By Dave Allen

There is no external vantage point, no first philosophy.

W. V. O. Quine (1969: 127)

Metaphysics has made something of a comeback in contemporary analytic philosophy. The nature of time, space and identity are once again respected parts of mainstream philosophical inquiry. With this return to metaphysics comes a top-down methodology, a desire to get to the truth about fundamental concepts before pursuing more concrete philosophical questions. I will argue that this endeavour is fruitless and defend a bottom-up approach. I claim that the test of our ontology should be the progress it facilitates on concrete, ground-level issues. Having explained the problems with pure metaphysics, and explicated the pluralistic pragmatism I hope will replace it, I will consider Daniel Dennett as an exemplar of the methodological attitude I am recommending.

Against pure metaphysics

So why is pure metaphysics fruitless? I’ll start by stipulating what I mean by ‘pure metaphysics’. Pure metaphysics is characterised by a key methodological presupposition: essentialism. Pure metaphysicians are searching for the essential properties of basic concepts in order to provide a firm basis for further inquiry. By ‘basic concepts’, I mean time, space, causation, modality, individuation; i.e. those concepts ‘without which … we would have no concepts at all’ (Davidson 1996: 309).

Now, there is a critical problem with this methodology, hinted at by the quotation from Davidson above (and explicitly dealt with in his paper): the concepts which form the subject matter of metaphysics are so basic that it is extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to define any one without using another; they certainly can’t be defined in simpler terms. The pure metaphysician could perhaps establish an hierarchy of conceptual priority, but this would still leave at least one basic concept undefined. Not a tempting prospect if you’re trying to establish a solid basis for further inquiries.

A further issue lies in the structure of pure metaphysical inquiry. Pure metaphysics doesn’t regard itself as an empirical discipline, and so tries to determine the nature of basic concepts a priori. Thus, the only way to proceed in evaluating different theories (setting aside any mystical appeals to intuition) is to try to prove rival theories to be inconsistent. The pure metaphysician will take a set of propositions that seem to issue from commonsense but are inconsistent, and elaborate the implications of a certain manner of making the set consistent. A good example of this is Haslanger’s (2003: 316-7) survey of contemporary theories of objects’ persistence through time. She formulates an inconsistent set of (prima facie) necessary conditions for an object to persist through time, and then describes each theory in terms of which condition(s) it chooses to reject or modify. The problem is that the condition(s) the pure metaphysician deems acceptable to reject will depend on pre-existing metaphysical commitments. There is no metaphysically neutral place to begin.

It seems the pure metaphysician can’t complete her task of justifying the foundations of philosophy. Her essentialism and a priori methodology are meant to establish a solid conceptual base, but the presumption and vagueness are merely pushed further up the conceptual hierarchy. How, then, should philosophy proceed?

Pragmatism via pluralism

I believe that we should endorse a thoroughgoing pluralism. Rather than agonising over basic concepts, we should take a set of metaphysical presumptions as a given and see where they lead us when applied to more concrete issues (e.g. in the philosophy of mind or of science). This shouldn’t be a stretch, since, as Davidson (1996: 309) notes, philosophers invariably assume a passable understanding of basic concepts when dealing with other issues anyway. All I am proposing is that we embrace this practice, and the variations of opinion it creates. I agree with Quine (1980: 19) when he states that ‘the obvious counsel [concerning the question of what ontology to adopt] is tolerance and an experimental spirit’. Perhaps a four-dimensional ontology will prove most amenable to developments in physics; perhaps consciousness will only prove explicable if we reject intrinsic, ineffable properties. In the end, we’ll only know if various conceptual schemata are developed and tested.

Having taken a pluralistic approach in our dealings with more concrete philosophical issues, we will be in a position to make a pragmatic decision as to which particular metaphysic has proven most beneficial, easing explanation and facilitating further research. It is possible that different schemata will prove more beneficial in different areas; however, within the realms of philosophy it seems a worthy task, in the name of simplicity and clarity, to try to establish a single unifying metaphysic. This wouldn’t be a surprising result, since philosophical concepts and issues are closely related to one another, and so could be expected to benefit en masse from an effective conceptual schema.

Dennett and reverse engineering metaphysics

To conclude, I want to take a brief look at Daniel Dennett, who is an exemplar of the attitude I propose towards metaphysical questions. Dennett (1993: 204) describes his philosophy as ‘working out some of the surprising implications of the standard scientific picture’. He professes that the questions of pure metaphysics are ‘too hard for me to approach with any confidence’, and he is comfortable letting concrete results reinforce (or undermine) his assumptions:

If [Nagel] would rather go on believing in intrinsic and ineffable properties, then he will have to forgo the fun of being in on the kill when we knock off the mind-body problem… (Dennett 1993: 233)

This is more constructive than arguing over basic metaphysical differences; given the lack of a neutral stance noted earlier, opponents will inevitably talk past each other anyway. By looking at the concrete philosophical results of different schemata, we can reverse engineer our metaphysics; when we see progress in, say, the philosophy of mind, we can work backwards, gradually clarifying the vague metaphysics that facilitated it.

Rorty (1993: 187) is quite right to point out that proponents of different metaphysics can reasonably accuse each other of ‘begging all the interesting questions’. Does this show that my method of pragmatic reverse engineering will never reach any definitive conclusions? Perhaps, but this is not a problem for the pragmatist. As long as we continue to make progress in those areas where philosophy connects with concrete phenomena and real, practical research we can afford to let our metaphysics stay vague. As Popper (2002: 94) said of science, so too for philosophy:

Science does not rest upon solid bedrock. The bold structures of its theories rise, as it were, above a swamp. It is like a building erected on piles. The piles are driven down from above into the swamp, but not down to any natural or ‘given’ base; and if we stop driving the piles deeper, it is not because we have reached firm ground. We simply stop when we are satisfied that the piles are firm enough to carry the structure, at least for the time being.

This is the situation, as we have seen, whether we are pure metaphysicians or pluralistic pragmatists. But at least if we are pragmatists, following the lead of Quine, Davidson and Dennett, we can hope for some progress in our wonderfully confused subject.

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References

Blackburn, Simon and Simmons, Keith (eds.) 1999: Truth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dahlbom, Bo (ed.) 1993: Dennett and His Critics: Demystifying Mind. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Davidson, Donald 1996: ‘The Folly of Trying to Define Truth’. In Blackburn and Simmons (eds.) 1999, pp. 308-22.
Dennett, Daniel C. 1993: ‘Back from the Drawing Board’. In Dahlbom (ed.) 1993, pp. 203-35.
Haslanger, Sally 2003: ‘Persistence through Time’. In Loux and Zimmerman (eds.) 2003, pp. 315-54.
Loux, Michael J. and Zimmerman, Dean W. (eds.) 2003: The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Popper, Karl 2002: The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Routledge.
Quine, W. V. O. 1969: Ontological Relativity and Other Essays. New York: Columbia University Press.
Quine, W. V. O. 1980: From A Logical Point of View. Harvard: Harvard University Press.
Rorty, Richard 1993: ‘Holism, Intrinsicality, and the Ambition of Transcendence’. In Dahlbom (ed.) 1993, pp. 184-202.