International Conference "Metaphysics between logic, ontology and subjectivity"

What is metaphysics? Although one might suppose there is a clear sense to the term that, so far as the discussion within Kantian and post-Kantian thought is concerned, can be derived from the thought of Wolf and Baumgarten, it also seems to be the case that, even within that tradition, how metaphysics should be understood is open to debate. If one treats metaphysics as concerned with the inquiry into being, both in general and in specific ‘regionalities’, this merely bring to the fore the fundamental question as to how being should be understood, and how one answers this may give rise to very different answers about the question as to the nature of metaphysics and its possibility. My comments here, which remain somewhat partial and do not constitute a fully-worked out or systematic approach, are aimed at thinking through some of the issues here in more general fashion rather than in relation to specific texts but are nevertheless influenced by that version of the Kantian tradition that seems to me to culminate in the work of both Davidson and Gadamer. What I offer, then, is a somewhat hermeneutic response to the issues concerning the relation between logic, ontology, and subjectivity and the possible tensions that may emerge here. This response is somewhat anti-metaphysical in character, even while it allows both for a form of ontology that is essentially tied to the working out of the fundamental structure implied by what Davidson referred to as ‘objective thought’, and a relativised sense of metaphysics tied to particular (and always revisable) discursive or conceptual frames as these might be employed in certain limited settings. In the sense that metaphysics aims at a single unique description of things, then in this sense, I shall argue, metaphysics is an impossibility, and the attempt to uncover such a description is not only mistaken and confused, but also leads to significant problems in the sciences, in philosophy, and elsewhere.

Traditionally, metaphysics is defined as inquiry into being as such, or into constitution of rigid and objects that comprise the whole of what there is. Quite often the proper subject of metaphysics is considered as mind-independent. In other words, metaphysics is perceived as dealing with rigid and modally robust objects so that subjectivity as such is excluded from metaphysical consideration. Contemporary metaphysics continues this trend. In this talk, I want to draw on Kantian legacy that takes subjectivity to be at the center of metaphysical enterprise. Metaphysics works with certain concepts and concepts are subject to deliberate revision in our theories. In particular, I want to shed light on the intersection of metaphysics as a conceptual activity; the latter has recently been known as conceptual engineering.

One of Kafka’s aphorisms reads as follows: “The indestructible is one thing; it is each individual person and at the same time it is something common to all, hence the supremely indivisible connection among people.” Another aphorism reads: “Man cannot live without an enduring trust in something indestructible within him, though both the indestructible element and the trust may remain forever hidden from him. One of the ways of expressing this abiding hiddenness is the belief in a personal god.” In my talk I will present and discuss the critiques of metaphysics by Heidegger [“The Overcoming of Metaphysics” (GA 7: 68-98), and “The Last God” (GA 65: 405-417)] and Adorno [“Meditations on Metaphysics” in Negative Dialectics, GS 6: 354-400], focusing on their shared philosophical modernist premises and their concentration on the abject negativity of modernity. In addition, I will shed light on how they accommodate, in radically different ways, “the indestructible” that Kafka points to.

Attempts to see reality as inherently in conflict and motion rather than at rest have a famous unsettling quality, namely, of treating conflict and motion as something at rest. This is what happened to Engels’ “dialectical laws” in his Anti-Dühring—allegedly an elaboration of what he and Marx referred to as their “old Hegel” and their logical reconstruction of the infinitesimal calculus. I will demonstrate how the “old Hegel,” in fact, differs from such opinions, arguing that conflict and motion are not an opposition of objects at rest, but something contained within, or belonging to, their form. This also resolves the initial paradox.

In many varieties of Post-Hegelianism, Neo-Pragmatism and Critical Theory, it has become a point of orthodoxy to claim that viewing things 'sideways-on' (J. McDowell) is impossible and to reject traditional metaphysical thinking on that basis. In my paper, I will challenge this widespread assumption by arguing that viewing things 'sideways' is not only natural but an unavoidable feature of human rationality. Knowledge is by definition transcendent, and it is only by virtue of its transcendence that knowledge claims become intersubjectively accessible. Hence if traditional metaphysics fails, it does not do so because of this purported methodological flaw.

Where concepts are identified with arbitrary predicates, two problems arise: Firstly, logic is reduced to a content-free technique of defining complex sentences S and propositional forms S(x) or S(x,y,...) using operators such as ‘non’, ‘&’ and ‘for all x’. Secondly, the subject areas for assigning the variables x or y are merely presupposed without analyzing their transcendental constitution. Ontology thus turns into a kind of mere belief. In contrast to this, Plato already recognized the projective relationship of generic concepts to their instantiations. Genera and kinds of things are not simple sets of entities. Rather, we need a First Philosophy as it had developed from Heraclitus and Parmenides to Aristotle that clarifies the constitution of general species and their ‘methexis’ or ‘conceptual projection’ to empirical individual things in time and space.

