Question by Meta Naturalist: Why is metaphysics so distrusted and so contentious?
I’m speaking about philosophical metaphysics, not paranormal or supernatural metaphysics, which seem to be little more than religious-type faith and religious-type conjecture.
Best answer:
Answer by Mountain Dweller
It is not based on empiricism and every modern attempt at metaphysics (see Hegel) has lead to fancy philosophical doctrines that seemed to lack any tie with reality. No certainty was offered in metaphysics establishing it’s principles as true. The 20th century retreat from metaphysics was an attempt to find certainty in our knowledge. This attempt to find certainty lead to mathematics, but that attempt ended in failure with Godel. Language analysis was the other great attempt to do philosophy without metaphysics and it also lead to failure.
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
because it works… yet it doesn’t… which means… well… something’s not quite right… bet that something bridges the gap between the conflicting pictures…
May be because the philosophers are trying to realize the spiritual self and super self through mental speculation. Religiously speaking, yes must be faith, but, not blind one. If the conclusion is a combination of Religion and philosophy, then is perfect. Both must be there. Religion by itself may be just sentimental or fanaticism, and philosophy alone, is mental speculation. If there is a good philosophy foundation and pure religious that reject all material contamination, then we can trust.
i direct you to page 197 of Popper’s “Conjectures and Refutations”(now in paperback).
He says there, ..’we may distinguish between 3 types of theory.
First logical..
Second empirical..
Third, philosophical or metaphysical theories”.
He discusses examining such theories,inc metaphysical ones,CRITICALLY.
And, as we know that he was more-than-instrumental in stopping the positivists(AND all) from trying to eliminate all talk and study of metaphysics; then i do think his carefully constructed words should be read and discussed.
E.g.in The Open society and its Enemies,(vol 2 page 38), Sir karl writes..
‘(Kant) tried to show that to every metaphysical assertion or thesis,concerning the begining of the world in time,or the existance of God,there can be asserted a counter-thesis or antithesis ; and both,Kant held,may proceed from the same assumptions, and can be proved with an equal degree of ‘evidence’. ……..Kants intention was to stop once and forever the “accursed fertility” of the scribblers on metaphysics.But the effect was very different.What Kant stopped was only the attempts of the scribblers to use rational argument;they only gave up the attempt to teach,but not the attempt to bewitch the public(as Schopenhauer puts it)…..”
Sir Karl goes on to say that Kant shares some of the blame in this,and that “…none of the metaphysical scribblers who came after Kant made any attempt to refute him”.
That above is taken from chapter 12, “Hegel” (or as Popper called that bad metaphysical writer..Gegal !!).
Does not fit within the scope of empirical verification. Metaphysics is in that sense conjectural but distinguishes itself from the kind of metaphysical nonsense by virtue of the rigor of analytic and rational thought.
Because: “The key concept, in the formation of a sense of life, is the term “important.” It is a concept that belongs to the realm of values, since it implies an answer to the question: Important—to whom? Yet its meaning is different from that of moral values. “Important” does not necessarily mean “good.” It means “a quality, character or standing such as to entitle to attention or consideration” (The American College Dictionary). What, in a fundamental sense, is entitled to one’s attention or consideration? Reality.” Rand
Also:
“The Rejection of Metaphysics, by many schools of philosophy in modern times, is one of the most remarkable developments of post-Cartesian philosophy. A difference in the point of view leads to a very great divergence in the estimate based on metaphysical studies. On the one side we have the verdict that metaphysics is nothing but “transcendental moonshine”, on the other, the opinion that it is “organized common sense”, or “an unusually obstinate effort to think accurately”.” http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10226a.htm#III
Transcendental moonshine is how physicists look at traditional metaphysics. They have their own metaphysicians, called “cosmologists.”
But the fact is, that “The nature of your actions—and of your ambition—will be different, according to which set of [metaphysical] answers you come to accept.” Rand
And because so many have come to accept that man can know nothing (for a large variety of reasons, all fallacious) they distrust anyone who says “Knowledge is knowable,” an absolutely metaphysical statement.
“Nothing is absolute,” people mutter, so metaphysics cannot have meaning to the mutterers.