The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics: Making Sense of Things (48 page)

45
Cf.
Phenomenology
, Preface, ¶26.

46
Cf. Popper (
1972
).

47
Cf.
Encyclopedia
I, §238
Z
, and
Encyclopedia
III, §551.

48
This is what Hegel has in mind when he famously refers to ‘the cunning of reason’: see
Reason in History
, p. 33.

49
Cf. in this connection
Phenomenology
, Preface, ¶3. There is a hint of a more substantial answer to the third question in
Phenomenology
, VIII, ¶802, but it is unlikely to allay any real concerns.

50
See
Philosophy of Right
, Pts Two and Three. For a helpful discussion, see Taylor (
1975
), pp. 376ff.

Note that there are nevertheless disparities between the two thinkers’ conceptions of the ethical life, which in Hegel’s case is understood to embrace religion in a way in which it is not in Spinoza’s: see
Phenomenology
, VII, passim. This connects with what comes next in the main text.

51
On the non-transcendence of God, see
Encyclopedia
I, §38. On the personhood of God, see ibid., §151
Z
. For a helpful discussion, see Taylor (
1975
),
Ch. 3
, §5.

52
Two things about the section from which this quotation is taken are worth noting. The first is that Hegel cautions against blankly identifying substance with the absolute idea: it is rather ‘the idea under the still limited form of necessity’ (p. 214). To
that
extent, Hegel further suggests, there is room also for a distinction between substance and God (cf.
Phenomenology
, Preface, ¶23). But I am prescinding from that subtlety throughout this section. The second thing worth noting is that Hegel insists that Spinoza, despite having failed to appreciate God’s personhood, was a genuine theist (cf. also
Encyclopedia
I, §50). Given that he also sees himself as a theist, that goes
some
way – not far, I grant – towards reinforcing my own inclination to co-classify them.

53
Cf. Deleuze (
1988a
), p. 13. See also Deleuze (
2006a
), ‘Conclusion’, for why it also stands in stark contrast to what we find in Nietzsche, who, so to speak, fights back. See further
Ch. 15
, §7(b), and
Ch. 21
, §2(b).

54
Subject to various qualifications from which I am prescinding: see n. 52.

55
See n. 21.

56
Cf.
Phenomenology
, Preface, ¶40.

57
Cf.
Phenomenology
. Preface, ¶47.

58
Cf.
Science of Logic
, I.ii.i.2C, Remark 1.

59
For more on Hegel’s conception of understanding, see the next section.

60
Note: the phrase that occurs in the ellipsis here is ‘as the universal negative power’. This may look like an exegetical blunder on Hegel’s part. In fact we can read him as invoking his own conception of substance.

61
Hegel would deny that there is anything to bind the Spinozist particulars together; Spinoza, that there are any Hegelian oppositions to be resolved.

62
The Fichtean echoes here should be very clear.

63
Hegel at one point appropriates Spinoza as an ally, citing what he calls ‘the proposition of Spinoza’ that ‘
omnis determinatio est negatio
’: all determination is negation (
Science of Logic
, I.i.i.2A(
b
), Remark, p. 113). But it is far from clear, in what he goes on to say about Spinoza, that he is being faithful to him. (The quotation itself is slightly inaccurate: the nearest approximation is in
Letter
50 in Spinoza (
2002e
), p. 892, where Spinoza writes, ‘and determination is negation,’ a translation of ‘
et determinatio est negatio
.’) For an illuminating discussion, see Duffy (
2006
), pp. 18–19.

64
Cf. Carroll (
1982
), in which the following well-known passage occurs: ‘“I see nobody on the road,” said Alice. – “I only wish
I
had such eyes,” the King remarked…. “To be able to see Nobody! … Why, it’s as much as
I
can do to see real people…”’ (pp. 189–190, emphasis in original).

65
For a forthright expression of this idea, see Quine (
1970
), p. 81. For discussion of Quine’s views of these matters – of which the quoted passage is unrepresentative – see
Ch. 12
, §4. They are matters that will be intermittently of concern throughout Part Two.

Note: in §5 of the Introduction I mentioned Aristotle’s closely related idea that it is impossible to believe a contradiction. For a forthright expression of
this
idea, from a much more recent source, see Davidson (
2005a
), pp. 44–45.

66
Cf. Findlay (
1958
),
Ch. 3
, §iii.

67
But the correct description of this case is a matter of controversy. For some contributions to the controversy, see
Ch. 11
, §3, and
Ch. 12
, §4.

68
It is also, of course, through such metamorphoses that reality keeps track of developments in that of which it makes sense: itself, undergoing those very metamorphoses.

69
See esp.
Encyclopedia
I, §88. And cf. §1 above: if we react adversely to what he says, then that is exactly as he would predict, which means that we inadvertently corroborate what he says.

70
See
Encyclopedia
I, VI, where he further distinguishes between negative and positive reason; I shall ignore that further distinction.

71
Cf. Copleston (
1963
), pp. 174–175.

72
Cf.
Encyclopedia
I, §11.

73
Here I think I part company with Graham Priest, in Priest (
1995
),
Ch. 7
, passim. For accounts that are closer to mine, see Hanna (
1996
) and Pippin (
1996
).

