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Single Idea 13737

[filed under theme 1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 7. Against Metaphysics ]

Full Idea

The empiricist does not say to the metaphysician 'what you say is false', but 'what you say asserts nothing at all!' He does not contradict him, but says 'I don't understand you'.

Gist of Idea

The empiricist says that metaphysics is meaningless, rather than false

Source

Moritz Schlick (Positivism and Realism [1934], p.107), quoted by Jonathan Schaffer - On What Grounds What 1.1

Book Ref

'Metametaphysics', ed/tr. Chalmers/Manley/Wasserman [OUP 2009], p.349

A Reaction

I take metaphysics to be meaningful, but at such a high level of abstraction that it is easy to drift into vague nonsense, and incredibly hard to assess what is meant, and whether it is correct. The truths of metaphysics are not recursive.

The 14 ideas with the same theme [rejections of metaphysics as a worthwhile activity]:

12767 Kant exposed the illusions of reason in the Transcendental Dialectic [Kant, by Fraassen]
3301 On the continent it is generally believed that metaphysics died with Hegel [Benardete,JA on Hegel]
14767 The demonstrations of the metaphysicians are all moonshine [Peirce]
14860 Kant has undermined our belief in metaphysics [Nietzsche]
6864 Metaphysics is finding bad reasons for instinctive beliefs [Bradley]
13737 The empiricist says that metaphysics is meaningless, rather than false [Schlick]
16252 Metaphysics uses empty words, or just produces pseudo-statements [Carnap]
7919 Humeans rejected the a priori synthetic, and so rejected even Kantian metaphysics [Ayer, by Macdonald,C]
12325 Philosophy has been relieved of physics, cosmology, politics, and now must give up ontology [Badiou]
15054 'Quietist' says abandon metaphysics because answers are unattainable (as in Kant's noumenon) [Fine,K]
17713 After 1903, Husserl avoids metaphysical commitments [Mares]
16276 Wide metaphysical possibility may reduce metaphysics to analysis of fantasies [Maudlin]
16413 Science has discovered properties of things, so there are properties - so who needs metaphysics? [Hofweber]
21666 'Fundamentality' is either a superficial idea, or much too obscure [Hofweber]