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Metaphysics: What Is It? Why Is It Important Today?

This article defines the philosophical branch of metaphysics, outlining its key focuses and discussing why it’s important today.

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W hat is the fundamental nature of reality? What is time? What is space? Is there a God? Is the world around us ‘real’? What is change? Do numbers exist? What is causation, and can there be such a thing as a ‘first cause’? Why is reality like it is? What does it mean for something to exist? Why does anything exist?

These are just a few of the questions posed by the oft-derided, mind-melting realm of metaphysics, perhaps the most obscure of philosophy’s four core branches .

As 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant puts it:

Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck.

What is metaphysics in simple words?

S o what is metaphysics, exactly? Like most metaphysical questions, that’s not an easy one to answer. We might think based on the word itself that it refers to some ‘meta’ version of physics, but that’s not quite accurate.

‘Metaphysics’ was actually coined by Andronicus of Rhodes, a bibliographer of Aristotle’s books in the first century BCE.

Andronicus was looking to categorize the works that came after Aristotle’s writings on ‘Physics’, and thus simply grouped them with the title ‘After Physics’ — or, ‘Metaphysics’.

Putting its rather arbitrary etymological origins to one side, we can say the word ‘metaphysics’ refers to the philosophical study of reality: metaphysics essentially attempts to establish a coherent picture of what reality ultimately is and how reality ultimately works .

In doing so, it explores basic issues around substance, existence, causality, determinism, modality, ontology, possibility, and nothingness — most of which are discussed by Aristotle in those initial writings grouped by Andronicus, but also by philosophers throughout history.

Giorgio de Chirico - The Enigma of an Autumn Afternoon, 1910, the first and defining work of the Pittura Metafisica (metaphysical painting) artistic movement.

To borrow American philosopher Wilfrid Sellars’s famous definition of philosophy, the aim of metaphysics is essentially...

to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term.

What is the difference between metaphysics and physics?

O f course, there is overlap with the sciences here — notably physics — and we might think that actually physicists, backed by scientific data and experiment, are much better placed to ponder questions on the fundamental nature of reality than metaphysicians, who depend on armchair reasoning and deductive logic to construct their theories.

But, when it comes to reality, some philosophers argue there are questions that go beyond the scope of physics (after all, physics investigates what we are able to investigate, and philosophers have long suspected that what we are able to investigate may not be all there is).

Beyond or right on the edge of physics’ scope is thus where metaphysicians generally reside, restless in their creaking upholstery.

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A quick, dirty, and by no means foolproof way to distinguish metaphysics from the sciences is as follows: the sciences concern the specific ‘how’ of reality, metaphysics concerns the general ‘what’ and ‘why’.

For example, physicists may investigate the charge of a particle; a metaphysician asks what is charge, and what is a particle?

A physicist may investigate how particles causally interact; a metaphysician attempts to characterize causation itself.

A physicist may investigate the origins of the universe and theorize about its fundamental laws; a metaphysician asks why the universe exists — and why its laws obtain the way they do.

A physicist uses mathematics to express theory; a metaphysician asks what numbers are (i.e. whether numbers actually exist, or if they’re just useful fictions).

Indeed, ontology — the study of being or what it means for something to exist — has been a key battleground for metaphysicians throughout the ages.

Why is there something rather than nothing?

Scientists or mathematicians may very well ask these questions too; but when they do so, it should be recognized that they are making metaphysical inquiries, and metaphysical positions should not be taken for granted.

For instance, the principle of physicalism — that everything that exists in the universe is either physical or reducible down to physical ‘stuff’ — might seem commonsensical; but it is actually a metaphysical position — one that philosophers have long disputed, from George Berkeley denying the existence of matter (and claiming everything is made of ‘mental stuff’ instead) to philosophers of consciousness today challenging physicalist conceptions of the mind.

The point here is not so much about whether physicalism is correct: it’s recognizing that there is a debate to be had in the first place, and in surfacing and examining any and all presuppositions upon which our theories about the world may rest.

Metaphysics is a rabbit hole about which many disagree. Beyond the general lines of inquiry referenced above, debates abound over what metaphysics even is or should be — especially in its relation to modern science.

What questions does metaphysics investigate?

W hile the lines between metaphysics and the sciences may seem a little blurred, as a quick summary we can say that, at root, many problems in science and philosophy — including whether we have free will , whether consciousness is physical , and what causation is — are metaphysical in nature.

Here are some further questions metaphysicians might investigate:

• What is the fundamental nature of reality?
• What is time? What is space?
• What is the relationship between mind and body?
• What does it mean for something to exist?
• What does it mean for something not to exist?
• What is the cosmos and everything in it made out of, and why?
• Why does the cosmos exist in the way that it does?
• Why does the cosmos exist at all?
• Is ours the only cosmos that could exist?
• Is everything in the cosmos contingent? Or is anything necessary?
• What is identity? What is change? How is change possible?
• Who or what is the self?
• What happens to the self after death?
• What does it mean for someone to act freely?
• Is true freedom possible?

Why is metaphysics important today?

E xploring such abstract, evidence-resistant metaphysical questions might seem pointless. Why argue about things we may never have an answer to? Why spill oceans of ink over things so far removed from everyday life? Why intrude on what is clearly now science’s territory and try to make grand arguments and construct complex theories about the fundamental nature of reality, its laws and emergent properties?

Well, defenders of metaphysics might state that it’s only by running up against the limitations of our language, by attempting to be clear-sighted at the hazy frontiers of our knowledge, that we can inch-by-inch, foot-by-foot, make progress.

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Metaphysics adds a level of conceptual rigor and clarity that can only improve the steadfastness of our knowledge: it is not here to compete with or replace any other fields, it is here as a necessary supplement to them in our quest for truth about reality.

Indeed, some argue that there is no real need to create a hard distinction between metaphysics and the sciences at all, for their aims are continuous and complementary.

And besides: dwelling on the actuality behind life is interesting, and good for the soul.

As Bertrand Russell puts it about philosophy generally, in a quotation that could readily be used to defend the study of metaphysics specifically:

Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.

Learn more about metaphysics

I f you’re ready to explore the murky yet fascinating world of metaphysics further, we’ve assembled the best books about the subject, ranging from accessible and introductory surveys of the field, to stone-cold metaphysical classics from philosophers down the ages. Hit the banner below to access our metaphysics reading list now.

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Martin Heidegger, "What Is Metaphysics?"

This commentary is part of The Atlas Society's 1999 online "CyberSeminar" entitled " The Continental Origins of Postmodernism ."

Essays and Comments on Heidegger's "What Is Metaphysics?"

1. Bryan Register, "Getting a Grip on Nothing"

2. Roger Donway, "Heidegger's Attempt to Redeem Metaphysics"

Summary of the Discussion

Do Heidegger's Arguments Matter? by David L. Potts

When I was a (much!) younger philosophy student, I used to argue vehemently with people who accepted the then very fashionable doctrine of cultural relativism. Cultural relativism seemed to me then, and still does, to be an absurdly, obviously (even contemptibly) false doctrine. One argument, which I thought quite devastating to cultural relativism (and, again, still do), is from self-referential inconsistency. That is, since cultural relativism holds that there is no objective truth, but only truth relative to a given culture, it is therefore impossible, within cultural relativism, to assert the (objective) truth of cultural relativism.

I found, however, that when I deployed self-referential inconsistency against cultural relativists, it never fazed them. Not that they denied the point, as you would expect of ordinary ideologues. They would usually in fact accept it when pushed far enough. They just didn’t care.

When I pointed out their inconsistency, cultural relativists just didn't care.

I was complaining about this sad state of affairs one day to a fellow student. And he said a thing, which I’ve never forgotten: “They don't care about arguments like that [self-referential inconsistency] because they evaluate a philosophy not by its arguments but by its prospects for yielding a satisfying solution to the whole range of philosophical problems.” For example, in the case of cultural relativism, cultural relativism abolishes the problems of trying to find objective criteria of knowledge, but at the same time doesn’t promote a free-for-all, since cultural strictures on knowledge claims still apply, and, best of all, seems to provide an iron-clad defense of social tolerance by undercutting people’s claims to final truth.

I want to suggest that Heidegger and his supporters likewise practice this “style” of philosophy. Observe the way Heidegger proceeds in “What Is Metaphysics?” He says science wants to study beings--and nothing else ( Basic Writings 97). In so doing he is claiming that the concept of everything somehow requires that of nothing. But he doesn’t press the point (which is good for him since it is false). He goes on to acknowledge that logic itself rules out the nothing, since thinking can only be of something (99). But then he asserts without argument that perhaps negation (the logical operation) depends upon some other, prior nothing (99). Then, after more burbling about the absurdity of trying to say something about nothing from the standpoint of logic, intellect, and science, he launches his analysis of anxiety (101) and just asserts that in anxiety we experience a nothing more primordial than mere logical negation, and he’s off to the races with oracular pronouncements about “Dasein,” nihilation, selfhood, freedom, Pure Being, and going “beyond metaphysics.”

In short, there is no serious argument in the essay whatever. It is a tissue of obscure assertions one is supposed to fit together into a satisfying total picture. Now, I am not exactly saying that if the arguments don’t matter to Heidegger they shouldn’t matter to us either; but I am saying that, if one tries to engage these people, one should not delude oneself that arguments are primary.

General Comment on Heidegger Discussion, by Stephen Hicks

Martin Heidegger’s “What Is Metaphysics?” is a difficult text for anyone. I was therefore impressed with the CyberSeminar’s participants’ level of analysis: those writing the lead essays focused on the essential issues, and those offering comments maintained that focus while developing and debating interpretations and implications. And I was slightly surprised and impressed with everyone’s ability to maintain civility while dealing with a frustrating text and with the unpleasantness of disagreeing with others. That’s not a small thing: my experience leads me to expect Objectivists to be focused and sharp in their analyses, but not to expect such consistent civility.

The twenty-six posts that I have read cover a comprehensive range of issues: defining Postmodernism, determining what Heidegger says, comparing Heidegger and Postmodernism, comparing Heidegger and Objectivism , and discussing what Objectivism itself says about several fundamental issues.

Submission in “What is Metaphysics?” by Michelle Fram Cohen

I would like to point out an interesting process which I observed in “What is Metaphysics.” This process involves three instances of the discussion of man’s relationship to whatever is outside of him, that is, everything else. The central issue is whether man is to submit to or to control everything else.

The first instance is the discussion of science in the beginning of the article (243). Heidegger describes man’s scientific activity as being of “a certain limited submission to what-is” and as having a “submissive attitude.” In this context, *submission* is a submission to the laws of the natural world, very much in the spirit of Francis Bacon’s statement: “Nature to be commanded, must be obeyed.” Heidegger admits that based on this submission, science can acquire “a leadership of its own, albeit limited, in the whole field of human existence.”

It is a submission to a commandment for total self-annihilation.

The second instance is the discussion of modern science, as opposed to the science discussed before (258). In modern science, “what is” is determined by man’s will. Instead of submission to the subject matter which science refers to, the subject matter makes its appearance as a result of man’s will. Thus man gains “the sovereign power to effect a general objectivisation.” Once liberated from any need for submission to anything, all that man’s will needs is the will to will to secure its sovereignty.

The third and final instance is the discussion of man’s capacity for “essential thinking” as opposed to thinking on “what is” (262). Here man’s will apparently loses its sovereignty. Man is to surrender his “historical being” to the great “Being” in defiance of the welfare of “what is.” In a language reminiscent of Ellsworth Toohey’s advice to Catherine Halsey in The Fountainhead , only through a complete sacrifice of his self can man come to contact with the essential truth of Being.

The process brings man back to submission, but not the submission of obeying the laws of Nature. It is a submission to a commandment for total self-annihilation.

Heidegger’s “What Is Metaphysics?” by Stephen Hicks

My comments are supplementary to the pillar essays from Bryan Register and Roger Donway , and to the posts from David Potts , Jamie Mellway , Michael Young , and Eyal Mozes that offered commentary and further interpretation. I summarize briefly the main themes from Heidegger’s “What Is Metaphysics?” and list his similarities and differences with postmodernism.

As interpretive supplements I have included a few quotations from Heidegger’s Introduction to Metaphysics (transl. Ralph Manheim, Yale 1959, originally delivered as a lecture in 1935), and I mention his 1946 “Letter on Humanism,” written in response to Sartre’s humanistic version of existentialism. Other page numbers are to the version of “What Is Metaphysics?” that I am working from, the one in Walter Kaufmann’s revised and expanded edition of Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre .

Thematic Structure of “What Is Metaphysics?” Heidegger’s essay moves from:

(1) a characterization of metaphysics that is Aristotelian ontologically but Platonic/mystic epistemologically, to

(2) a consideration of the linguistic problems of discussing Being and Nothing, which leads to

(3) his rejecting or setting aside reason and logic as a means of doing metaphysics, to

4) the use of emotions such as boredom and dread to access Being and Nothing, to

5) a discussion of the human being/Da-sein that is involved in this metaphysical enterprise, to

6) an account of Being and Nothing that rejects the scientific account and reconciles itself with the Judeo-Christian/Hegelian account, and, finally,

(7) a discussion of Being/Nothing’s ethical demands upon us for sacrifice.

Heidegger scholarship contains controversy on all these points, exacerbated no doubt by the obscurity of the text. I don’t want to pronounce on the excellent interpretative debates that have emerged in the CyberSeminar discussions but rather to point out a few additional passages that bear on a final interpretation.

(1) Characterizing Metaphysics. Roger Donway and Eyal Mozes discussed extensively the extent to which Heidegger’s characterization of metaphysics is Aristotelian, Objectivist, or neither.

