea subsequently challenged by Nietzsche (
Ch. 3
, §5, and
Ch. 15
, §6)

•
Hume’s and the logical positivists’ shared idea that the only way to make sense of things is by analyzing concepts and/or depicting and predicting the contingent course of sense experience, an idea challenged by Kant and Dummett (
Ch. 5
, §3, and
Ch. 11
, §6)

• Quine’s descendent idea that the only way to make sense of things is the (natural-)scientific way, an idea espoused in a less extreme form by Lewis but challenged by the phenomenologists (
Ch. 13
, §4, and
Ch. 17
, §2)

and of course

• the later Wittgenstein’s conservatism, indirectly challenged by Deleuze (§§3 and 4).

The failure in some of these cases is a failure of due self-consciousness.
³¹
I suggested in §5 of the Introduction that the most general attempt to make sense of things is bound to involve an element of self-consciousness. But I also urged in §4 of Chapter
13
that this element of self-consciousness can have an overly narrow focus. Its focus can be on the sense that is being made to the exclusion of the making of it. Similarly, the tools that are brought to bear on the project, though they may be suitable for the investigation of the former (the sense that is being made), may be unsuitable for the investigation of the latter (the making of that sense). Such was the charge that I levelled against the naturalistic metaphysics practised by Quine and Lewis. Those who engage in such metaphysics either have no real concern with the making of sense or treat it in an inappropriately (natural-)scientific way. They fail to register the extent to which metaphysics is, in a phrase of Bernard Williams that I have invoked a couple of times before (
Ch. 13
, §4, and
Ch. 18
, §4), a humanistic discipline.