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Ideas for 'On What Grounds What', 'Nietzsche's System' and 'fragments/reports'

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5 ideas

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 1. Nature of Metaphysics

13734	Modern Quinean metaphysics is about what exists, but Aristotelian metaphysics asks about grounding [Schaffer,J]
	Full Idea: On the now dominant Quinean view, metaphysics is about what there is (such as properties, meanings and numbers). I will argue for the revival of a more traditional Aristotelian view, on which metaphysics is about what grounds what.
	From: Jonathan Schaffer (On What Grounds What [2009], Intro)
	A reaction: I find that an enormously helpful distinction, and support the Aristotelian view. Schaffer's general line is that what exists is fairly uncontroversial and dull, but the interesting truths about the world emerge when we grasp its structure.

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 3. Metaphysical Systems

20349	Metaphysics aims at the essence of things, and a system to show how this explains other truths [Richardson]
	Full Idea: The core of metaphysics is an account of the 'essence' or 'being' of things. ...And metaphysics needs system, to show how these primary truths reach out into all the other truths, to help us see that, and how, they are true.
	From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], Intro)
	A reaction: I like the phrase 'the essential nature' of things, because it doesn't invoke rather dodgy entities called 'essences', but everyone understands the idea of focusing on what is essential, and on things having a distinct 'nature'.

20351	Metaphysics needs systems, because analysis just obsesses over details [Richardson]
	Full Idea: Metaphysics makes system a virtue, contrary to the tendency of analysis, which breaks a problem into ever finer parts and then absorbs itself in these.
	From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], Intro)
	A reaction: I disagree, because it seems to rule out analytic metaphysics. I prefer Bertrand Russell's view. Admittedly analysis oftens gets stuck in the bog, especially if it hopes for salvation in logic, only to discover its certainties endlessly receding.

20350	Metaphysics generalises the data, to get at the ontology [Richardson]
	Full Idea: The evidence lies at the periphery of the [metaphysical] system and runs in from there, through decreasingly specific accounts of the data, to the central ontology.
	From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], Intro)
	A reaction: Philosophy is the study of high level generalisations, IMHO. Studying them means studying the reasons for asserting them. Richardson puts it very nicely.

13751	If you tore the metaphysics out of philosophy, the whole enterprise would collapse [Schaffer,J]
	Full Idea: Traditional metaphysics is so tightly woven into the fabric of philosophy that it cannot be torn out without the whole tapestry unravelling.
	From: Jonathan Schaffer (On What Grounds What [2009], 2.3)
	A reaction: I often wonder why the opponents of metaphysics still continue to do philosophy. I don't see how you address questions of ethics, or philosophy of mathematics (etc) without coming up against highly general and abstract over-questions.