The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics: Making Sense of Things (4 page)

      
An Interlude on Vagueness

      
(b) Dissent

   
4. Creation and Innovation in Metaphysics

   
5. Metaphysics as a Humanistic Discipline

Bibliography

Index

Preface

The story is familiar, even if it is not true. Some 250 years after the death of Aristotle, Andronicus of Rhodes produced the first complete edition of Aristotle’s works. One volume, dealing with nature, was called
Physics
. Immediately after that Andronicus placed a volume of works which became known as ‘
ta meta ta physica
’: the ones after the ones about physics. And so the corresponding discipline acquired its name.

Whether or not the story is true, the name is peculiarly apt. For ‘
meta
’ can also be translated either as ‘above’ or as ‘beyond’, and metaphysics is often reckoned to lie at a level of generality above and beyond physics. Come to that, it is often reckoned to be a subject that should be studied ‘after’ physics.

Aristotle himself described what he was undertaking in that volume as ‘first philosophy’, or as the search for the first causes and the principles of things, or again as the science of being
qua
being (see, respectively:
Metaphysics
, Bk Γ, Ch. 2, 1004a 2–4;
Metaphysics
, Bk Α, Ch. 1, 981b 28–29; and
Metaphysics
, Bk Γ, Ch. 1, 1003a 21). These descriptions variously indicate both the fundamental character of his undertaking and its abstractness. In its approach, the volume was a miscellany. It comprised historical and methodological reflections, a survey of problems and aporiai to be addressed, and a philosophical lexicon, as well as direct treatment of its main topics, which included substance, essence, form, matter, individuality, universality, actuality, potentiality, change, unity, identity, difference, number, and the prime eternal unmoved mover (God).

Plato had earlier dealt with many of the same topics, sometimes at the same high level of abstraction. But he had perhaps shown greater sensitivity than Aristotle towards the relevance of these topics to practical considerations about how one should live. At the same time he had shown less confidence in the power of theory, or even in the power of writing, to convey what needed to be conveyed about them (see e.g.
Phaedrus
, 257ff.). Plato’s approach to philosophy was very contextual and open-ended. He wrote in dialogue form, allowing his protagonists, notably Socrates, to respond directly to one another’s particular concerns. He also allowed them to probe
ideas, to toy with them, and to tease out their consequences. For Plato, philosophy was more of an activity than a science. That seems to me an extremely important model for our own understanding of metaphysics.

This book belongs to a series entitled
The Evolution of Modern Philosophy
. The brief of each contributor is to chart the evolution of some branch of philosophy from the beginning of the modern era to the present, my own assignment being metaphysics. To keep the project manageable I shall concentrate on the views of a select group of philosophers whose contribution to this evolutionary history seems to me especially significant. And I shall be more concerned with their views
about
metaphysics than with their views
within
metaphysics – at least insofar as this is a sharp distinction, and insofar as their views about metaphysics can be taken to include views of theirs, perhaps within metaphysics, that have important consequences about metaphysics, or even commitments of theirs, manifest in their practices, that have such consequences. What follows is therefore a kind of history of
meta
-metaphysics.

It is a remarkable history. In particular it contains remarkable cycles. Periods of recession within metaphysics in the glare of hostility from elsewhere in philosophy have alternated with periods of spectacular growth, and these have been marked by striking repetitions. But there has been progress too. ‘Evolution’ is an apt word. Metaphors of fitness, progeny, and mutation can all be applied in the description of how we have got to where we now are.

What follows belongs, in the useful contrast that Bernard Williams draws in one of his own prefaces, to the history of philosophy rather than the history of ideas (Williams (
1978
), p. 9). In other words it is in the first instance philosophy, not history. This is reflected in the fact that it is organized by reference neither to periods nor to
milieux
but to individual philosophers, all of whom are reasonably familiar from the canon. I shall do little to challenge the canon. And I shall do little to challenge a relatively orthodox interpretation of each of my protagonists. If I make any distinctive contribution in what follows, then I take it to be a matter of the connections and patterns that I discern and the narrative I tell.

Two points are worth making in connection with this. First, in telling that narrative, I have tried to follow what I take to be a basic precept of the history of philosophy: always, when listening to what philosophers of the past are saying to us, to ask how we can appropriate it. This precept applies even when – perhaps especially when – we cannot hear what they are saying to us as a contribution to any contemporary debate. It signals one of the most important ways in which philosophy differs from science, whose history is always in the first instance history, not science. (I shall have more to say about this in the Conclusion.)

Second, in reflecting on the distinctive contribution that I may have made in what follows, I am very conscious of the fact that I am a philosophical
generalist. I do not know whether it will sound hubristic to say this or apologetic, but it is true. To an extent it should sound apologetic. There are very few of my protagonists on whom I would claim to be even a moderate expert. In fact there are only three – or four if the early Wittgenstein and the later Wittgenstein count as two. (I am not going to be any more specific than that lest I give a hostage to fortune!) I am therefore beholden throughout to others. And I owe an apology to all those whose expertise I may have propagated without acknowledgement, or mangled, or worst of all ignored.

Still, whatever apologies may be consonant with my claim to be a generalist, I make no apology for the fact itself. I lament the increased tendency to specialism in philosophy. It is bad enough that there is an increased tendency to specialism in academia, whereby philosophy itself is pursued without due regard to other disciplines. But the narrowness of focus that we see nowadays within philosophy poses a threat to its being pursued at all, in any meaningfully integrated way. We of course need specialists. But – and here I echo Bertrand Russell, in the preface to his
History of Western Philosophy
(Russell (
1961
), p. 7) – we also need those who are concerned to make sense of the many kinds of sense that the specialists make.