74
Cf. Taylor (
1975
), p. 105; and Inwood (
1983
),
Ch. 10
, §§12–15, esp. pp. 459–460.

75
Cf. Copleston (
1963
), pp. 176–177; and Taylor (
1975
), p. 107.

76
See n. 3.

77
There is even a hint in
Encyclopedia
I, §88, p. 131, that it is beyond the expressive power of language.

78
Not, as I emphasized in the previous section, that acquiescing in the contradiction means accepting that some proposition and its negation are both true, at any rate not on a standard understanding of these matters. But then what Kant would have found unintelligible is the suggestion that there is a relevant non-standard understanding of these matters.

79
For one example among many, see Kant (
1998
), A161–162/B200–201. For further reflections on how the set of concepts is structured, see ibid., B109ff.

80
Cf.
Encyclopedia
I, §60
Z
.

81
It is of course a further question to what extent Kant had any such pretensions.

82
Recall the analogy of the physiologists using their faculty of sight to investigate the faculty of sight (
Ch. 1
, §4).

83
For Hegel’s attempt to represent himself as a thinker of common sense, see e.g.
Encyclopedia
I, §81
Z
, p. 118.

84
For a summary account, see
Phenomenology
, V, ¶¶231–239.

85
As I mentioned parenthetically in §3, Hegel’s idealism is by my definition an empirical idealism, though of a highly idiosyncratic kind.

86
Cf. Copleston (
1963
), p. 171; Taylor (
1975
), pp. 109–110; and Stern (
2002
), pp. 100–101.

87
Cf.
Encyclopedia
I, §38, p. 62. For an onslaught against the wrong kind of metaphysics, modelled on that of Kant in his ‘Transcendental Dialectic’, see
Encyclopedia
I, III.

Part Two The Late Modern Period I
The Analytic Tradition

Chapter 8 Frege Sense Under Scrutiny

1. What Is Frege Doing Here?

Gottlob Frege (1848–1925) was by common consent the greatest logician of all time. He founded the discipline of formal logic, in its contemporary guise.
¹
In this he made the first and most significant advance in the study of logic since Aristotle, an advance that was certainly significant enough to belie Kant’s famous declaration that ‘since the time of Aristotle’ logic ‘has … been unable to take a single step forward, and therefore seems to all appearance to be finished and complete’ (Kant (
1998
), B viii). Frege was also a brilliant philosopher of mathematics. But he was not a metaphysician, not really.
²
Nor was he a meta-metaphysician: he had no special interest in the nature, scope, or limits of metaphysics. I need to begin this chapter by saying something about why it is included at all.

Part Two
of this book is concerned with the analytic tradition in philosophy. There is no clear agreement about how to characterize this tradition. But since on any account one of its principal aims is clarity of understanding and one of the principal means whereby it pursues this
aim is the analysis of language,
³
Frege cannot fail to count as a supremely important contributor both to its inception and to its propagation. This is not least because contemporary formal logic provides the single most powerful set of tools that analytic philosophers use in undertaking such analysis. But furthermore it was Frege who demonstrated how this kind of close attention to language could play a crucial role in addressing philosophical problems.
⁴

I say a ‘crucial’ role. Some commentators would go further and say a ‘foundational’ role. In their view Frege was the main instigator, or one of the main instigators, of the ‘linguistic turn’ in philosophy.
⁵
Michael Dummett is the staunchest and best-known proponent of this view. He characterizes the revolution that he sees Frege as having effected in the following terms:

Before Descartes, it can hardly be said that any part of philosophy was recognized as being … fundamental to all the rest: the Cartesian revolution consisted in giving this role to the theory of knowledge …[, which] was accepted as the starting point for more than two centuries.

Frege’s basic achievement lay in the fact that he totally ignored the Cartesian tradition, and was able, posthumously, to impose his different perspective on other philosophers of the analytic tradition….

For Frege the first task, in any philosophical enquiry, is the analysis of meanings. (Dummett (
1981a
), pp. 666–667).

Dummett later adds:

[Frege] effected a revolution in philosophy as great as the similar revolution previously effected by Descartes…. We can, therefore, date a whole epoch in philosophy as beginning with the work of Frege, just as we can do with Descartes. (Ibid., p. 669; cf. Dummett (
1993a
), p. 5)

Dummett accordingly characterizes analytic philosophy as ‘post-Fregean philosophy’ (Dummett (
1978m
), p. 441).
⁶

I shall not try to arbitrate on whether Frege deserves such an accolade. It is moot whether analytic philosophers do take the study of language to be foundational in this way; moot, for that matter, whether Frege did; moot, therefore, whether there has been any such revolution; and moot whether,
even if there has, Frege can take so much credit for it.
⁷
What is not moot is that Frege is of colossal significance to the analytic tradition, both historically and philosophically, which is all that matters in the current context. There is much in the next six chapters that will make little or no sense except in relation to his work.
⁸
That is reason enough for me to have included this chapter.