To that discussion let me add the following. (a) In doing metaphysics Heidegger says we are seeking the essence or ground of what-is. The essence/ground will be common to everything, and so true of all things; in that sense, Heidegger is Aristotelian. (b) However, the essence/ground is not for Heidegger given in ordinary experience: one must lose or distance oneself from ordinary experience to experience it. Since one can’t straightforwardly empirically or rationally come to experience or grasp abstractly the essence/ground, Heidegger is non-Aristotelian. (c) But it’s not quite Platonic either, for in coming to experience the essence/ground one is not leaving one metaphysical dimension and entering another; rather it seems to be a continuum of definiteness that one traverses in relating to what-is either more or less particularly or generally. (d) Finally, there is a mystic/agnostic streak in Heidegger, for in various places he indicates that the ultimate essence/ground is a mystery that will always be beyond the grasp of finite beings. In our text, an indication of this occurs about three pages before the end of the “Postscript,” when Heidegger says, in rejecting calculative thought’s relevance to metaphysics, that “Calculative thought places itself under compulsion to master everything in the logical terms of its procedure. It has no notion that in calculation everything calculable is already a whole whose unity naturally belongs to the incalculable which, with its mystery, ever eludes the clutches of calculation” (262). He seems to be saying not only that calculative thought cannot grasp the whole/unity, but that the unity of the whole is itself ultimately a mystery.

Let me consider together (2) Linguistic problems of Being and Nothing, (3) Rejecting/setting aside logic and reason, and (6) Heidegger’s account of Being and Nothing. Given the impossibility of capturing the Nothing in terms acceptable to logic, Bryan Register raises the question of the extent to which Heidegger is rejecting logic or merely traditional and inadequate logics.

Early in “The Development of the Question” section, Heidegger indicates that his target is not simply traditional logic, but rather reason as a whole, of which logic is a part. He notes that his project fails if one assumes “that in this enquiry ‘logic’ is the highest court of appeal, that reason is the means and thinking the way to an original comprehension of Nothing and its possible revelation” (245)/ So we have “logic,” reason, and thinking as the obstacles to his project. Later, in the section entitled “The Answer to the Question,” Heidegger, having indicated his account of Nothing, says: “If this breaks the sovereignty of reason in the field of enquiry into Nothing and Being, then the fate of the rule of ‘logic’ is also decided. The very idea of ‘logic’ disintegrates in the vortex of a more original questioning” (253). “Logic” is rejected since reason itself is rejected. This suggests a more radical rejection of logic.

Just how radical a rejection is indicated about halfway through the “Postscript,” where Heidegger tells us why he puts “logic” in scare quotes: “In order to indicate that ‘logic’ is only one exposition of the nature of thinking, and one which, as its name shows, is based on the experience of Being as attained in Greek thought” (261). Thus, it is the entire tradition of philosophy as initiated by the Greeks that Heidegger is targeting and calling into question.

(Let me add two quotations about logic from Introduction to Metaphysics that speak to this issue: “Authentic speaking about nothing always remains extraordinary. It cannot be vulgarized. It dissolves if it is placed in the cheap acid of merely logical intelligence” (26) and “Logic is an invention of schoolteachers, not of philosophers” (121).)

The reason for this radical rejection of logic and reason is that Heidegger’s account of Being and Nothing comes out of the Judeo-Christian and Hegelian traditions. Our first whiff of serious Hegelianism, in “The Answer to the Question” section, occurs when Heidegger identifies Nothing with the essence of Being: “Nothing not merely provides the conceptual opposite of what-is but is also an original part of essence. It is in the Being of what-is that the nihilation of Nothing occurs” (251). Then, having developed this theme, Heidegger quotes approvingly Hegel’s identification of Being and Nothing. “‘Pure Being and pure Nothing are thus one and the same.’ This proposition of Hegel’s (‘The Science of Logic,’ I, WW III, p. 74) is correct” (255). All of this discussion takes place in the context of affirming the Judeo-Christian account of creation, in which God created the world out of nothing (254-255); as Heidegger puts it, “every being, so far as it is a being, is made out of nothing.”

Heidegger thus frames the debate the way Objectivists would: the choice is between a rational/logical/Aristotelian metaphysic and a non-rational/non-logical/Christian/Hegelian one.

Hicks on Heidegger, Part Deux, by Stephen Hicks

(The following remarks, like those in my earlier post, are brief and intended as complementary to those interpretations of Heidegger in the pillar essays and commentaries.)

(5) Heidegger on Da-sein. Having rejected reason and logic, Heidegger feels furcht. Or rather, since the state of furcht is fear directed toward particulars and the state he describes is one of dread/anxiety about everything in general and nothing in particular, he experiences angst.

This angst is the metaphysically revelatory state for Heidegger. It is to the extent that one is in this state of dread/anxiety that Da-sein reaches its metaphysical ground. Here, Heidegger seems to emphasize two features of pure Da-sein : its indefiniteness (in contrast to its definiteness when focused on day-to-day ordinary things) and its activity (in contrast to its being a subject or a thing).

Angst is the metaphysically revelatory state for Heidegger.

Heidegger explains his choice of “Da-sein” by defining it as follows: “ Da-sein means being projected into Nothing” (251). It is the being projecting that is Da-sein--not that, if anything, which is projected or does the projecting. This emphasis on activity fits with Heidegger’s desire to avoid subject/object characterizations. It also fits with Heidegger’s being a type of Existentialist, for he emphasizes that what we are is defined by activity, rather than by being a substance with a set nature, and that the core activity is projection into Nothing, rather than into a world of solid identity that is what it is. (Here a comparison to Sartre may be helpful: for Sartre, our existence precedes essence, and we define ourselves by the core commitments we make.)

The theme of indefiniteness appears on page 249. There Heidegger seems to indicate that one loses identity to the extent that one projects into Nothing. (This contrasts with some other Existentialists who hold that we acquire identity to the extent we make commitments.) “In dread we are ‘in suspense’ (wir schweben). Or, to put it more precisely, dread holds us in suspense because it makes what-is-in-totality slip away from us. Hence we too, as existents in the midst of what-is, slip away from ourselves along with it. For this reason it is not ‘you’ or ‘I’ that has the uncanny feeling, but ‘one.’ In the trepidation of this suspense where there is nothing to hold on to, pure Da-sein is all that remains.” The “one” that remains for Heidegger is not a particularized “you” or “I,” but a state of being overwhelmed by Nothing: “The only thing that remains and overwhelms us whilst what-is slips away, is this ‘nothing’” (249).

(When I read this, I thought of Rand’s description of John Galt as a man that reality fit like a glove. For Heidegger, by contrast, all of reality slips away from one, one loses one’s “I” identity, and to that extent one is Da-sein.)

This is for Heidegger more than a metaphysical or phenomenological characterization: it has ethical import. In the main body of the essay, Heidegger occasionally uses evaluative terms such as “courageous” (253) to describe those who seek/accept the dread/anxiety and speaks of the “crucial importance” of “letting oneself go into Nothing” (257). In the “Postscript” he speaks more explicitly of the ethics.

(7) Being/Nothing’s ethical demands upon us for sacrifice. In their posts, Bryan Register and Roger Donway present a more humanistic version of Heideggerian ethics, emphasizing the themes of freedom, choice, self-creation, and self-determination. These themes dominate Sartrean versions of Existentialism, and there is much debate about the extent to which they are Heideggerian or not.

Man and everything that “is” are to be sacrificed to that which is higher: the truth of Being.

As supplement, I will mention Heidegger’s 1946 essay, “Letter on Humanism,” written in response to his former student Sartre’s 1945 lecture on humanism. In Sartre’s lecture, man was still the center of all meaning and valuation--“man is the future of man,” according to Sartre. This drew Heidegger’s wrath. For Heidegger, putting man at the center has been the great crime of western philosophy since Plato, for on Heidegger’s account all the evils of the modern world--science, technology, capitalism, communism--stem from “anthropologizing” Being. For Heidegger, that whole man-centered tradition needed “Destruktion.” Being is not for man; rather man is for Being.

This I think fits with the role Heidegger gives to sacrifice in the last few pages of the “Postscript” to “What Is Metaphysics?” Two particularly striking quotations follow.

“The need is: to preserve the truth of Being no matter what may happen to man and everything that ‘is.’ Freed from all constraint, because born of the abyss of freedom, this sacrifice is the expense of our human being for the preservation of the truth of Being in respect of what-is” (262).

And: “Sacrifice is rooted in the nature of the event through which Being claims man for the truth of Being. Therefore it is that sacrifice brooks no calculation, for calculation always miscalculates sacrifice in terms of the expedient and the inexpedient, no matter whether the aims are set high or low. Such calculation distorts the nature of sacrifice. The search for a purpose dulls the clarity of the awe, the spirit of sacrifice ready prepared for dread, which takes upon itself kinship with the imperishable” (263).

Man and everything that “is,” i.e., the day-to-day, non-metaphysical realm, are to be sacrificed to that which is higher: the truth of Being. We are not to ask why sacrifice is needed, for that would be to seek calculable purposes. We do know from earlier in the essay, however, that the truth of Being is that Being is Nothing. So if we are still allowed to be logical at this point, we seem to have in Heidegger a call for unquestioning sacrifice of everything human for Nothing. As Michelle Fram-Cohen suggested, this is a call for self-annihilation.

Heidegger and Postmodernism. Heidegger’s similarities to postmodernism are many, and I found Roger Donway’s list to be very helpful. I would like to highlight three similarities.

(a) Heidegger’s use of linguistic sleight of hand for its own sake and for discrediting reason is a precursor to the techniques of deconstruction.

(b) Heidegger’s identification of his enemy as the whole western philosophical tradition is a precursor to the postmodernists’ attempting to set aside all previous philosophies, whether Platonic, Aristotelian, Cartesian, Lockean, or Kantian.

(c) Heidegger’s making emotions, and especially negative emotions, be especially revelatory and central is a precursor to many postmodernists’ dark psychological worlds and their focus on the disturbed, marginalized, and bizarre.

I don’t think of Heidegger as a postmodernist but rather as a last step to postmodernism. Two differences strike me as significant.

(d) Heidegger is doing metaphysics, and speaks of there being a truth out there about the world that we must seek or let find us, while postmodernists are anti-realists, holding that it is meaningless to speak of truths out there or of a language that could capture them.

(e) Heidegger speaks of the mysteriousness of deep truth about Being, while for most postmodernists everything is either surface and superficial or able to be exposed by deconstruction.

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Is religion compatible with objectivism.

What is Metaphysics?

The philosophy of the nature of being, existence, reality

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In Western philosophy , metaphysics has become the study of the fundamental nature of all reality — what is it, why is it, and how are we can understand it. Some treat metaphysics as the study of “higher” reality or the “invisible” nature behind everything, but instead, it's the study of all of reality, visible and invisible. Along with what constitutes natural and supernatural. Many debates between atheists and theists involve disagreements over the nature of reality and the existence of anything supernatural, the debates are often disagreements over metaphysics.

Where does the Term Metaphysics Come From?

The term metaphysics is derived from the Greek Ta Meta ta Physkia which means “the books after the books on nature.” When a librarian was cataloging Aristotle’s works, he did not have a title for the material he wanted to shelve after the material called “nature” (Physkia) — so he called it “after nature.” Originally, this wasn’t even a subject at all — it was a collection of notes on different topics, but specifically topics removed from normal sense perception and empirical observation.

Metaphysics and the Supernatural

In popular parlance, metaphysics has become the label for the study of things which transcend the natural world — that is, things which supposedly exist separately from nature and which have a more intrinsic reality than our . This assigns a sense to the Greek prefix meta which it did not originally have, but words do change over time. As a result, the popular sense of metaphysics has been the study of any question about reality which cannot be answered by scientific observation and experimentation. In the context of atheism , this sense of metaphysics is usually regarded as literally empty.

What is a Metaphysician?

A metaphysician is someone seeking to understand the substance of reality: why things exist at all and what it means to exist in the first place. Much of philosophy is an exercise in some form of metaphysics and we all have a metaphysical perspective because we all have some opinion about the nature of reality. Because everything in metaphysics is more controversial than other topics, there isn’t agreement among metaphysicians about what it is they are doing and what they are investigating.

Why Should Atheists Care About Metaphysics?

Because atheists typically dismiss the existence of the supernatural, they may dismiss metaphysics as the pointless study of nothing. However, since metaphysics is technically the study of all reality, and thus whether there is any supernatural element to it at all, in truth metaphysics is probably the most fundamental subject which irreligious atheists should focus on. Our ability to understand what reality is, what it is composed of, what "existence" means, etc., is fundamental to most of the disagreements between irreligious atheists and .

Is Metaphysics Pointless?

Some irreligious atheists, like logical positivists , have argued that the agenda of metaphysics is largely pointless and can’t accomplish anything. According to them, metaphysical statements cannot be either true or false — as a result, they don’t really carry any meaning and shouldn’t be given any serious consideration. There is some justification to this position, but it is unlikely to convince or impress religious theists for whom metaphysical claims constitute some of the most important parts of their lives. Thus the ability to address and critique such claims can be important.

What is an Atheist Metaphysics?

The only thing all atheists have in common is disbelief in gods , so the only thing all atheist metaphysics will have in common is that reality doesn't include any gods and isn't divinely created. Despite that, most atheists in the West tend to adopt a materialistic perspective on reality. This means that they regard the nature of our reality and the universe as consisting of matter and energy. Everything is natural; nothing is supernatural. There are no supernatural beings , realms, or planes of existence. All cause and effect ​proceeds via natural laws.

Questions Asked in Metaphysics

What is out there? What is reality? Does Free Will exist? Is there such a process as cause and effect? Do abstract concepts (like numbers) really exist?

Important Texts on Metaphysics

Metaphysics , by Aristotle. Ethics , by Baruch Spinoza.

Branches of Metaphysics

Aristotle ’s book on metaphysics was divided into three sections: ontology, theology , and universal science. Because of this, those are the three traditional branches of metaphysical inquiry.

Ontology is the branch of philosophy which deals with the study of the nature of reality: what is it, how many “realities” are there, what are its properties, etc. The word is derived from the Greek terms on, which means “reality” and logos, which means “study of.” Atheists generally believe that there is a single reality which is material and natural in nature.

Theology, of course, is the study of gods — does a god exist, what a god is, what a god wants, etc. Every religion has its own theology because its study of gods, if it includes any gods, will proceed from specific doctrines and traditions which vary from one religion to the next. Since atheists don't accept the existence of any gods, they don't accept that theology is the study of anything real. At most, it might be the study of what people think is real and atheist involvement in theology proceeds more from the perspective of a critical outsider rather than an involved member.

