IX—How Is Metaphysics Possible?

Author:

Stang Nicholas F1

Affiliation:

1. Department of Philosophy University of Toronto , Jackman Humanities Building, Room 507 170 St George Street Toronto ON M5R 2M8 , Canada

Abstract

Abstract In the Introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason Kant raises a famous question: how is metaphysics possible as a science? Kant posed this question for his predecessors in early modern philosophy. I raise this question anew for the resurgence of metaphysics within analytic philosophy. I begin by dividing the question of the possibility of metaphysics into separate questions about its semantic and epistemic possibility, and translate them into contemporary terms as: (1) Why do terms in metaphysical theories refer? (2) How do we have knowledge in metaphysics? I then argue that the inflationary conception of metaphysics cannot explain the semantic possibility of metaphysics and, consequently, cannot explain its epistemic possibility. I then argue, more briefly, that a deflationary conception cannot satisfactorily answer the Kantian questions either. The critical path alone remains open.

Publisher

Oxford University Press (OUP)

Subject

Philosophy

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3. Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology’;Carnap;Revue Internationale de Philosophie,1950

4. The Possibility of Knowledge

5. Metaphysical Rationalism’;Dasgupta;Noûs,2016

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