The paper addresses the problem of epistemological dualism, which underlies metaphysical idealism, anti-realism, and some readings of transcendental idealism. The premises and possible metaphysical implications of epistemological dualism are discussed. It is noted that the notion of the ‘real world’, access to which is a point of disagreement between realists and anti-realists, itself presupposes epistemological dualism. This means that even a realist position is not free from assumptions that favor anti-realism. By using even the most general analysis of the concept of “real world” some problems of epistemological dualism can be identified. An alternative to epistemological dualism is considered: the neutral space of experience approach, which does not presuppose a metaphysical boundary between the world of the given and the world of real things. In the neutral space of experience things do not belong to one of the categories, they can be “more” and “less” real, and there is no clear opposition between these concepts.

The presentation offers an analysis of the metaphysical status of the subject in analytic philosophy. After the critique of Cartesianism — one that has effectively become the default stance — the very style of writing among many authors changes. The "subject" as a traditional philosophical notion disappears. In its place we encounter the terms "agent", "person", "self", and even "system undergoing experience".

Reductionists (Ryle, Dennett, the Churchlands, Frankish) appear, by their refusal to speak of a subject, to dissolve the bearer of experience into behavioural or neural descriptions; attempts to preserve a phenomenal core (Chalmers, Lowe, Swinburne, Moreland) lead to dualism. A conspicuous metaphysical gap thus emerges: either the subject vanishes altogether, or it re-emerges at the cost of positing an immaterial entity. The presentation shows how linguistic choice masks (or reveals) these ontological commitments and explores ways of moving beyond the dichotomy of an "agent without a self" versus a "soul".

This paper explores two links. The first is the connection between contemporary metaontological positions and traditional Quinean/Carnapian approaches. Modern alternatives to classical ∃-realism (which enumerates what exists) include fundamentality, structuralism, fictionalism, and quantifier variance. How do these theses relate to the traditional metaontological divide between realism and anti-realism? The second link concerns how these positions align with epistemic strategies in metaphysics. Does favoring an a priori approach, as opposed to a naturalized (scientific) metaphysics, influence one’s metaontological stance? Regarding these connections, two arguments are presented: (1) an argument for the indispensability of ontology, and (2) an argument from idealization in favor of limitations of naturalized metaphysics. 

The report will discuss the transitional moment in the work of L. Wittgenstein in the early 1930s, when his early views expressed in the ‘Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus’ were transformed into the latter views of the ‘Philosophical Investigations.’ The work ‘Big Typescript’ (von Wright catalog TS 213) became a significant step in this direction. A significant feature of Wittgenstein's thoughts in this work is their unformed, still wavering state. In the text, there are altogether criticisms of the claims of traditional metaphysics to universality and an indication of the necessity of these claims for the philosophical practice; a desire to free man from the quest of philosophizing and reference to philosophy as an important activity in clarifying language; etc. Based on these antinomies, we will try to outline the problem, which introduces a conflict into Wittgenstein’s thinking about philosophy, and which was not satisfactorily resolved until today.

In the twentieth century, ‘philosophies of difference’ - various concepts united by the idea of the fundamental role of difference in linguistic, structural, social, and aesthetic domains - were extremely widespread. In our talk we would like to examine the concepts of two thinkers who belong to the ‘philosophies of difference’ and who made of difference the most important metaphysical category - Martin Heidegger and Gilles Deleuze. As we will try to show, both philosophers tried to make difference not just the central theme of their metaphysical discourse, but in different ways tried to thematise it as a condition for the possibility of metaphysics itself. In the talk, we will examine and compare their fundamental theoretical stakes: the stake on difference as the only possible way for philosophy to obtain its own particular region of being in relation to which it can carry out the production of unique knowledge, and the stake on the immediate and sub-representational experience of difference as always already constitutive of our subjectivity.

The thesis that our cognition in some way depends on the structure of our minds can take different forms. In one of them, it states that cognition of the world essentially depends on the structure of our sense.  However, versions of the latter form can differ significantly. In my talk,  I will present two different versions of this thesis: Kant's version presented in the Critique of Pure Reason, and the version of  Weishaupt, a critic of Kant, who in a series of works tried to refute Kant's version of the dependence thesis. An analysis of Weishaupt's critical reflection on Kant's theory will allow, on the one hand, to clarify essential aspects of the latter, and on the other, to underline some difficulties it faces.

Tracing analytic philosophy's emergence solely to the revolt against neo-Hegelianism overlooks key interactions. Beyond Russell and Moore's neo-realism, a fuller account requires examining Collingwood's criticism of Ayer's metaphilosophy in Language, Truth and Logic, as well as Collingwood's fundamental disagreement with early conceptions of analysis. My talk will focus on explicating Collingwood's (meta)metaphysical views and assessing their potential significance for modern analytic philosophy.