The branch of “universal science” is a bit harder to understand, but it involves the search for “first principles” — things like the origin of the universe, fundamental laws of logic and reasoning, etc. For theists, the answer to this is almost always "god" and, moreover, they tend to argue that there can be no other possible answer. Some even go far as to argue that the existence of things like logic and the universe constitute evidence of the existence of their god.

• What Is the Philosophy of Mind?
• Atheism and Existentialism
• The Different Branches of Philosophy
• Biographical Profile of Greek Philosopher Aristotle
• Existence Precedes Essence: Existentialist Thought
• Ethics & Morality: Philosophy of Behavior, Choice, and Character
• A Biographical Profile of Philosopher Rene Descartes
• Atheism and Skepticism in Ancient Greece
• Existentialist Absurdity
• What is Logical Positivism? History of Logical Positivism, Logical Positivists
• Dread and Angst: Themes and Ideas in Existentialist Thought
• The Importance of Logic and Philosophy
• Ayn Rand Quotes on Religion and Reason
• What Is Pragmatism?
• What Is Theology?
• Albert Camus: Existentialism and Absurdism

University of Notre Dame

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

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Metaphysical Essays

John Hawthorne, Metaphysical Essays , Oxford University Press, 2006, 299pp., $35.00 (pbk), ISBN 0199291241.

Reviewed by E. J. Lowe, University of Durham

This is a collection of sixteen of John Hawthorne's recent essays on topics in contemporary analytic metaphysics, six of which are new to this volume. The six new essays are 'Plenitude, Convention, and Ontology', 'Three-Dimensionalism', 'Motion and Plenitude', 'Quantity in Lewisian Metaphysics', 'Determinism De Re', and 'What Would Teleological Causation Be?' (the last co-authored with Daniel Nolan). The remaining ten essays, none of which was previously published earlier than 2000, are 'Identity', 'Locations' (with Theodore Sider), 'Recombination, Causal Constraints, and Humean Supervenience: An Argument for Temporal Parts?' (with Ryan Wasserman and Mark Scala), 'Gunk and Continuous Variation' (with Frank Arntzenius), 'Vagueness and the Mind of God', 'Epistemicism and Semantic Plasticity', 'Causal Structuralism', 'Why Humeans Are Out of Their Minds', 'Chance and Counterfactuals', and 'Before-Effect and Zeno Causality'. As the titles of the essays suggest, and as Hawthorne acknowledges in the volume's brief introduction, David Lewis's work is a pervasive theme throughout the book and references to him in the index outnumber by far references to any other author. (The next two most cited authors are Timothy Williamson and Theodore Sider.) Many of the essays engage explicitly with Lewis's work and almost all are on topics that have a direct bearing on the Lewisian corpus. Hawthorne's conception of metaphysics and way of pursuing it also seem, to this reviewer at least, distinctly Lewisian in flavour. There is the same close attention to detail, care and clarity of expression, deft and assured appeal to logico-mathematical considerations and techniques, adept deployment for ontological purposes of the apparatus of set theory and mereology, sophisticated sensitivity to issues in philosophical semantics, respect for the theories of physical science, and relentless pursuit of rigorous argument.

In one regard especially, however, Hawthorne's metaphysics differ importantly from Lewis's. As Hawthorne himself acknowledges, he has no 'grand underlying vision: a comprehensive metaphysical system would be nice, but I don't have one to offer' (p. vii). Perhaps this is true, rather unsurprisingly, of most metaphysicians working in the shadow of Lewis -- and that, of course, means the vast majority of contemporary metaphysicians. Lewis himself obviously had a comprehensive system and in terms of that system he set the agenda for a whole generation of younger metaphysicians, as a glance at any recent issue of a general philosophy journal in the analytic tradition reveals. It is perfectly understandable, then, that so much contemporary work in metaphysics either operates within some part of the Lewisian system or else opposes it in a piecemeal fashion, but still in a distinctly Lewisian style and without offering a countervailing 'grand underlying vision'. There are, of course, notable exceptions, to be found in the work, for instance, of David Armstrong and Peter van Inwagen, both of whom have inspired a good many followers, but it is not a gross exaggeration to say that contemporary metaphysics just is , for the most part, metaphysics à la Lewis. It is this kind of metaphysics, then, that the readers of Hawthorne's book should be prepared to find throughout its pages. And what they will be rewarded with, if they persevere with the intricacies of Hawthorne's arguments, is a virtuoso display of Lewis-style metaphysical reasoning of the very highest order. Hawthorne remarks, at the end of his Introduction, that '[Lewis's] work was the benchmark of quality, his approval the sure sign of having done a good thing. Doing metaphysics in his absence is quite an adjustment' (p. x). In another possible world more fortunate than ours, in which Lewis's counterpart survives to read a counterpart of the present volume of essays, Hawthorne's counterpart assuredly receives the wished-for sign of approval. And in this, the actual world, Hawthorne himself has clearly adjusted admirably well to Lewis's absence.

It is not possible, in the short space available for a review of this kind, to enter into serious critical engagement with much of what Hawthorne has to say in this volume. The complexity of the arguments that he advances would render any such attempt hopelessly superficial. Furthermore, there is no real unity to the volume -- no big underlying thesis whose credentials could be examined. There is not even any very obvious reason for the order in which the essays in it are presented, beyond the fact that some that are grouped together have related themes. The reason for publishing them as a collection was, presumably, just to make them more conveniently available for the many philosophers and students who will need to consult them -- and that, certainly, was an excellent reason. The most that we are given, in the Introduction, as a guide to the collection is Hawthorne's identification of three general themes that inform various of the essays, namely, 'plenitude', 'natural properties and microphysics', and 'stage primacy'. The second theme can perhaps be allowed to speak for itself, but the others need a little explication. By 'plenitude', Hawthorne intends the doctrine, which he supports, that 'we should supplement the ontology of common sense with a range of additional objects whose existence we recognize on grounds of parity' (p. vii). I shall return to this in a moment. By 'stage primacy', he means the doctrine, which he resists, that 'instantaneous, point-sized temporal parts -- "stages" of point particles -- are the fundamental material beings' (p. ix). In opposition to the latter doctrine, he examines the merits of 'a "gunky" rather than "pointillist" picture of matter and space-time' (p. ix), while also contending that even if the 'gunky' picture is rejected, the 'pointillist' picture is not the only viable alternative. Interesting though these technical debates are, which draw upon an appreciation of subtle and controversial issues in measure theory and continuum mathematics, the ordinary philosopher might be excused for wondering whether they don't intrude too far upon proper terrain of mathematical physics, whose contemporary practitioners, I suppose, might look upon these discussions with the same puzzlement as they might display in perusing the pages of some six-hundred-year-old Scholastic treatise on Aristotle's physics.

The doctrine of plenitude does at least connect with common-sense ontology, if only to pronounce its inadequacy. Hawthorne gives a neat example of how plenitudinous thinking operates. À propos of Eli Hirsch's notorious positing of 'in-cars' and 'out-cars' -- 'objects that grow and shrink as a car leaves its garage' (p. vii) -- Hawthorne observes:

But we don't think it ridiculous that there are objects that grow and shrink as large rocks move underwater, where the size of the object corresponds to the portion of the rock above the surface of the water: we call such objects 'islands'. It seems clear that none but the most insular [ sic ] metaphysician should countenance islands while repudiating incars; none but the most radical should renounce both. Instead, we should supplement the ontology of common sense with a range of additional objects whose existence we recognize on grounds of parity. (p. vii)

Consider the Isle of Wight -- a fairly large island situated off the southern coast of England. No doubt most people will say that its dimensions have changed over time as the sea-level has changed and as processes of erosion by wind and water have taken their toll. But what, exactly, do we -- or, more to the point, should we -- take this 'common-sense' object to be ? To answer that question, we need at least to find a perspicuous account of its identity-conditions and, by implication, the identity-conditions of all objects of the same putative kind. What kind is that? The obvious answer is: island . But is that a genuine kind, imposing well-defined identity-conditions on its individual members? A little reflection suggests that the correct answer is probably 'No'.

Suppose, for example, that in the future the sea-level rises so much that Mount Everest is separated by water from the neighbouring Himalayan peaks. Would Mount Everest have ceased to exist in those circumstances? Surely not -- and yet it would now be an 'island'. What we call an 'island' is, very arguably, really just a mountain whose peak happens to stand above surrounding water. The mountain does not grow or shrink as the sea-level changes, only the area of the mountain that lies above water. That area is not the island -- for the mountain is the island and the area is not the mountain. (If you hesitate to say this, consider whether or not you should say that the island has no part that lies below sea-level: I think you will agree, on reflection, that you should not.) Perhaps, indeed, ordinary speakers confuse, or fail to distinguish between, an island and such an area of a mountain. They consequently often speak as though an island is something that can grow or shrink as the sea-level changes and will cease to exist if the sea-level rises far enough. If islands so (mis)conceived are objects of 'common-sense ontology', then so much the worse for that ontology, in this respect at least. But notice that the alternative to rejecting that (mis)conception of what islands are is not necessarily to adopt the 'radical' option of excluding islands altogether from our (considered) ontology. As we have just seen, instead of excluding them, we can identify them with objects -- mountains -- which common-sense ontology already recognizes. In this way, we achieve an advance in both coherence and economy, without resorting to the extremes of either the plenitudinous metaphysician or the ultra-parsimonious radical metaphysician.

It may perhaps be objected that, even if, pace Hawthorne, islands are not properly to be thought of as objects that literally 'grow and shrink' with changes in sea-level, my treatment of the foregoing example still commits me to the existence of objects that do behave in this fashion -- namely, areas of mountains or, more specifically, areas of mountains that lie above water . However, it seems clear that when we say something like 'The area of the mountain that lies above water grows and shrinks with changes in sea-level', we should not take ourselves to be referring, by means of the singular noun-phrase 'the area of the mountain that lies above water', to some single persisting object that grows and shrinks as a result of such changes. Rather, what we should take ourselves to be saying is just that, at different times during the course of such changes, different areas of the mountain, with different extents, lie above water. The only kinds of persisting objects that we need to invoke in an adequate treatment of such an example are mountains and seas -- objects whose existence common sense already recognizes. Similarly, the only kinds of persisting objects that we need to invoke in an adequate treatment of an example like Hirsch's are cars and garages . His fanciful notions of 'in-cars' and 'out-cars' serve no real purpose, any more than does the putative notion of a 'mountoverwater', defined as an area of a mountain that lies above water . We deceive ourselves with our own word-play if we think that we can define such 'objects' into existence.

Far from it being the case, as Hawthorne suggests, that we ought to supplement our ontology with in-cars 'on grounds of parity', because we already countenance islands, it turns out that it is not islands , but Hawthorne's implicit conception of an island that should be repudiated, along with Hirsch's notion of an in-car. I suspect that many debates in contemporary metaphysics could be improved by abandoning their impatient take-it-or-leave-it attitude towards 'common-sense ontology'. Sometimes, rather than either embrace and add to that ontology or simply reject it, we do better to reform or refine it. But if we are to do that, we need to examine it carefully -- much more carefully than many contemporary metaphysicians are apparently prepared to do. We need, that is, to engage in what P. F. Strawson famously called 'descriptive metaphysics'. Not for its own sake, but in order to develop a well-motivated and coherent 'revisionary metaphysics' -- one that takes 'common-sense ontology' as its starting point and adapts it in the light of its various deficiencies. The plenitudinous metaphysician makes the mistake of supposing that its only deficiency is one of unwarranted parsimony, so that the remedy is just to add to it. But reflection reveals that 'common-sense ontology' is in fact riddled with confusions. Fortunately, these confusions are not so severe that they cannot be ironed out, as the radical metaphysician mistakenly believes when he rejects that ontology outright. However, 'reformed common sense' is hardly an exciting banner under which to recruit an eager new generation of analytic metaphysicians -- nothing like as exciting as the plenitudinist's prospect of discovering more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in common-sense ontology, and nothing like as exciting as the radicalist's prospect of eliminating almost everything that is included in that ontology. Since metaphysics à la Lewis is almost everywhere engaged in the battle between these exciting extremes, its popularity is not to be wondered at. When done expertly, as it is by Hawthorne, it is a fascinating intellectual exercise. But as to whether it serves so well the age-old purpose of metaphysics -- to enable us to understand better the nature of the world that we inhabit -- I confess that I have some doubts.

Hawthorne, it seems clear, is willing to take the plenitudinous approach to hitherto uncountenanced extremes. Here is how he characterizes the 'Plenitude Lover's' approach:

According to this view, there are ever so many objects in the world, including many that are undreamt of in ordinary thought and talk. Cars exist. But so do Eli Hirsch's In-Cars … Tables exist and survive a change of colour. But when a table is painted, there is an object that up until that point is materially coincident with the table, but which is unable to survive a change of colour and so passes out of existence. And so on. Generalizing: let a modal occupation profile be a function from worlds to filled regions of space-time. The Plenitude Lover says that for every such profile there is an object whose modal pattern of spatiotemporal occupation is correctly described by that profile. (p. 53)

My complaint against the Plenitude Lover is that, in his eagerness to embrace as full an ontology as possible, he uncritically accepts all of the objects of common-sense ontology, such as tables and cars, and conceives of his expanded ontology as an extension of this. It supposedly includes, thus, such objects as one whose 'modal occupation profile' is characterizable in terms of its being coincident with a table until the table is painted a different colour, but necessarily ceasing to exist thereafter . However, if common-sense ontology had first been subjected to closer critical examination, many of its supposed objects -- quite possibly including tables -- would in all likelihood have been deemed to possess dubious credentials. Such dubiety consequently infects many of the Plenitude Lover's characterizations of the 'new' objects that he wants us to embrace. For, as a putative definition of (ontologically admissible) object , 'entity whose modal pattern of spatiotemporal occupation is correctly described by a modal occupation profile', besides being disconcertingly abstruse, is apparently subject to the difficulty that very many, if not most, 'modal occupation profiles' can in practice be given an intelligible characterization only by utilizing the unreformed vocabulary of common-sense ontology, as in the case of Hirsch's 'in-cars' and Hawthorne's unrepaintable 'table'. Could it be this fact, at least in part, that makes the Plenitude Lover's 'discovery' of a vast realm of hitherto undreamt-of objects so very much less interesting, on cool reflection, than the humble physicist's discovery of a new kind of lepton? My advice to keen young metaphysicians with ambitions to discover new kinds of objects is: retrain in physics . That will still leave plenty of work of a less exciting sort to be done by serious metaphysicians.

