The problem is that I think the positivist attitude really doesn't take into account the possibility that knowledge, even that gained by way of science, is limited in some fundamental respect. — Wayfarer

My take would be that of course knowledge is limited, because the medium it is made of is, like everything in all of observable nature, limited. Thought is an electro-chemical information medium, a part of nature, it has properties and characteristics which define it's limitations just like everything else.

Reflection is where we try to understand our desire to understand. You see, you are meeting Plotinus half way.

Hmmmn, pizza sounds good right now.

What's the alternative? Sticking your head in the sand? Well, who's stopping you?

In my view metaphysics is best understood as the basic framework one uses.
It therefore is a necessity for any worldview. It doesn't really matter if one is aware of the framework one uses or not. The key point is that a framework is needed. — CaZaNOx

Going through the thread, this is the closest anyone has come to defining the term "metaphysics." If there's any other, I'd appreciate someone's pointing it out.

Metaphysics is usually credited with being of some importance. It seems then either that everyone who has commented on it must already know what it means, or those same people do not know what they're talking about. In my experience, people who do know what they're talking about, and who wish to have any sort of serious discussion of that thing, will offer a definition or the definition, at the least as some fixed point from which to depart, and by which all may navigate.

CaZaNOX has actually made a pretty good start. R. G. Collingwood offered a refinement that is quite specific and imo compelling. Roughly: knowledge is based in presuppositions. Some presuppositions are tested - are they true or false. But some presuppositions, that he calls absolute presuppositions, are never tested, because they are essentially the axioms of the system in question. These latter are only presupposed; as he says, "It is their business to be presupposed."

Examples: In communism, the state is preeminent; in democracies, the individual. In certain economic theories, short term profits are the best measure, in others not. The point here being that if you change the absolute presuppositions (or axioms) - and sometimes you can, although in many cases these axioms are not explicitly set out in each argument - you have essentially blown up your system.

It is thus of some importance, then, to understand what absolute presuppositions are (in general), to recognize that they can change and that it is usually a big deal when they do change, and finally to identify in the system under scrutiny what they are and who holds them.

This latter is what Collingwood says metaphysics is: the study of what the absolute presuppositions are at any given time, place, and circumstance, and who holds them. CaZaNOX's "basic framework" is an admirable approximation of Collingwood's thought.

Objectivity I say. That you can test them if the assumption is correct or false. — ssu

And what implication do you see that having for metaphysics?

I take your point regarding the importance of presuppositions to any developed argument but isn't the OP more open ended than that?
Now perhaps you are saying that one cannot ask that kind of question without answering some of it first.

No, I'm saying that they can't be answered - well, they can't be answered unequivocally. They're in some sense beyond adjudication, you can't appeal an ultimate authority to judge the different responses.
— Wayfarer

What questions would you say that doesn't describe? — Terrapin Station

Those that I gave in my initial response, among others: the nature of number (real or invented?); the status of 'natural laws'; whether the universe we can detect is one of many. And then many of the other questions traditionally associated with metaphysics, such as the ultimate nature of things, and so on.

What I'm arguing is that you can't appeal to empirical science to either validate or falsify such arguments; there's no definite resolution on the empirical level, as there is with purely empirical claims.

It is thus of some importance, then, to understand what absolute presuppositions are (in general), to recognize that they can change and that it is usually a big deal when they do change, and finally to identify in the system under scrutiny what they are and who holds them. — tim wood

The relationship of metaphysics to other subjects has been compared to the relationship between the computer OS and applications software. I think it's quite a good analogy.

Since this issue has been raised, I'm going to tip my own hat and ask if The Problem of the Criterion has any import here to the discussion?

The relationship of metaphysics to other subjects has been compared to the relationship between the computer OS and applications software. — Wayfarer

Not quite. I'd compare it to a fish asking what does the water feel like. A fish would never know the answer.

I'd compare it to a fish asking what does the water feel like. A fish would never know the answer. — Wallows

I think you may have nailed that sucker. But what's up with a fish who asks what water feels like? Why is it doing that? Why does the drive to work it out lead it to accept Fish-Kant?

But what's up with a fish who asks what water feels like? — frank

Probably an adjustment disorder. Hah!

Why is it doing that? — frank

You'd have to ask the fish that.

Why does the drive to work it out lead it to accept Fish-Kant? — frank

Kant, hmm, not my first pick in answering the question. I'd have to refer you to Wittgenstein if you do not mind me saying so.

Didn't Wittgenstein turn those questions into other questions? He never dismissed them as presented.

He never dismissed them as presented. — Valentinus

The Vienna Circle thought otherwise in regards to his Tractatus. Although it is as if they overlooked the seventh proposition entirely.

Saying: "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence" is pretty enigmatic. I would not presume to follow such a remark with an exegesis of what is meant.

On the other hand, it is direct and claims something by it being said.

In any case, it is fair for me to ask in what way the Wittgenstein work relates to the question about metaphysics as is asked about here in this here thread.

Represent.

Well, it's sort of those Banno'esk questions about whether we have expressed (adequately?) the meaning behind such a sentence as "I love you more than words can say."

