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| 15053 | If metaphysics can't be settled, it hardly matters whether it makes sense [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: If there is no way of settling metaphysical questions, then who cares whether or not they make sense? | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 4 n20) | |
| A reaction: This footnote is aimed at logical positivists, who seemed to worry about whether metaphysics made sense, and also dismissed its prospects even if it did make sense. |
| 6947 | Metaphysics does not rest on facts, but on what we are inclined to believe [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysical systems have not usually rested upon any observed facts, or not in any great degree. They are chiefly adopted because their fundamental propositions seem 'agreeable to reason', which means that which we find ourselves inclined to believe. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.15) | |
| A reaction: This leads to Peirce's key claim - that we should allow our beliefs to be formed by something outside of ourselves. I don't share Peirce's contempt for metaphysics, which I take to be about the most abstract presuppositions of our ordinary beliefs. |
| 15054 | 'Quietist' says abandon metaphysics because answers are unattainable (as in Kant's noumenon) [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: The 'quietist' view of metaphysics says that realist metaphysics should be abandoned, not because its questions cannot be framed, but because their answers cannot be found. The real world of metaphysics is akin to Kant's noumenal world. | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 4) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Blackburn, Dworkin, A.Fine, and Putnam-1987 as quietists] Fine aims to clarify the concepts of factuality and of ground, in order to show that metaphysics is possible. |