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Types of metaphysical theory

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The object in what follows will be to present in outline metaphysical systems that have exercised, and indeed continue to exercise, a strong intellectual appeal. In most cases, these systems were given classical shape by particular philosophers of genius. Relatively little attention, however, will be paid to this fact here, because the present concern is with types of view rather than with views actually held. Thus, reference will be made to Platonism instead of to the philosophy of Plato , and so on in other cases.

The essence of Platonism lies in a distinction between two worlds—the familiar world of everyday life, which is the object of the senses , and an unseen world of true realities, which can be the object of the intellect. Ordinary people recognize the existence of the former and ignore that of the latter; they fail to appreciate the extent to which their beliefs both about fact and about values are arbitrarily assumed and involve internal contradictions. The philosopher is in a position to show them how insubstantial is the foundation on which they take their stand. The philosopher can demonstrate how little thought there is in popular conceptions of good and evil and can show that the very concept of sense knowledge involves difficulties, because knowledge presupposes a stable object and the objects of sense are constantly changing.

The claim, however, is that philosophers can do more than this. Because of the presence in them of something like a divine spark, they can, after suitable preparation, fix their intellectual gaze on the realities of the unseen world and, in the light of them, know both what is true and how to behave. They will not attain this result easily—to get to it will involve not only immense intellectual effort, including the repeated challenging of assumptions, but also turning their backs on everything in life that is merely sensual or animal. Yet, despite this, the end is attainable in principle, and those who arrive at it will exercise the most important part of themselves in the best way that is open to them.

That this type of view has an immediate appeal to persons of a certain kind goes without saying. There is ample evidence in poetry and elsewhere of the frequently experienced sense of the unreality of familiar things and the presence behind them of another order altogether. Platonism may be said to build on “intuitions” of this kind; as a metaphysics , its job is to give them intellectual expression, to transfer them from the level of sentiment to that of theory. It is important, however, to notice that Platonism is not just the intellectualizing of a mood. It is an attempt to solve specific problems in a specific way. In Plato’s own case, the problems were set by loss of confidence in traditional morality and the emergence of the doctrine that “man is the measure of all things.”

Plato thought he could counter this doctrine by appeal to another contemporary fact, the rise of science as shown in the development of mathematical knowledge . Mathematics , as he saw it, offered certain truth , although not about the familiar world. The triangle whose properties were investigated by the geometrician was not any particular triangle but the prototype that all particular triangles presuppose. The Triangle and the Circle belonged not to the world of the senses but to the world of the intelligence; they were forms . If this could be said of the objects of mathematical discourse, the same should also be true of the objects of morality. True Justice and true Goodness were not to be found in popular opinions or human institutions but should be seen as unchanging forms, eternally existing in a world apart.

Modern philosophers have found much to criticize in this system: some have objected that forms are not so much existents as abstractions, while others have found the argument from science to morality quite inconclusive because of what they allege to be an absolute dichotomy between fact and value. It may be that nobody today can subscribe to Platonism in precisely the form given it by Plato himself. The general idea , however, has certainly not lost its hold, nor have the moral perplexities to which Plato hoped to find an answer been dissipated by further thought.

For many people, Plato is the archetypal other-worldly philosopher and Aristotle the archetypal this-worldly philosopher. Plato found reality to lie in things wholly remote from sense, while Aristotle took form to be typically embodied in matter and considered it his job as a philosopher to make sense of the here and now. The contrast is to some extent overdrawn, for Aristotle, too, believed in pure form (God and the astral intelligences—the intelligent movers of the planets—were supposed to satisfy this description), and Plato was sufficiently concerned with the here and now to want radical change in human society. It remains true, nevertheless, that Aristotelianism is in essentials a species of immanent metaphysics—a theory that instructs people on how to take the world they know rather than a theory that gives them news of an altogether different world.

The key concepts in Aristotelianism are substance , form and matter , potentiality and actuality , and cause ( see Aristotle: Physics and metaphysics ). Whatever happens involves some substance or substances; unless there were substances, in the sense of concrete existents, nothing whatsoever could be real. Substances, however, are not, as the name might suggest, mere parcels of matter; they are intelligible structures, or forms, embodied in matter. That a thing is of a certain kind means that it has a certain form or structure. But the structure as conceived in Aristotelianism is not merely static. Every substance, in this view, not only has a form but is, as it were, striving to attain its natural form; it is seeking to be in actuality what it is potentially, which is in effect to be a proper specimen of its kind. Because this is so, explanation in this system must be given in teleological rather than mechanical terms. For Aristotle, form is the determining element in the universe , but it operates by drawing things on, so that they become what they have it in themselves to be rather than by acting as a constant efficient cause (i.e., the agent that initiates the process of change). The notion of an efficient cause has a role in Aristotelianism . As Aristotle put it, it takes a human being , a developed specimen of the kind, to beget a human being. It is, however, a subordinate role and yields pride of place to a different idea—namely, form considered as purpose.

For reasons connected with his astronomy , Aristotle postulated a God. His God, however, had nothing to do with the universe; it was not his creation, and he was, of necessity, indifferent to its vicissitudes (God could not otherwise have been an unmoved mover ). It is a mistake to imagine that everything in the Aristotelian universe is trying to fulfill a purpose that God has ordained for it. On the contrary, the teleology of which use is here made is unconscious; although things all tend to an end, they do not in general consciously seek that end. They are like organs in a living body that fulfill a function and yet seemingly have not been put there for that purpose.

As this last remark will suggest, an important source of Aristotelian thought is reflection on natural growth and decay. Aristotle, who was the son of a doctor, was himself a pioneer in natural history, and it is not surprising that he thought in biological terms. What is surprising, and gives his system a continuing interest, is the extent to which he succeeded in applying ideas in fields that are remote from their origin. He was without doubt more successful in some fields than in others—in dealing with the phenomena of social life, for instance, as opposed to those of physical reality. His results overall, however, were impressive enough for his system not only to dominate Western thought for many centuries but to constitute a challenge even today. People still, in many respects, think like Aristotle, and, as long as that is so, Aristotelianism will remain a live metaphysical option.

The advent of Christianity had important effects in philosophy as in other aspects of human life. Initially, Christians were opposed to philosophical claims of any kind; they saw philosophy as an essentially pagan phenomenon and refused to allow the propriety of subjecting Christian dogma to philosophical scrutiny. Christian truth rested on revelation and did not need any certificate of authenticity from mere reason . Later, however, attempts were made to produce a specifically Christian metaphysics, to think out a view of the universe and of humans’ place in it that did justice to the Christian revelation and nevertheless rested on arguments that might be expected to convince Christians and non-Christians alike. St. Thomas Aquinas was only one of a number of important thinkers in medieval times who produced Christian philosophies; others—such as the philosophers John Duns Scotus in the late 13th century and William of Ockham in the first half of the 14th century—took significantly different views. In selecting the system of Aquinas for summary here, the factor that has weighed most has been its influence, particularly in postmedieval times. Aquinas was not the only medieval philosopher of distinction, but Thomism is alive as other medieval systems are not.

The central claim of Thomism is that reflection on everyday things and the everyday world reveals it as pointing beyond itself to God as its sustaining cause. Ordinary existents, such as human beings, are in the process of constant change. The change, however, is not normally the result of their own efforts, and, even when it is, it does not depend on them exclusively. No object in the familiar world can fully account for its own esse (i.e., its own act of existing), nor is it wholly self-sufficient; all are affected from without, or at least operate in an environment that is not of their own making. To say this is to say that they are one and all finite. Although finite things can be, and commonly are, stimulated to activity or kept in activity by other finite things, it does not follow that there might be finite things and nothing else. On the contrary, the finite necessarily points beyond itself to the infinite . The system of limited beings, each dependent for its activity on something else of the same kind, demands for its completion the existence of an unlimited being, one that is the source of change in other things but is not subject to change itself. Such a being would be not a cause like any other but a first or ultimate cause; it would be the unconditioned condition of the existence of all other things. Aquinas believed that human reason can produce definitive proofs of the existence of an infinite or perfect being, and he had no hesitation in identifying that being with the Christian God. Because, however, the movement of his thought was from finite to infinite, he claimed to possess only so much philosophical knowledge of the Creator as could be arrived at from study of his creation. Positive knowledge of the divine nature was not available; apart from revelation, one could only say what God is not, or conceive of his attributes by the imperfect method of analogy .

Aquinas worked out his ideas at a time when the philosophy of Aristotle was again becoming familiar in western Europe after a period of being largely forgotten, and many of his detailed theories show Aristotelian influence. He assumed the general truth of the Aristotelian picture of the natural world and the general correctness of Aristotle’s way of interpreting natural phenomena. He also took over many of Aristotle’s ideas in the fields of ethics and politics. He gave the latter, however, a distinctively different twist by making the final end of human beings not philosophical contemplation or the exercise of virtue in the political sphere but the attainment of the beatific vision of God; it was Christian rather than Greek ideas that finally shaped his view of the “summum bonum” (greatest good). Similarly, his celebrated proofs of God’s existence ( the Five Ways ) proceeded against a background that is obviously Aristotelian but that need not be presupposed for their central thought to have validity. Thomism can certainly be seen, and historically must be seen, as the system of Aristotle adapted to Christian purposes. It is important, however, to stress that the adaptation resulted in something new, a distinctive way of looking at the world that still has its adherents and still commands the respect of philosophers.

The aim and scope of scientific metaphysics

Don Ross, James Ladyman, and Harold Kincaid (eds): Scientific metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, x+243pp, £30.65 HB

• Essay Review
• Published: 09 July 2013
• Volume 23 , pages 117–123, ( 2014 )

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Ladyman, James, Don Ross, David Spurret, and John Collier. 2007. Everything must go. Metaphysics naturalized . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Ross, Don. 2012. Will scientific philosophy still be philosophy? Academia.edu. http://www.academia.edu/948847/Will_scientific_philosophy_still_be_philosophy . Accessed 20 May 2013. Forthcoming in Recherches sur la philosophie et le langage.

Van Fraassen, Bas. 2002. The empirical stance . New Haven: Yale University Press.

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Soto, C. The aim and scope of scientific metaphysics. Metascience 23 , 117–123 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11016-013-9822-2

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Published : 09 July 2013

Issue Date : March 2014

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11016-013-9822-2

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Metaphysics in Ancient Philosophy Essay

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Philosophy as a science, first of all, sets itself the task of knowing the world. Different philosophers often reformulate this problem; however, the initial essence remains the same. Among other things, the reason is that this question was embedded in philosophy from the very beginning. Even the most famous philosophers of antiquity, including Plato and Aristotle, studied it. However, many of them had their view of the structure of the world. This essay aims to compare and contrast the theories of cognition of reality or metaphysics of Plato and Aristotle.

First of all, it should be noted that although the views of these two philosophers are significantly different, they are in some way dependent on each other. Plato was a teacher for Aristotle, so his work was a starting point for further research and criticism in many ways. This factor, along with others, determines the importance of Plato’s essential work in the context of knowledge of the world – his theory of Ideas or Forms. The philosopher has developed this concept for a long time, and reflections on this topic are found in his various dialogues. Its central idea is Forms — authentic essences outside space and time and are inaccessible for complete understanding by ordinary people (Gracie). According to Plato, objects of the physical world we observe are only a rough semblance of actual Forms. For example, in the dialogue Phaedo, he cites the concept of absolute justice, beauty and kindness (Plato). Although they exist in the world, no one can contemplate them in reality since they are only ideal examples.

Aristotle’s approach was undoubtedly based on the theory of Plato. Despite all the criticism, even in the later works of the philosopher, elements of Platonism were traced. For example, although he rejected the theory of Forms, he continued to use the very concept of form, only giving it a different meaning (Duignan). His further development of this concept led to the emergence of one of the main areas of philosophy – metaphysics. In this collection of books, the philosopher develops the concept of ideas, rejecting the independent existence of forms from specific objects. Instead, according to Aristotle, the forms inherent in an object are closely related to the purpose of the given object, which was given to it by the creator (Aristotle). Thus, the form of an object exists within it and is inextricably linked with it. In this case, the physical shell of the object may not have any meaning. The eyes of various creatures have a different appearances, but the form and purpose are the same – the provision of vision.

The main differences between the metaphysics of Plato and Aristotle are based precisely on the theory of forms. Both philosophers interpreted this concept in different ways, and while Plato understood this concept as an unattainable ideal, Aristotle closely linked the form and purpose of the object. At the same time, the form of Aristotle is not a permanently existing concept: it obtains a connection with the object when it acquires the necessary purpose (Duignan). Although these differences are fundamental, since Plato and Aristotle were in close contact as teachers and students, many intersecting ideas and thoughts exist. Missing elements and gaps can be found in the theories of both philosophers, which are not explained by their statements. However, both thinkers believed that the world has an ultimatum truth that explains everything.

Thus, in the approaches of Plato and Aristotle, there are quite a lot of differences in understanding the world around them. Plato created his theory of Ideas or Forms, understanding a particular eternal essence that explains the basic ideas inaccessible to man. Aristotle rejected this approach, developing a much more mundane concept of the relationship between the form and purpose of an object. However, despite mutual criticism, philosophers agreed in their belief that everything in the world can be explained by some higher design.

Works Cited

Aristotle. Metaphysics. Translated by W. D. Ross. The Internet Classics Archive, Web.

Duignan, Brian. ” Plato and Aristotle: How Do They Differ?” Encyclopædia Britannica, Web.

Gracie, Jade. “Comparing the Similarities and Differences Between Plato and Aristotle.” Owlcation, 2020, Web.