Ought I to apologize, if not for adding a non-specialist book to the market, at any rate for adding a book to the market? It is a real question. As Michael Dummett observes, in yet another preface, ‘Every learned book, every learned article, adds to the weight of things for others to read, and thereby reduces the chances of their reading other books or articles. Its publication is therefore not automatically justified by its having some merit: the merit must be great enough to outweigh the disservice done by its being published at all’ (Dummett (
1991a
), p. x). There is huge pressure on academics nowadays to publish, which means that there is a correspondingly huge number of publications. People often complain that the result is a plethora of very poor work. I think the situation is far worse than that. I think the result is a plethora of very good work – work from which there is a great deal to learn, work which cannot comfortably be ignored although there is no prospect of anyone’s attending to more than a tiny fraction of it, yet work which could have been distilled into a much smaller, uniformly better, and considerably more manageable bulk. I do therefore need to confront the question, as any author does, of what excuse I have for demanding my readers’ attention.

I hope that there is some excuse in the generalism to which I have already referred. Here I should like to single out one particular aspect of this, which I have not yet mentioned. There would, I think, be justification in the publication of this book if it made a significant contribution to overcoming the absurd divisions that still exist between – to use the customary but equally absurd labels – ‘analytic’ philosophy and ‘continental’ philosophy. I do not deny that there are important differences between these. Nor do I have
any scruples about the fact that I am myself an analytic philosopher. But I unequivocally distance myself from those of my colleagues who disdain all other traditions. The ‘continental’ philosophers whom I discuss in
Part Three
of this book are thinkers of great depth and power; they are knowledgeable about philosophy, science, politics, and the arts; their work is rigorous, imaginative, and creative; and it is often brutally honest. I despair of the arrogance that casts them in the role of charlatans. Perhaps, if I were asked to specify my greatest hope for this book, it would be that it should help to combat such narrow-mindedness. Or, if that seemed too vague a hope, then it would be that the book should help to introduce analytic philosophers to the work of one of the most exciting and extraordinary of these ‘continental’ philosophers: Gilles Deleuze.

I have many acknowledgements. First, I am deeply grateful to the Trustees of the Leverhulme Trust for awarding me a Major Research Fellowship for the academic years 2006–2009, during which I carried out the bulk of the work on this book. I am likewise grateful to the Principal and Fellows of St Hugh’s College Oxford, and to the Humanities Divisional Board of the University of Oxford, for granting me special leave of absence for the same period. I am further grateful to the Principal and Fellows of St Hugh’s, and to the Philosophy Faculty Board of the University of Oxford, for granting me additional leave of absence for the academic year 2009–2010, during which I finished writing the first draft of the book.

I am very grateful to Paul Guyer and Gary Hatfield for inviting me to write the book. Paul Guyer in particular has provided invaluable help and encouragement throughout the project, not least by supporting my application for a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship. For similar support I thank David Bell and Alan Montefiore. And I am grateful to Stephanie Sakson for her excellent copyediting and for her additional advice.

Many other people have helped me with the writing of the book. Especial thanks are due to the following: Lilian Alweiss, Pamela Anderson, Anita Avramides, Corine Besson, Kathryn Bevis, Jenny Bunker, Nicholas Bunnin, John Callanan, John Cottingham, Paolo Crivelli, Susan Durber, Naomi Eilan, Sebastian Gardner, Simon Glendinning, Béatrice Han-Pile, Robert Jordan, Gary Kemp, Jane Kneller, Paul Lodge, Denis McManus, Joseph Melia, Peter Millican, Michael Morris, Stephen Mulhall, Sarah Richmond, Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra, Mark Sacks (who died so tragically while I was still writing the book), Joseph Schear, Murray Shanahan, Andrew Stephenson, Robert Stern, Peter Sullivan, Alessandra Tanesini, Paul Trembath, Daniel Whistler, and Patricia Williams. My greatest debt is to Philip Turetzky. His friendship, advice, encouragement, and influence on my work have been inestimable. I especially thank him for directing me to the work of Deleuze. He read an early draft of the entire book and provided detailed critical comments, for which I am extremely
grateful.

The influence of Bernard Williams on my thinking will doubtless be apparent even from this Preface. I owe an enormous amount to him. This book is dedicated to his memory.

A.W. Moore

Note on Unaccompanied References
: All unaccompanied references in this book to chapters or sections (e.g.
Ch. 5
, §8) or to notes (e.g. n. 44) are cross-references to material elsewhere in the book. Any other unaccompanied references (e.g. pp. 208–214) are explained in the notes to the chapter in which they occur.

Introduction

1. The Definition of Metaphysics

Metaphysics is the most general attempt to make sense of things. This is my working definition, but I want to make clear from the outset how little, in certain critical respects, I claim on behalf of it. An ideal definition, one might think, would be at once crisp, substantive, and uncontroversial, as well as correct. In fact, of these, I claim only that my definition is crisp. I do not even say that it is ‘correct’; not if that means that it is answerable to something other than my own purposes in writing this book. And to have tried to attain substance without controversy would have been foolhardy, because the nature of metaphysics is itself a fiercely contested philosophical issue – indeed, as I see it, a fiercely contested metaphysical issue.

What I aim to do with this definition, first and foremost, is to indicate what my theme is. At the same time I aim to establish early connections between concepts that will be crucial to my project, connections that are intended to elucidate the
definiens
as well as the
definiendum
, though they also commit me on certain matters of dispute as I shall try to explain in the course of this Introduction. I hope that my definition is broadly in accord with standard uses of the word ‘metaphysics’, at least insofar as these are broadly in accord with one another, and I hope that I am singling out something worthy of the attention that I shall be devoting to it in this book. But if I am wrong in the former hope, then I am prepared to defer to the latter and accept that my definition is revisionary; while if I am wrong in the latter hope, then the fault lies with the book, not with the definition.