Single Idea 20728

[catalogued under 1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 2. Possibility of Metaphysics]

Full Idea

Despair over metaphysics will not change until it has shaken off the incubus of a perverted epistemology, which has left thought in a hopeless tangle - until common-sense critical realism is made the starting point for investigating reality.

Gist of Idea

Metaphysics is hopeless with its present epistemology; common-sense realism is needed

Source

Stephen S. Colvin (The Common-Sense View of Reality [1902], p.144)

Book Reference

-: 'Philosophical Review' [-], p.144


A Reaction

It seems to me that this is what has happened to analytic metaphysics since Kripke. Careful discussions about the nature of an object, or a category, or a property, are relying on unquestioned robust realism. Quite right too.

Related Idea

Idea 20727 Common-sense realism rests on our interests and practical life [Colvin]