Plato. Phaedo. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. The Internet Classics Archive, Web.

• Studying Philosophy: Drawbacks
• The Philosophical Foundations of the Nature of Reality
• Epistemologies of Plato and Aristotle
• Outlining Aristotle's Ethics and Metaphysics
• Philosophy of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
• Compromised Principles Discussion
• Cartesian Dualism and The Mind-Body Problem
• Human Beings' Knowledge About the External World
• Pragmatism’ and Rationalism’ Concepts of Truth
• Aspects of Pluralistic Philosophy
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Kant’s Critique of Metaphysics

How are synthetic a priori propositions possible ? This question is often times understood to frame the investigations at issue in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason . In answer to it, Kant saw fit to divide the question into three: 1) How are the synthetic a priori propositions of mathematics possible? 2) How are the synthetic a priori propositions of natural science possible? Finally, 3) How are the synthetic a priori propositions of metaphysics possible? In systematic fashion, Kant responds to each of these questions. The answer to question one is broadly found in the Transcendental Aesthetic, and the doctrine of the transcendental ideality of space and time. The answer to question two is found in the Transcendental Analytic, where Kant seeks to demonstrate the essential role played by the categories in grounding the possibility of knowledge and experience. The answer to question three is found in the Transcendental Dialectic, and it is a resoundingly blunt conclusion: the synthetic a priori propositions that characterize metaphysics are not really possible at all. Metaphysics, that is, is inherently dialectical. Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason is thus as well known for what it rejects as for what it defends. Thus, in the Dialectic, Kant turns his attention to the central disciplines of traditional, rationalist, metaphysics — rational psychology, rational cosmology, and rational theology. Kant aims to reveal the errors that plague each of these fields.

1. Preliminary Remarks: The Rejection of Ontology (general metaphysics) and the Transcendental Analytic

2.1 the theory of reason and transcendental illusion, 2.2 hypostatization and subreption, 3. the soul and rational psychology, 4.1 the mathematical antinomies, 4.2 the dynamical antinomies, 5.1 the ontological argument, 5.2 the other proofs, 6. reason and the appendix to the transcendental dialectic, relevant works by kant (includes german editions and translations):, selected secondary readings on topics in kant’s dialectic, other internet resources, related entries.

Despite the fact that Kant devotes an entirely new section of the Critique to the branches of special metaphysics, his criticisms reiterate some of the claims already defended in both the Transcendental Aesthetic and the Transcendental Analytic. Indeed, two central teachings from these earlier portions of the Critique — the transcendental ideality of space and time, and the critical limitation of all application of the concepts of the understanding to “appearances” — already carry with them Kant’s rejection of “ontology ( metaphysica generalis ).” Accordingly, in the Transcendental Analytic Kant argues against any attempt to acquire knowledge of “objects in general” through the formal concepts and principles of the understanding, taken by themselves alone. In this connection, Kant denies that the principles or rules of either general logic (e.g., the principle of contradiction), or those of his own “transcendental logic” (the pure concepts of the understanding) by themselves yield knowledge of objects. These claims follow from Kant’s well-known “kind distinction” between the understanding and sensibility, together with the view that knowledge requires the cooperation of both faculties. This position, articulated throughout the Analytic, entails that independently of their application to intuitions, the concepts and principles of the understanding are mere forms of thought which cannot yield knowledge of objects.

For if no intuition could be given corresponding to the concept, the concept would still be a thought, so far as its form is concerned, but would be without any object, and no knowledge of anything would be possible by means of it. So far as I could know, there would be nothing, and could be nothing, to which my thought could be applied. B146

We thus find one general complaint about efforts to acquire metaphysical knowledge: the use of formal concepts and principles, in abstraction from the sensible conditions under which objects can be given, cannot yield knowledge. Hence, the “transcendental” use of the understanding (its use independently of the conditions of sensibility) is considered by Kant to be dialectical, to involve erroneous applications of concepts in order to acquire knowledge of things independently of sensibility/experience. Throughout the Analytic Kant elaborates on this general view, noting that the transcendental employment of the understanding, which aims towards knowledge of things independently of experience (and thus knowledge of “noumena”), is illicit (cf. A246/B303). It is in this connection that Kant states, famously, in the Analytic, that “…the proud name of ontology, which presumes to offer synthetic a priori cognitions of things in general… must give way to the more modest title of a transcendental analytic” (cf. A247/B304). Filling this out, Kant suggests that to take ourselves to have unmediated intellectual access to objects (to have “non-sensible” knowledge) correlates with the assumption that there are non-sensible objects that we can know. To assume this, however, is to conflate “phenomena” (or appearances) with “noumena” (or things in themselves). The failure to draw the distinction between appearances and things in themselves is the hallmark of all those pernicious systems of thought that stand under the title of “transcendental realism.” Kant’s transcendental idealism is the remedy for these.

2. The Rejection of Special Metaphysics and the Transcendental Dialectic

Kant’s rejection of the more specialized branches of metaphysics is grounded in part on this earlier claim, to wit, that any attempt to apply the concepts and principles of the understanding independently of the conditions of sensibility (i.e., any transcendental use of the understanding) is illicit. Thus, one of Kant’s main complaints is that metaphysicians seek to deduce a priori synthetic knowledge simply from the unschematized (pure) concepts of the understanding. The effort to acquire metaphysical knowledge through concepts alone, however, is doomed to fail, according to Kant, because (in its simplest formulation) “concepts without intuitions are empty” (A52/B76).

Although this general charge is certainly a significant part of Kant’s complaint, the story does not stop there. In turning to the specific disciplines of special metaphysics (those concerning the soul, the world, and God), Kant devotes a considerable amount of time discussing the human interests that nevertheless pull us into the thorny questions and controversies that characterize special metaphysics. These interests are of two types, and include theoretical goals of achieving completeness and systematic unity of knowledge, and practical interests in securing the immortality of the soul, freedom, and the existence of God. Despite their contributions to metaphysical illusion, Kant tells us that the goals and interests in question are unavoidable, inevitable, and inherent in the very nature of human reason. In the Introduction to the Transcendental Dialectic Kant thus introduces “reason” as the locus of these metaphysical interests.

The emphasis on reason in this connection is important, and it links up with the project of Kant’s “critique” of pure reason. A major component of this critique involves illuminating the basis in reason for our efforts to draw erroneous metaphysical conclusions (to employ concepts “transcendentally”), despite the fact that such use has already been shown (in the Transcendental Analytic) to be illicit. What emerges in the Dialectic is a more complex story, one in which Kant seeks to disclose and critique the “transcendental ground” that leads to the misapplications of thought which characterize specific metaphysical arguments. In developing the position that our metaphysical propensities are grounded in the “very nature of human reason,” Kant (in the Introduction to the Dialectic) relies on a conception of reason as a capacity for syllogistic reasoning. This logical function of reason resides in the formal activity of subsuming propositions under ever more general principles in order to systematize, unify, and “bring to completion” the knowledge given through the real use of the understanding (A306/B363-A308/B365). Kant thus characterizes this activity as one which seeks “conditions” for everything that is conditioned. It is therefore central to this Kantian conception of reason that it is preoccupied with the “unconditioned which would stop the regress of conditions by providing a condition that is not itself conditioned in its turn.”

The demand for the unconditioned is essentially a demand for ultimate explanation, and links up with the rational prescription to secure systematic unity and completeness of knowledge. Reason, in short, is in the business of ultimately accounting for all things. As Kant formulates this interest of reason in the first Critique , it is characterized by the logical maxim or precept: “ Find for the conditioned knowledge given through the understanding the unconditioned whereby its unity is brought to completion ” (A308/B364). It is central to Kant’s Dialectic that this requirement for systematic unity and completeness of knowledge is inherent in the very nature of our reason. Controversially, Kant does not take it that this demand for the unconditioned is something we can dismiss, nor does he take the interests we have in metaphysics to be merely products of misguided enthusiasm.

Although the demand for the unconditioned is inherent in the very nature of our reason, although it is unavoidable and indispensably necessary, Kant nevertheless does not take it to be without problems of a unique sort; for the very same demand that guides our rational scientific inquiries and defines our (human) reason is also the locus of error that needs to be curbed or prevented. In connection with this principle, then, Kant also identifies reason as the seat of a unique kind of error, one that is essentially linked up with metaphysical propensities, and one which he refers to as “transcendental illusion [ transzendentale Illusion ].” Kant identifies transcendental illusion with the propensity to “take a subjective necessity of a connection of our concepts…for an objective necessity in the determination of things in themselves” (A297/B354). Very generally, Kant’s claim is that it is a peculiar feature of reason that it unavoidably takes its own subjective interests and principles to hold “objectively.” And it is this propensity, this “transcendental illusion,” according to Kant, that paves the way for metaphysics. Reason plays this role by generating principles and interests that incite us to defy the limitations of knowledge already detailed in the Transcendental Analytic. The Introduction to the Transcendental Dialectic is therefore interesting for Kant’s presentation of reason as a presumably distinct capacity for cognizing in a way that, as Kant puts it, incites us to tear down the boundaries already enforced in the Analytic (cf. A296/B352). Kant refers to this capacity of reason as one that leads to the specifically transcendent judgments that characterize metaphysics. Thus, the Transcendental Dialectic is said to be concerned “to expose the illusion in transcendent judgments” (A297/B354). Indeed, Dialectic is defined as “the logic of illusion [ Schein] ” (A293/B350).

The central problem is that the above prescription to seek the unconditioned presents to reason as a metaphysical principle that tells us that the unconditioned is already given , and is (as it were) “there” to be found. This problematic principle is formulated by Kant as follows : “If the conditioned is given, the absolutely unconditioned… is also given” (A308/B366). This “supreme principle of pure reason” provides the background assumption under which the metaphysician proceeds. These claims set the agenda for Kant’s project, which involves showing not simply that the metaphysical arguments are fallacious, but also exposing their source in reason’s more general illusions.

Kant has been traditionally taken to be offering a method of avoiding the insidious “transcendental illusion” that gives rise to metaphysics. Read in this way, Kant’s Dialectic offers a criticism not only of the specific arguments of metaphysics, but also of transcendent, metaphysical (speculative or theoretical) interests and propensities themselves . This certainly accords with much in the Dialectic, and specifically with Kant’s well-known claim that knowledge has to be limited to possible experience. Kant, however, complicates things somewhat by also stating repeatedly that the illusion that grounds metaphysics (roughly, that the unconditioned is already given) is unavoidable. Moreover, Kant sometimes suggests that such illusion is somehow necessary for our epistemological projects (cf. A645/B673). In this connection, Kant argues that the transcendent ideas and principles of reason do have a positive role to play in knowledge acquisition, so long as they are construed “regulatively” and not “constitutively.” He thus suggests that rather than jettison the ideas of metaphysical objects (something, it seems, he does not think we are in a position to do), it is best to identify the proper use and function of these ideas and principles. This critical reinterpretation involves the claim that the ideas and principles of reason are to be used “regulatively,” as devices for guiding and grounding our empirical investigations and the project of knowledge acquisition. What the ideas do not do, according to Kant, is provide the concepts through which we might access objects that could be known through the speculative use of reason.

The need for this critical reinterpretation stems from the fact that reason’s demand for the unconditioned cannot be met or satisfied. The absolutely “unconditioned,” regardless of the fact that it presents to reason as objective, is not an object or state of affairs that could be captured in any possible human experience. In emphasizing this last point, Kant identifies metaphysics with an effort to acquire knowledge of “objects” conceived, but in no wise given (or giveable) to us in experience. In its efforts to bring knowledge to completion, that is, reason posits certain ideas, the “soul,” the “world” and “God.” Each of these ideas represents reason’s efforts to think the unconditioned in relation to various sets of objects that are experienced by us as conditioned.

It is this general theory of reason, as a capacity to think (by means of “ideas”) beyond all standards of sense, and as carrying with it a unique and unavoidable demand for the unconditioned, that frames the Kantian rejection of metaphysics. At the heart of that rejection is the view that although reason is unavoidably motivated to seek the unconditioned, its theoretical efforts to achieve it are inevitably sterile. The ideas which might secure such unconditioned knowledge lack objective reality (refer to no object), and our misguided efforts to acquire ultimate metaphysical knowledge are led astray by the illusion which, according to Kant, “unceasingly mocks and torments us” (A339/B397).

The Dialectic is concerned to undermine three distinct branches of special metaphysics in the philosophical tradition: Rational Psychology, Rational Cosmology and Rational Theology. Each of these disciplines seeks to acquire knowledge of a particular metaphysical “object” — the “soul,” the “world,” and “God,” respectively. This being stated, the Dialectic proceeds systematically to undermine the arguments specific to each of these disciplines—arguments about, for example, the nature of the soul and the world, and the existence of God. Despite the difference in their objects, however, there are a number of problems shared by all the disciplines of special metaphysics. In its most general terms, the central problem with each of these attempts has to do with the fact that the alleged “objects” under consideration are “transcendent.” Although we think the soul, the world, and God (necessarily) as objects, these ideas actually lack objective reality (there is no object corresponding to the ideas that is or could be given to us in any intuition). It is thus not uncommon to find Kant referring to these alleged metaphysical entities as “mere thought entities,” “fictions of the brain,” or “pseudo objects.” Although the Dialectic does not presume to prove that such objects do not or could not exist, Kant is committed by the strictures of his own transcendental epistemology to the claim that the ideas of reason do not provide us with concepts of “knowable” objects. For this reason alone, the efforts of the metaphysicians are presumptuous, and at the very least, an epistemological modesty precludes the knowledge that is sought.

For more on Kant’s theory of illusion, see Allison (2004), Butts (1997), Grier (2001, forthcoming), Neiman (1994), Theis (1985), Bird (2006). See also Ameriks (2006), Dyck (2014).

