Abstract
The aim of this paper is to propose that both Hegel and Peirce are committed to two arguments against the notion that metaphysics is impossible, where not only do they claim metaphysics is possible, but that they also insist on the indispensability of this philosophical discipline. In the first argument, both Hegel and Peirce argue that it is impossible to eliminate metaphysical concepts from ordinary language and our scientific practices. In the second argument, both Hegel and Peirce argue that metaphysics is a necessary part of intellectual enquiry on the grounds that metaphysics is indispensable for human development. Such is the philosophical significance of both their views on the indispensability of metaphysics that there is every reason to regard Hegel and Peirce as representing powerful challenges to eliminativist attitudes to metaphysical enquiry. The purpose of my paper is to justify the exercise of metaphysics as a “humanistic discipline”, to use an expression from Bernard Williams. Using perfectionist approaches to ethics as a framework in which to contextualise the question of whether it could ever be desirable to eliminate metaphysics is under-explored and potentially a major avenue through which to explore the way we do metaphysics today.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Bob Stern for his invaluable comments on many previous drafts of this article.
References
Armstrong, D. M. 1997. “Against ‘Ostrich’ Nominalism: A Reply to Michael Devitt.” In Properties, edited by D. H. Mellor and A. Oliver. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Beiser, F. C. 2005. Hegel. New York & London: Routledge.10.4324/9780203087053Search in Google Scholar
Brandom, R. B. 1994. Making it Explicit. Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Devitt, M. 1997. “Ostrich Nominalism or Mirage Realism.” In Properties, edited by D. H. Mellor and A. Oliver. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Ellis, B. 2001. Scientific Essentialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Foot, P. 2001. Natural Goodness. Oxford: Clarendon Press.10.1093/0198235089.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Forster, P. 2011. Peirce and the Threat of Nominalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511921223Search in Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. 1969. Science of Logic. Translated by A. V. Miller. London: Allen and Unwin.Search in Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. 1991. The Encyclopaedia Logic. Translated by T. F. Geraets, W. A. Suchting, and H. S. Harris. Indianapolis & Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.Search in Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. 1995. Lectures on the History of Philosophy. Translated by E. S. Haldane. Lincoln, NA: University of Nebraska Press.Search in Google Scholar
Hookway, C. 2013. The Pragmatic Maxim. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199588381.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Houlgate, S. 2006. The Opening of Hegel’s Logic: From Being to Infinity. West Lafayette, IA: Purdue University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Irwin, T. 2009. The Development of Ethics: A Historical and Critical Study, Volume III: from Kant to Rawls. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Lowe, E. J. 1998. The Possibility of Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Lowe, E. J. 2002. A Survey of Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Lowe, E. J. 2006. The Four-Category Ontology: A Metaphysical Foundation for Natural Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Moore, A. W. 2012. The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics: Making Sense of Things. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139029223Search in Google Scholar
Oderberg, D. S. 2007. Real Essentialism. New York: Routledge.10.4324/9780203356753Search in Google Scholar
Peirce, C. S. 1931–1958. Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Vol. 8. C. Hartshorne, P. Weiss, and A. W. Burks (eds.) Vols. 1–6 edited by C. Harteshorne and P. Weiss, 1931–1935; vols. 7–8 edited by A. W. Burks, 1958. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Peirce, C. S. 1982. Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition, currently 6 vols.. M. Fisch, E. Moore, C. Kloesel (eds.). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Peirce, C. S. 1992 & 1998. The Essential Peirce, Vol. 2. N. Houser, C. Kloesel, and the Peirce Edition Project (eds.). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Ratcliffe, M. 2011. “Stance, Feeling and Phenomenology.” Synthese 178:121–130.10.1007/s11229-009-9525-9Search in Google Scholar
Rorty, R. 2000. “Response to Jürgen Habermas.” In Rorty and His Critics, edited by R. Brandom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Sellars, W. 1963. “Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man.” In Frontiers of Science and Philosophy, edited by R. Colodny. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.Search in Google Scholar
Stern, R. 2007. “Hegel, British Idealism, And The Curious Case of The Concrete Universal.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 15(1):115–153.10.1080/09608780601088002Search in Google Scholar
Stern, R. 2009. Hegelian Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199239108.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Stern, R. 2016. “‘Determination Is Negation’: The Adventures of a Doctrine from Spinoza to Hegel to the British Idealists.” Hegel Bulletin 37:29–52.10.1017/hgl.2016.2Search in Google Scholar
Walsh, W. H. 1975. Kant’s Criticism of Metaphysics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Williams, B. 2006a. “Metaphysical Arguments.” In Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline, edited by A. W. Moore. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.10.1515/9781400827091Search in Google Scholar
Williams, B. 2006b. “Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline.” edited by A. W. Moore. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Search in Google Scholar
© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston