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3 ideas
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 21366 | Metaphysics must understand the world thoroughly, as a principal source of knowledge [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The task of metaphysics is not to pass over experience in which the world exists, but to understand it thoroughly, since inner and outer experience are certainly the principal source of all knowledge. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 428), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 3 'Will' | |
| A reaction: I wonder to what extent he meant ordinary experience, and to what extent he was advocating the study if science? |