There are two noteworthy themes implicit in Kant’s criticism of metaphysics. First, Kant offers an account and critique of the ideas of reason specific to each discipline. In relation to this, the general theory of reason plays a role in Kant’s efforts to argue against the “hypostatization” of each of the ideas. More specifically, Kant’s criticism of the metaphysical disciplines centers on his efforts to show that the ideas of reason (the soul, the world and God), which are thought in accordance with the demand for an unconditioned that could unify the relevant domain of conditions, get erroneously “hypostatized” by reason, or thought as mind-independent “objects” about which we might seek knowledge. In the same way, that is, that the prescription to seek the unconditioned appears to reason as an objective principle, so too, the subjective ideas appear to reason as objects existing in a mind-independent way. Kant’s aim is to secure the subjective ideas while enforcing their subjective status, and thereby defusing the metaphysics that attends to them.

Thus, Kant’s criticism of metaphysics simultaneously involves denying the pure use of theoretical reason as an instrument for knowledge of transcendent objects, and defending reason’s ideas as projections or goals that have some significant role to play in the overall project of knowledge acquisition. As we shall see, Kant unfortunately is not as clear as we might like on this issue. Sometimes, he seems to argue that the ideas and principles of reason play a merely heuristic role in guiding and systematizing the knowledge already obtained. Other times, he suggests that these ideas are deeply essential to the project of knowledge acquisition, and that their presupposition is utterly necessary if we are to acquire knowledge. Regardless of how the matter is to be resolved, it is clear that Kant’s criticism of metaphysics does not entail any straightforward rejection of the ideas and principles of reason. Indeed, it appears to be precisely the rational constraint to move to the ideas of reason that binds us to our metaphysical propensities and which thus demands a critique of the kind offered by Kant.

In addition to criticizing the “hypostatization” of the ideas of reason, Kant seeks to expose the “subreptions” involved in the use of the ideas. The term “subreption” refers to a fallacy that specifically involves the surreptitious substitution of different kinds of terms and concepts. Kant usually uses the term to refer to the error of confusing or substituting concepts and principles meant for use in experience (those which properly apply to appearances) with principles of “pure reason.” By this means, a concept or principle which is a condition of our experience (e.g., the principle of apperception) is used in a way that assumes its applications to “objects in general” or things in themselves. Alternatively, a most general, formal, principle that would only hold for things in general is taken, by itself alone, to yield knowledge about appearances. This second kind of criticism found throughout the Dialectic thus pertains to Kant’s efforts to expose the subreptions that ground the illusory metaphysical arguments. Ultimately, Kant will also seek to reveal the very specific formal fallacies that vitiate the metaphysical arguments, to demonstrate that (although they have the appearance of soundness) the positions in each case are implicitly grounded in, or deploy, dialectical uses of terms and concepts, misapplications of principles, and conflations of appearances with things in themselves. What we find in Kant’s criticism of metaphysics, in other words, is a complex account, one grounded in a fairly robust theory of human reason. Accordingly, he identifies reason as the locus of certain principles and propensities, and certain “illusions,” which cooperate with misapplications of concepts and principles to create the errors already exposed in the Transcendental Analytic. Although this variety of aims and complaints certainly complicates Kant’s discussions in the Dialectic, it also makes for a richer and more penetrating criticism of metaphysics.

One historically predominant metaphysical interest has to do with identifying the nature and the constitution of the soul. Partly for practical reasons, partly for theoretical explanation, reason forms the idea of a metaphysically simple being, the soul. Such an idea is motivated by reason’s demand for the unconditioned. Kant puts this point in a number of ways, suggesting that the idea of the soul is one to which we are led necessarily insofar as we are constrained by reason to seek the “totality” of the “synthesis of conditions of a thought in general” (A397), or insofar as we seek to represent “the unconditioned unity” of “subjective conditions of representations in general” (A406/B433). More straightforwardly, Kant states that a metaphysics of the soul is generated by the demand for the “absolute (unconditioned) unity of the thinking subject itself” (A334/B391). The branch of metaphysics devoted to this topic is Rational Psychology. Rational psychologists, among whom Descartes or Leibniz would serve as apt historical examples, seek to demonstrate, for example, the substantiality, simplicity, and personal identity of the soul. Each such inference, however, involves concluding “from the transcendental concept of the subject, which contains nothing manifold, the absolute unity of this subject itself, of which I possess no concept whatsoever” (A340/B398). In other words, Kant takes the rational psychologist to slide (mistakenly) from formal features of our self concept to material or substantive metaphysical claims about an alleged (super-sensible) object (the soul).

An essential aspect of all these arguments, according to Kant, is their attempt to derive conclusions about the nature and constitution of the “soul” a priori , simply from an analysis of the activity of thinking. A classic example of such an attempt is provided by Descartes, who deduced the substantiality of the self from the proposition (or, perhaps better, the activity) “I think.” This move is apparent in the Cartesian inference from “I think” to the claim that the “I” is therefore “a thing” that thinks. For Descartes, this move is unproblematic: thought is an attribute, and thus presupposes a substance in which it inheres. Kant emphasizes the a priori basis for the metaphysical doctrine of the soul by claiming that in rational psychology, the “I think” is supposed to provide the “sole text” (A343–4/B401–02). It is this feature of the discipline that serves to distinguish it from any empirical doctrine of the self (any empirical psychology), and which secures its status as a “metaphysics” that purports to provide synthetic a priori knowledge.

Kant’s criticisms of rational psychology draw on a number of distinct sources, one of which is the Kantian doctrine of apperception, or transcendental self-consciousness (often formulated in terms of the necessary possibility of attaching the “I think” to all my representations (B132)). Kant denies that the metaphysician is entitled to his substantive conclusions on the grounds that the activity of self-consciousness does not yield any object for thought. Nevertheless, reason is guided by its projecting and objectifying propensities. In accordance with these, self-consciousness is “hypostatized,” or objectified. Here again, Kant claims that a “natural illusion” compels us to take the apperceived unity of consciousness as an intuition of an object (A402). The ineliminably subjective nature of self-consciousness, and the elusiveness of the “I” in the context of that activity, are thus the well known bases for Kant’s response to rational psychology, and the doctrine of apperception plays an important role in Kant’s rejection. For in each case, Kant thinks that a feature of self-consciousness (the essentially subjectival, unitary and identical nature of the “I” of apperception) gets transmuted into a metaphysics of a self (as an object) that is ostensibly “known” through reason alone to be substantial, simple, identical, etc. This slide from the “I” of apperception to the constitution of an object (the soul) has received considerable attention in the secondary literature, and has fueled a great deal of attention to the Kantian theory of mind and mental activity.

The claim that the ‘I’ of apperception yields no object of knowledge (for it is not itself an object, but only the “vehicle” for any representation of objectivity as such) is fundamental to Kant’s critique of rational psychology. Kant thus spends a considerable amount of time arguing that no object is given in transcendental self-consciousness, and thus that the rational psychologist’s efforts to discern features of the self, construed as a metaphysical entity, through reason alone are without merit. To elucidate the ways in which the rational psychologist is nevertheless seduced into making this slide from formal representations of self consciousness to a metaphysics of the self, Kant examines each of the psychological arguments, maintaining that all such arguments about the soul are dialectical. He refers to the arguments designed to draw such conclusions, “transcendental paralogisms”, and hence the chapter of the Critique that criticizes rational psychology goes by the name “The Paralogisms of Pure Reason.” A transcendental paralogism, according to Kant, is a “syllogism in which one is constrained, by a transcendental ground, to draw a formally invalid conclusion” (A341/B399). Kant’s subsequent efforts are thus directed towards demonstrating the paralogistic (fallacious) nature of the arguments about the soul.

Kant’s diagnosis of the fallacies has received considerable attention, and has generated considerable controversy. In each case, Kant tells us, the argument is guilty of the fallacy of sophisma figurae dictionis , or the fallacy of equivocation/ambiguous middle. Kant suggests that in each of the syllogisms, a term is used in different senses in the major and minor premises. Consider the first paralogism, the argument that allegedly deduces the substantiality of the soul. In the A edition, Kant formulates the argument as follows:

That the representation of which is the absolute subject of our judgments and cannot be employed as determination of any other thing, is substance. I, as thinking being, am the absolute subject of all my possible judgments and this representation of myself cannot be employed as determination of any other thing. Therefore, I, as thinking being (soul), am substance. (A349)

Kant locates the equivocation contained in the argument in the use of the term “substance.” According to Kant, the major premise uses this term “transcendentally” whereas the minor premise and conclusion use the same term “empirically.” (A403). What Kant appears to mean is this: the major premise deploys the term “substance” in a very general way, one which abstracts from the conditions of our sensible intuition (space and time). As such, the major premise simply offers the most general definition of substance, and thus expresses the most general rule in accordance with which objects might be able to be thought as substances. Nevertheless, in order to apply the concept of substance in such a way as to determine an object, the category would have to be used empirically. Unfortunately, such an empirical use is precluded by the fact that the alleged object to which it is being applied is not empirical. Even more problematically, on Kant’s view, there is no object given at all . In Kantian jargon, the category only yields knowledge of objects if it is “schematized,” applied to given objects under the conditions of time.

This same kind of complaint is lodged against each of the paralogistic syllogisms that characterize Rational Psychology. Thus, Kant argues against the inference to the simplicity of the soul, by remarking that the psychologist surreptitiously deduces the actual simplicity of a metaphysical object simply from the formal features of subjectivity (the fact that the “I” is unitary in our representational economy). The personal identity of the soul is attacked on similar grounds. In each case the metaphysical conclusion is said to be drawn only by an equivocation in the use or meaning of a concept of the understanding.

This illustrates Kant’s efforts to demonstrate the fallacious nature of the arguments that characterize metaphysics, as well as his interest in identifying the sources of such errors. Given this, Kant’s criticisms of rational psychology are not as straightforward as one might expect, for embedded in his criticisms of rational psychology are actually a number of distinct charges: 1) The idea of the soul, although it is one to which we are naturally led in our quest for the unconditioned ground of thought, does not correspond to any object that is (or could be) actually given to us in intuition. The hypostatization of this idea, therefore, although it may be natural, is deeply problematic. 2) Because the idea of the soul does not yield, by itself alone, any knowable object, the arguments about it, although they may have the appearance of being legitimate, in fact involve dialectical applications of concepts. The arguments, in other words, involve fallacies that vitiate their conclusions. 3) The arguments are traceable back to certain features of human reason that may not be eradicated, but that can and ought to be curbed and critically reinterpreted. More specifically, the demand for the unconditioned, and the idea of the soul to which it gives rise, may be construed regulatively as devices for guiding inquiries, but never constitutively — never, that is, as yielding grounds for any a priori synthetic knowledge of a metaphysical self given immediately to pure reason.

Kant’s Paralogisms have received considerable and focused attention in the secondary literature. See Ameriks (1992), Brook (1994), Kitcher, Patricia (1990), Powell (1990), Sellars (1969, 1971), Wolff, R. P. (1963). There are also excellent discussions to be found in Allison (1983, 2004), Bennett (1974), Buroker (2006), Grier (2001, forthcoming), Guyer (1987), Wuerth (2010, 2021) (2010), Bird (2006), Ameriks (2006), Melnick (2006), Dyck (2014), Proops (2010), Willaschek (2018)

4. The World and Rational Cosmology

The second discipline of rationalist metaphysics rejected by Kant is Rational Cosmology. Rational cosmology is concerned with the arguments about the nature and constitution of the “world,” understood as the sum-total of all appearances (objects and events in space and time) (A420/B448). The arguments about the world occupy an especially important place in Kant’s rejection of metaphysics. Not only does Kant address himself to the task of discounting the metaphysical arguments in cosmology, but the resolution to some of these conflicts provides, he claims, an indirect argument for his own transcendental idealism.

The arguments about the world are referred to by Kant as “antinomies” because in the field of cosmology, reason gives rise to sets of opposing arguments (the “thesis” and the “antithesis”) with respect to each issue. Thus, the case here differs from the paralogisms (and, as we shall see, from the Ideal). The reason for this difference resides in the nature of the idea of reason in question. The idea of the “world” purports to be an idea of an unconditioned but somehow still sensible object (cf. A479/B509). Unlike the soul and God, which are clearly supposed to be non-sensible metaphysical entities, the sum total of all appearances refers specifically to spatio-temporal objects or events. Kant highlights this unique feature of the idea of the world by noting that whereas the ideas of the soul and God are “pseudo-rational,” the idea of the world is “pseudo-empirical.” It is precisely this feature of the idea (that it both purports to refer to a somehow sensible object AND that it involves thinking that object as already given in its unconditioned totality) that leads to the two opposed sets of arguments. For with respect to each problem addressed (the finitude vs. the infinitude of the world, freedom vs. causality, etc.), one can either adopt a broadly “dogmatic” (Platonic) or broadly “empiricist” (Epicurean) approach, each reflecting a different way of thinking the totality of conditions (See A471–2/B499–500). More specifically, one can either think the unconditioned as an intelligible ground of appearances, or as the total (even if infinite) set of all appearances. Unfortunately, each of these conceptual strategies is unsatisfying. To accommodate the thesis interest in ultimate (intelligible) beginnings is to posit something “too big” for the understanding, something that is never to be met with empirically (e.g., freedom, ultimately simple substances). Thus, although the thesis positions satisfy reason’s demand for the unconditioned, they do so by fleeing (however unwittingly) into an intelligible realm, by providing explanations that abstract from that which is or could be given in any spatio-temporal experience. But adopting the empiricist approach is no more rewarding, in the final analysis; although the antithesis positions remain securely lodged within “nature’s own resources,” they can never measure up to the demands of reason’s ideas. Such a strategy is “too small” for reason which, even despite its capacity to think beyond all standards of sense and by its demand for more thorough explanation. Worse, the antithesis arguments, in refusing to go beyond the spatio-temporal realm, end up being just as dogmatic as their opposites, for the assumption is that whatever holds within space and time also holds generally. To assume this is to take what are for Kant merely subjective features of our intuition (forms of sensibility, space and time) to be universal ontological conditions holding of everything whatsoever.

Because both sides to the cosmological disputes seem to be able to argue successfully against the opposite, Kant finds in the antinomies a dramatic exhibition of the “conflict” into which reason inevitably falls (and in which it will remain) so long as it fails to adopt his own transcendental distinction between appearances and things in themselves. The historical debacle of reason’s conflict with itself provides Kant with a dramatic exhibition of the vacillation of reason between two alternatives, neither of which it can accept (or dismiss) without dissatisfaction. Left unresolved, this conflict leads to the “euthanasia of pure reason” (A407/B434), in the sense of provoking skeptical despair.

There are four “antinomies” of pure reason, and Kant divides them into two classes. The first two antinomies are dubbed “mathematical” antinomies, presumably because in each case, we are concerned with the relation between what are alleged to be sensible objects (either the world itself, or objects in it) and space and time. An important and fundamental aspect of Kant’s rejection of each of these sets of arguments rests on his view that each of these conflicts is traceable back to a fundamental error, an error that can be discerned, according to Kant, in the following dialectical syllogism:

If the conditioned is given, then the whole series of conditions, a series which is therefore itself absolutely unconditioned, is also given Objects of the senses are given as conditioned Consequently, the entire series of all conditions of objects of the senses is already given. (cf. A497/B525).

There are a number of problems with this argument, according to Kant. Obviously, one problem is located in the major premise, in the assumption that the unconditioned is “already given.” The problem, maintains Kant, is that such a totality is never to be met with in experience. The rational assumption that the total series of all conditions is already given would hold only for things in themselves. In the realm of appearances, the totality is never given to us, as finite discursive knowers. The most we are entitled to say, with respect to appearances, is that the unconditioned is set as a task , that there is a rational prescription to continue to seek explanations (A498/B526-A500/B528). As finite (sensible) cognizers, however, we shall never achieve an absolute completion of knowledge. To assume that we can do so is to adopt the theocentric model of knowledge characteristic of the dreaded transcendental realist.

This hypostatization of the idea of the world, the fact that it is taken to be a mind-independent object, acts as the underlying assumption motivating both parties to the two mathematical antinomies. The first antinomy concerns the finitude or infinitude of the spatio-temporal world. The thesis argument seeks to show that the world in space and time is finite, i.e., has a beginning in time and a limit in space. The antithesis counters that it is infinite with regard to both space and time. The second antinomy concerns the ultimate constitution of objects in the world, with the thesis arguing for ultimately simple substances, whereas the antithesis argues that objects are infinitely divisible. In this, the thesis positions are each concerned to bring the explanatory effort to a close, by arguing for ultimate or, as Kant says, “intelligible beginnings” (cf. A466/B494). The claim that there is a “first beginning” or an ultimately simple substance is sustained only by abstracting from the spatio-temporal framework. The alleged proponent of the antithesis arguments, on the other hand, refuses any conclusion that goes beyond the sensible conditions of space and time. According to the antithesis arguments, the world is infinite in both space and time (these being infinite as well), and bodies are (in accordance with the infinite divisibility of space) also infinitely divisible.

In each of these antinomial conflicts, reason finds itself at an impasse. Satisfying the demands placed by our rational capacity to think beyond experience, the thesis arguments offer what appears to be a satisfying resting-place for explanation. The antithesis charges that such a strategy fails to find any confirmation, and, citing the unjustified flight into an intelligible realm, lodges itself squarely in the domain of “experience.” In each of these cases, the conflicts are resolved by demonstrating that the conclusions drawn on both sides are false.

How does Kant demonstrate this? Both the thesis and antithesis arguments are apagogic, i.e., that they constitute indirect proofs. An indirect proof establishes its conclusion by showing the impossibility of its opposite. Thus, for example, we may want to know, as in the first antinomy, whether the world is finite or infinite. We can seek to show that it is finite by demonstrating the impossibility of its infinitude. Alternatively, we may demonstrate the infinitude of the world by showing that it is impossible that it is finite. This is exactly what the thesis and antithesis arguments purport to do, respectively. The same strategy is deployed in the second antinomy, where the proponent of the thesis position argues for the necessity of some ultimately simple substance by showing the impossibility of infinite divisibility of substance, etc.

Obviously, the success of the proofs depends on the legitimacy of the exclusive disjunction agreed to by both parties. Both parties, that is, assume that “there is a world,” and that it is, for example, “either finite or infinite.” Herein lies the problem, according to Kant. The world is, for Kant, neither finite nor infinite. The opposition between these two alternatives is merely dialectical. In the cosmological debates, each party to the dispute falls prey to the ambiguity in the idea of the world.

Kant thus structures his analysis of the mathematical antinomies by appealing to the general dialectical syllogism presented at the end of section 4.0 (If the conditioned is given, the unconditioned is given, Objects of the senses are given as conditioned....etc.). Problems stem from the application of the principle expressed in the first premise to the objects of the senses (appearances). Here again, Kant diagnoses the error or fallacy contained in this syllogism as that of ambiguous middle. He claims that the major premise uses the term “the conditioned” transcendentally, as a pure concept, whereas the minor premise uses the term ‘empirically’ – that is as a “concept of the understanding applied to mere appearances” (cf. A499–500/B527–528). What Kant means is that the major premise uses the term “the conditioned” in a very general way, one that considers things in abstraction from the sensible conditions of our intuition. The minor premise, however, which specifically refers to objects in space and time (appearances), is committed to an empirical use of the term. Indeed, such an empirical use would have to be deployed, if the conclusion is to be reached. The conclusion is that the entire series of all conditions of appearances is actually given. Put in other terms, the conclusion is that there is a world, understood as the sum total of all appearances and their conditions (A420/B448).

In the dynamical antinomies, Kant changes his strategy somewhat. Rather than arguing (as in the mathematical antinomies) that both conclusions are false , Kant suggests that both sides to the dispute might turn out to be correct. This option is available here, and not in the two mathematical antinomies, because the proponents of the thesis arguments are not committing themselves solely to claims about spatio-temporal objects. In the third antinomy, the thesis contends that in addition to mechanistic causality, we must posit some first uncaused causal power (Transcendental Freedom), while the antithesis denies anything but mechanistic causality. Here, then, the debate is the standard (though in this case, the specifically cosmological) dispute between freedom and determinism. Finally, in the fourth antinomy, the requirement for a necessary being is pitted against its opposite. The thesis position argues for a necessary being, whereas the antithesis denies that there is any such being.

In both cases the thesis opts for a position that is abstracted from the spatio-temporal framework, and thus adopts the broadly Platonic view. The postulation of freedom amounts to the postulation of a non-temporal cause, a causality outside the series of appearances in space and time (A451/B479). Similarly, in its efforts to argue for a “necessary being,” reason is forced (against its own argument) into a non-sensible realm. If there is a necessary being, it will have to be “outside” the series of appearances: “Either, therefore, reason through its demand for the unconditioned must remain in conflict with itself, or this unconditioned must be posited outside the series, in the intelligible” (A564/B592). The rational necessity of postulating such a necessary being or a causality of freedom satisfies the rational demand for intelligible explanation. Against this, the antithesis rightly notes that the conception of transcendental freedom, or a necessary being, again represents an attempt to abstract from “nature’s own resources” (A451–2/B479–80). Insofar as the antithesis denies the justification for doing this, of course, it is said to adopt a broadly Epicurean standpoint. The problem here, however, is that in refusing to move beyond “nature’s own resources,” the antithesis surreptitiously smuggles in spatio-temporal conditions as the basis for a universal ontological claim that nevertheless transcends all experience. If space and time were things in themselves, then of course the application of the demand for this unconditioned would be warranted. Kant’s view, however, is that space and time are not conditions of things in themselves.

The resolution to these antinomies here consists in giving each side its due, but simultaneously limiting the domain over which the claims hold. The thesis demand for an absolute causal beginning or a necessary being might well be allowed to stand, but certainly not as “part of” or as an explication of appearances in nature. Similarly, the antithesis conclusions can stand, but only in relation to objects in nature, considered as appearances. Here, the conflict seems irresolvable only on the assumption that appearances are things in themselves. If appearances were things in themselves, for example, then it would certainly seem true that either they are one and all subject to mechanistic causality, or not. In such a case, it makes sense both to argue for a non-temporal beginning and to deny such a beginning. Left unresolved, then, this antinomy leaves us wit the following dilemma: on the assumption of transcendental realism, both nature and freedom seem to be undermined. To avoid this, Kant appeals to transcendental idealism, which is supposed to rescue reason from the conflict. Given transcendental idealism (with its distinction between appearances and things in themselves) it remains possible that in addition to the mechanism of nature, or contingent existence, there is an intelligible causal power, or a necessary being.

Detailed discussions of Kant’s antinomies can be found in Al-Azm (1972), Bennett, (1974), Grier (2001, 2006, forthcoming), Guyer (1987), Heimsoeth (1967), Strawson (1966), Thiel (2006), Watkins (1998, 2000), Van Cleve (1984). See also Allison (1983), and Walsh (1975). See also Bird (2006), Wood (2010), Wuerth (2021), Willaschek (2018).

5. God and Rational Theology

The metaphysical drive, and the demand for the unconditioned, seem to find their natural resting place in the idea of God, an absolutely necessary and supremely real being, the concept of which “contains a therefore for every wherefore” (A585/B613). It is here, in the concept of God, that the demands for systematic unity and completeness of knowledge find their “objective correlate.” Kant refers to this idea as an Ideal, suggesting it defines itself as a “concept of an individual object which is completely determined through the mere idea” (A574/B602). The Ideal represents the highest singular manifestation of reason’s demand for the unconditioned.

The last area of metaphysics under attack, then, is Rational Theology. Kant’s criticism of rational theology is complicated by his desire to elucidate the sources of the dialectical errors, which he will expose in relation to the specific arguments for God’s existence. (“…Merely to describe the procedure of our reason and its dialectic does not suffice; we must also endeavor to discover the sources of this dialectic, that we may explain…the illusion to which it has given rise” (A581/B607).) Kant thus spends a considerable amount of time tracing the idea of God back to its rational, speculative, sources. According to Kant, “….the Ideal …is based on a natural, not a merely arbitrary idea” (A581/B607). On this score, Kant wants to tell us that we are compelled to think the idea of God (the ens realissimum ) when pursuing certain speculative or philosophical interests. More specifically, the idea of a supremely real being (the ens realissimum ) is one to which we are inevitably led during our attempts to account for the pure possibility of things in general. The upshot that the idea of the ens realissimum is not an arbitrary or easily dispensable one. Instead, Kant suggests that reason is philosophically constrained to move to such an idea in its efforts to thoroughly determine every thing. Such efforts require thinking the totality, or “All” of reality (the omnitudo realitatis ). Such an idea is philosophically required because, in our efforts to thoroughly determine each thing (to know it completely, specify it exhaustively), we must be able to say, of every possible predicate and its contradictory ( p v ˜ p ) which of the two holds of the thing in question. (For every object, it is either A or not A , either B or not B , etc., and this process is iterated until each predicate pair (each positive reality) is exhausted — Kant clearly has a Leibnizian procedure of complete determination in mind here.) This process is parasitic upon the idea of “sum total of all predicates of things in general.” Or, put in another way, we represent “every thing as deriving its own possibility from the share it has in the whole of possibility” (A572/B600). Such an idea, the All of reality, however, defines itself as an individual thing, and leads us to the representation of the “supremely real being.” The problem seems to come in, according to Kant, when the “All” of reality gets hypostatized, and (eventually) personified, thus yielding the ens realissimum (cf. A583/B611n). Here again, Kant thinks that this idea itself gets transmuted into the notion of a given object by virtue of a unique subreption, whereby we dialectically substitute for a principle that is only meant for empirical employment one which holds of things in general. The argument Kant offers is excruciating, but the essential point is that, just as the idea of the soul involved the subreption of the hypostatized consciousness, so too, the idea of the ens realissimum is generated by both a subrepted principle and a hypostatization.

As in the cases of both rational psychology and rational cosmology, then, one central problem thus has to do with the assumption that pure (speculative) reason yields any access to a transcendent object (in this case, God) about which it is entitled to seek a priori knowledge. Despite his insistence that the idea of God is indispensable and “inescapable” (cf. A584/B612), Kant again denies that we can acquire any theoretical knowledge of the alleged “object” thought through such an idea. On the one hand, then, the idea of God is “the crown of our endeavors.” On the other, as in the cases of both rational psychology and cosmology, the idea answers to no given and theoretically knowable object (A339/B397). Indeed, according to Kant, the idea of God should not lead us to “presuppose the existence of a being that corresponds to this ideal, but only the idea of such a being, and this only for the purpose of deriving from an unconditioned totality of complete determination the conditioned totality. i.e., the limited…” (A578/B606). As in the other disciplines of metaphysics, Kant suggests that we are motivated (perhaps even constrained) to represent the idea as a real object, to hypostatize it, in accordance the demand for the unconditioned:

Notwithstanding this pressing need of reason to presuppose something that may afford the understanding a sufficient foundation for the complete determination of its concepts, it is yet too easily conscious of the ideal and merely fictitious character of such a presuppostion to allow itself, on this ground alone, to be persuaded that a mere creature of its own thought is a real being — were it not that it is impelled from another direction to seek a resting place in the regress from the conditioned, which is given, to the unconditioned (A584/B612)

This demand for the unconditioned, according to Kant, links up with a demand for some ultimately necessary being. Reason, that is, ceaselessly demands the ground of all the contingent beings in existence, and will not rest until it settles on the absolutely necessary being which grounds them. The idea of the ens realissimum plays a singular role in satisfying this desire of reason, for of all concepts, it is that “which best squares with the concept of an unconditionally necessary being” (A586/B614). In fact, according to Kant rational theology is based on the coincidence of the rational demands for a supremely real being and for a being with absolutely necessary existence. If the movement to the idea of God, as the unconditioned ground, is inevitable, it is nevertheless as troublesome as the other rational ideas:

This unconditioned is not, indeed, given as being in itself real, nor as having a reality that follows from its mere concept; it is, however, what alone can complete the series of conditions when we proceed to trace these conditions to their grounds. This is the course which our human reason, by its very nature, leads all of us (A584/B612; cf. A584/B612n).

Thus, although Kant is most well known for his attacks on the specific arguments for God’s existence, his criticisms of rational theology are in fact more detailed, and involve a robust critique of the idea of God itself. This account of the rational origin and the importance of the idea of God clears the way for Kant’s rejection of the metaphysical arguments about God’s existence. Kant identifies three traditional arguments, the ontological, the cosmological, and the physico-theological (the argument from design). What all such arguments do is attempt to wed the idea of the ens realissimum with the notion of necessary existence. Whereas the Ontological argument moves from the concept of the ens realissimum to the claim that such a being exists necessarily, the Cosmological and physico-theological arguments move from some necessary being to the conclusion that such a being must be the ens realissimum .

Kant’s formulation of the ontological argument is fairly straightforward, and may be summarized as follows:

• God, the ens realissimum , is the concept of a being that contains all reality/predicates.
• Existence is a reality/predicate.
• Therefore God exists.

Kant’s identification of the errors involved in this argument are so varied that it seems surprising that he is so often simply said to have argued against the use of “existence” as a predicate. His first complaint is that it is “contradictory” insofar as it introduces “existence” into the “concept of a thing which we profess to be thinking solely in reference to its possibility” (A597/B625). This suggests that he thinks that in taking “all reality” to mean or include “existence,” the rational theologist begs the question, and already posits the analytic connection between the concept of the ens realissimum and necessary existence.

At the heart of this complaint is a more general one, to wit, that there is a problem with the attempt to infer anything as necessarily existing. Although, according to Kant, reason is unavoidably led to the notion of an absolutely necessary being, the understanding is in no position to identify any candidate answering to the idea. (cf. A592/B620). Clearly, the ontological argument is designed to show that, in fact, there is one (and only one) candidate answering to this idea, namely, the ens realissimum . But it does so by deducing the necessary existence from the concept of the ens realissimum (a being that contains all reality or predicates) only via the minor premise that “existence” is a predicate or reality. Kant, however, famously denies that existence is a “real predicate,” or determination. Thus, one criticism is that the argument conflates merely logical with real (determining) predicates. A real (determining) predicate is one that enlarges the concept to which it is attached. It seems clear that the locus of the error here, as in the other metaphysical disciplines, is the view that the idea of the ens realissimum provides us with a concept of an “object” to which it would be appropriate to apply categories or concepts in a determining way. Thus, included in Kant’s criticism is the claim that the category of existence is being subject to a transcendental misemployment (A598/B626). This misapplication of the category is problematic precisely because, according to Kant, we are dealing only with an object of pure thought, whose existence cannot be known (A602/B630).

If the ontological argument seeks to move from the concept of the ens realissimum to the concept of an absolutely necessary being, both the cosmological and physicotheological proofs move in the opposite direction. Each, that is, argues that there is something that must exist with absolute necessity and concludes that this being is the ens realissimum . Because these proofs aim to identify the ens realissimum with the necessary being, and because the attempt to do this requires an a priori argument (it cannot be demonstrated empirically), Kant thinks that they are both (ultimately) vitiated by their reliance on the ontological proof. More specifically, they are both mitigated by their assumption that the ens realissimum is the only object or candidate that can do the job of existing necessarily. Since he thinks that the ontological argument is in some sense implicitly relied upon in making such a claim, these arguments stand or fall with it. On Kant’s view, as we shall see, they fall.

The cosmological proof has, according to Kant, two parts. As above, the proponent of the argument first seeks to demonstrate the existence of an absolutely necessary being. Second, the rational cosmologist seeks to show that this absolutely necessary being is the ens realissimum .

As Kant formulates it, the cosmological argument is as follows:

If something exists, then an absolutely necessary being must also exist. I myself, at least, exist. Therefore an absolutely necessary being exists.

As above, the theist will ultimately want to identify this necessary being with the ens realissimum , an identification which Kant thinks surreptitiously smuggles in the (dialectical) ontological argument. The claim here is that the proponent of the cosmological argument is committed ultimately to accepting the ontological argument, given her attempt to identify the necessary being with the ens realissimum . Although this suggests that the cosmological argument relies on the ontological, Kant also indicates that the effort to produce a purely a priori argument for God’s existence (the ontological argument) itself gets momentum from reason’s need to find the necessary ground for existence in general, a need expressed in the cosmological argument (cf. A603–04/B631–32). This suggests that Kant takes the ontological and cosmological arguments to be complementary expressions of the one underlying rational demand for the unconditioned.

Even aside from its alleged commitment to the ontological argument, Kant has a number of complaints about the cosmological argument. Indeed, according to Kant, the cosmological argument is characterized by an “entire nest of dialectical presumptions” which must be illuminated and “destroyed” (A609/B637). These dialectical presumptions include the attempt to infer from the contingent (within experience) to some cause lying outside the world of sense altogether, an effort involving a transcendental misapplication of the categories. It also includes, Kant claims, the dialectical effort to infer from the conceptual impossibility of an infinite series of causes to some actual first cause outside of sense. Such efforts involve a “false self-satisfaction” according to which reason feels itself to have finally landed on a truly necessary being. Unfortunately, according to Kant, this is only achieved by conflating the merely logical possibility of a concept (that it is not self-contradictory) with the transcendental (real) possibility of a thing . In short, the cosmological argument gets its momentum by confusing rational or subjective necessities with real or objective ones, and thus involves transcendental illusion (cf. A605/B633).

We come finally to the physicotheological proof , which argues from the particular constitution of the world, specifically its beauty, order, and purposiveness, to the necessary existence of an intelligent cause (God). Such an argument goes beyond the cosmological one by moving not from existence in general but from some determinate experience in order to demonstrate the existence of God (A621/B649). Although this might seem to be a strength, this strategy is doomed to fail, according to Kant. No experience could ever be adequate to the idea of a necessary, original being: “The transcendental idea of a necessary all-sufficient original being is so overwhelmingly great, so sublimely high above everything empirical, which is at all times conditioned, that partly one can never even procure enough material in experience to fill such a concept, and partly if one searches for the unconditioned among conditioned things, then one will seek forever and always in vain” (A621/B649).

Kant’s claim is that even if we could grant that the order and purposiveness of nature gives us good reason to suppose some intelligent designer, it does not warrant the inference to an ens realissimum . At most, Kant tells us, the proof could establish a “highest architect of the world…., but not a creator of the world.” (A627/B655). The last inference, that to the ens realissimum , is only drawn by moving far away from any consideration of the actual (empirical) world. In other words, here too, Kant thinks that the rational theologist is relying on a transcendental ( a priori ) argument. Indeed, according to Kant, the physicotheological proof could never, given its empirical starting point, establish the existence of a highest being by itself alone, and must rely on the ontological argument at crucial stages (cf. A625/B653). Since, according to Kant, the ontological argument fails, so does the physicotheological one.

Although Kant rejects the physiciotheological argument as a theoretical proof for God’s existence, he also sees in it a powerful expression of reason’s need to recognize in nature purposive unity and design (cf. A625/B651). In this, the physicotheological argument’s emphasis on the purposiveness and systematic unity of nature illuminates an assumption that Kant takes to be essential to our endeavors in the natural sciences. The essential role played by the assumption of purposive and systematic unity, and the role it plays in scientific inquiries, is taken up by Kant in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic. To this topic we now turn.

For some discussions of the Ideal of Pure Reason and Rational Theology, see Caimi (1995). England (1968), Grier (2001, forthcoming), Henrich (1960), Longuenesse (1995, 2005), Rohs (1978), Walsh (1975), and Wood (1978), Chignell (2009), Grier (2010), Chignell (2014), Wuerth (2021), Willaschek (2018)

The criticisms of the metaphysical arguments offered in the Transcendental Dialectic do not bring Kant’s discussion to a close. Indeed, in an “Appendix” to the Transcendental Dialectic, Kant returns to the issue of reason’s positive or necessary role. The curious “Appendix” has provoked a great deal of confusion, and not without reason. After all, the entire thrust of the Dialectic seemed to be directed at “critiquing” and curbing pure reason, and undermining its pretense to any real use. Nevertheless, Kant goes on to suggest that the very reason that led us into metaphysical error is also the source of certain necessary ideas and principles, and moreover, that these rational postulations play an essential role in scientific theorizing (A645/B673; A671/B699). Exactly what role they are supposed to play in this regard is less clear.

The Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic is divided into two parts. In the first, “On the Regulative Use of the Ideas of Pure Reason,” Kant attempts to identify some proper “immanent” use for reason. In its most general terms, Kant is here concerned to establish a necessary role for reason’s principle of systematic unity. This principle was first formulated by Kant in the Introduction to the Transcendental Dialectic in two forms, one prescriptive, and the other in what sounded to be a metaphysical claim. In the first, prescriptive form, the principle enjoins us to “Find for the conditioned knowledge given through the understanding the unconditioned whereby its unity is brought to completion.” The complementary metaphysical principle assures us that the “unconditioned” is indeed given and there to be found. Taken together, these principles express reason’s interests in securing systematic unity of knowledge and bringing such knowledge to completion.

Kant is quite clear that he takes reason’s demand for systematicity to play an important role in empirical inquiry. In connection with this, Kant suggests that the coherent operation of the understanding somehow requires reason’s guiding influence, particularly if we are to unify the knowledge given through the real use of the understanding into scientific theory (cf. A651–52/B679–80). To order knowledge systematically, for Kant, means to subsume or unify it under fewer and fewer principles in light of the idea of one “whole of knowledge” so that its parts are exhibited in their necessary connections (cf. 646/B674). The idea of the form of a whole of knowledge is thus said to postulate “complete unity in the knowledge obtained by the understanding, by which this knowledge is to be not a mere contingent aggregate, but a system connected according to necessary laws” (A646/B676). Having said this, it should be noted that Kant’s position is, in its details, difficult to pin down. Sometimes Kant suggests merely that we ought to seek systematic unity of knowledge, and this merely for own theoretical convenience (A771/B799-A772/B800). Other times, however, he suggests that we must assume that the nature itself conforms to our demands for systematic unity, and this necessarily, if we are to secure even an empirical criterion of truth (cf. A651–53/B679–81). The precise status of the demand for systematicity is therefore somewhat controversial.

Regardless of these more subtle textual issues Kant remains committed to the view that reason’s proper use is always only “regulative” and never constitutive. The distinction between the regulative and the constitutive may be viewed as describing two different ways in which the claims of reason may be interpreted. A principle of reason is constitutive, according to Kant, when it is taken to supply a concept of a real object (A306/B363; A648/B676). Throughout the Dialectic Kant argued against this (constitutive) interpretation of the ideas and principles of reason, claiming that reason so far transcends possible experience that there is nothing in experience that corresponds with its ideas. Although Kant denies that reason is constitutive he nevertheless, as we have seen, insists that it has an “indispensably necessary” regulative use. In accordance with reason’s demand, the understanding is guided and led to secure systematic unity and completion of knowledge. In other words, Kant seeks to show that reason’s demand for systematic unity is related to the project of empirical knowledge acquisition. Indeed, Kant links the demand for systematicity up with three other principles — those of homogeneity, specification and affinity — which he thinks express the fundamental presumptions that guide us in theory formation. The essential point seems to be that the development and expansion of empirical knowledge is always, as it were, “already” guided by the rational interests in securing unity and completion of knowledge. Without such a guiding agenda, and without the assumption that nature conforms to our rational demands for securing unity and coherence of knowledge, our scientific pursuits would lack orientation. Thus, the claim that reason’s principles play a necessary “regulative” role in science reflects Kant’s critical reinterpretation of the traditional rationalist ideal of arriving at complete knowledge.

It is connection with this that Kant argues, in the second part of the Appendix (“On the Final Aim of the Natural Dialectic of Human Reason” (A669/B697)), that the three highest ideas of reason have an important theoretical function. More specifically, in this section Kant turns from a general discussion of the important (regulative) use of the principle of systematicity, to a consideration of the three transcendental ideas (the Soul, the World, and God) at issue in the Dialectic. As examples of the unifying and guiding role of reason’s ideas, Kant had earlier appealed to the ideas of “pure earth” and “pure air” in Chemistry, or the idea of a “fundamental power” in psychological investigations (cf. A650/B678). His suggestion earlier was that these ideas are implicit in the practices governing scientific classification, and enjoin us to seek explanatory connections between disparate phenomena. As such, reason’s postulations serve to provide an orienting point towards which our explanations strive, and in accordance with which our theories progressively achieve systematic interconnection and unity. Similarly, Kant now suggests that each of the three transcendental ideas of reason at issue in the Dialectic serves as an imaginary point ( focus imaginarius ) towards which our investigations hypothetically converge. More specifically, he suggests that the idea of the soul serves to guide our empirical investigations in psychology, the idea of the world grounds physics, and the idea of God grounds the unification of these two branches of natural science into one unified Science (cf. A684/B712-A686/B714). In each of these cases, Kant claims, the idea allows us to represent (problematically) the systematic unity towards which we aspire and which we presuppose in empirical studies. In accordance with the idea of God, for example, we “consider every connection in the world according to principles [ Principien ] of a systematic unity, hence as if they had all arisen from one single all-encompassing being, as supreme and all-sufficient cause” (A686/B714). Such a claim, controversial as it is, illuminates Kant’s view that empirical inquiries are one and all undertaken in light of the rational goal of a single unified body of knowledge. It also points towards the Kantian view, later emphasized in the Transcendental Doctrine of Method, that reason’s theoretical and practical interests ultimately form a higher unity.

For discussions on the Appendix and the role of reason and systematicity, see Allison (2004), Brandt (1989), Buchdahl (1967), Britton (1978), Forster (2000), Friedman (1992), Ginsborg (1990), Grier (2001, forthcoming), Guyer (1990a, 1990b), Horstmann (1989), O’Neill (1992), Patricia Kitcher (1991), Philip Kitcher (1984), Nieman (1994), MacFarland (1970), Walker (1990), Walsh (1975), Wartenberg (1979, 1992), Rauscher (2010), Willaschek (2018).

For an important discussion on the “unity” of theoretical and practical reason, see again Forster (2000). See also Velkley (1989).

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The Role of Metaphysics in Philosophy

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Introduction, what is metaphysics, why is metaphysics important.

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