Intentionality or something else?
Saying vs showing?

The only thing I think we strictly need metaphysics for are to tentatively fill the gaps in our knowledge with pretty and plausible interim truths (because otherwise we use the physical).

Some definitions of metaphysics are a bit too broad for this distinction to stick, but that's my view.

The only thing I think we strictly need metaphysics for are to tentatively fill the gaps in our knowledge with pretty and plausible interim truths (because otherwise we use the physical). — VagabondSpectre

When do we need these interim truths? When we ponder death? That sort of thing?

I uploaded this image a while ago. You might find it helpful:

And just to be resolute here's the other part that is missing which might fill in the gaps.

I'd compare it to a fish asking what does the water feel like. A fish would never know the answer. — Wallows

That's a popular analogy, which I will now appropriate by comparing it to yet another. We customarily look at the world through a weltanschauung, a world-view. I compare that to a set of spectacles, or something we use to frame and focus. And thinking about metaphysics, is directly comparable to 'looking at your spectacles' - rather than through them.

And in which philosopher is that most obvious? I say it would be Kant. It was Kant who really tried to come to terms with the way in which the very elements that are the foundations of our worldview condition what we see - 'things conforming to thoughts'. That discovery (if you can call it that) is, as he said it was, a 'prolegomena to any future metaphysics'. Which I'm sure is true.

When do we need these interim truths? When we ponder death? That sort of thing? — frank

More or less, yes.

It's useful for gap-filling, but to me it's an aesthetic affair.

So, asking about the use of something called "metaphysical" is on par with a problem of how we use language to describe something. There cannot be a problem in that situation since all that matters has already been addressed by the rules previously agreed upon. But the whole point of bringing special attention to those rules is to point to a desire that is not expressed by them.

It is all about knowing what the creature is, not making sense of it.

but to me it's an aesthetic affair. — VagabondSpectre

You mean like a matter of taste?

I compare that to a set of spectacles, or something we use to frame and focus. And thinking about metaphysics, is directly comparable to 'looking at your spectacles' - rather than through them. — Wayfarer

At the risk of sounding nonsensical, why not?

And in which philosopher is that most obvious? I say it would be Kant. It was Kant who really tried to come to terms with the way in which the very elements that are the foundations of our worldview condition what we see - 'things conforming to thoughts'. That discovery (if you can call it that) is, as he said it was, a 'prolegomena to any future metaphysics'. Which I'm sure is true. — Wayfarer

Well, Wittgenstein was pretty adamant about what can and cannot be said. His philosophy echoes Kant's dream of outlining the sensible to senseless, all the way down to the nonsensical.

You mean like a matter of taste? — frank

Yup.

Under my view of metaphysics, because metaphysics is founded on nothing tangible, we can't really compare it against any tangible standard of truth. It can have internal consistency, but the utility it has is ultimately down to taste. It if has utility in the physical world, then it's a physics.

I'm probably a bit biased and crotchety in this position (some use a broader definition of metaphysics, which would include things like numbers)...

In a nut shell, metaphysics comes from nothing, can be proven by nothing, and can be dismissed with nothing.

?? What I'm saying is that, this is actually a pretty difficult thing to do. It takes a certain kind of mentality to question yourself that way.

If you think back to Aristotle's metaphysics, it was really a methodical attempt to discover the meaning of foundational terms. But over the centuries, as it became handed down and elaborated, I think it's actual meaning was obscured. (That's why (for instance) Heidegger went back and revisited the key term of 'ouisia' in Aristotle (per this post.)

metaphysics comes from nothing, can be proven by nothing, and can be dismissed with nothing. — VagabondSpectre

So, you see, this is illustrative of maybe the majority attitude in this day and age (outside the academy or specialised domains of discourse): that metaphysics is essentially meaningless talk, the only real world is described by:

physics — VagabondSpectre

however the difficulty with that argument is that many profound conundrums have emerged from modern physics, and quite a few them turn out to be - drum roll! - metaphysical. There are in fact many books, and a great deal of controversy and debate, about what (if any) metaphysics is suggested by the oddities of physics. But none of those questions are resolvable by physics itself - meaning that they must be 'meta-physical' (over and above, or beyond, physics.)

In a nut shell, metaphysics comes from nothing, can be proven by nothing, and can be dismissed with nothing. — VagabondSpectre

Always the poet. :cool:

What I'm saying is that, this is actually a pretty difficult thing to do. It takes a certain kind of mentality to question yourself that way. — Wayfarer

Not really. Apart from the logical positivists, which philosopher hasn't dealt with the metaphysical? Even modern day philosophers have to gripe with questions raised by antecedent philosophers in regards to the metaphysical. I mean, you can take the path of least resistance, and claim that there really is no such thing as the wavefunction in physics, which is as close as you can get from within the field of stating something metaphysical.

methodical attempt — Wayfarer

For some reason, this sticks out, and my answer would be to look at others (like Tarski or even Godel) for any kind of elucidation at such attempts.

So, you see, this is illustrative of maybe the majority attitude in this day and age (outside the academy or specialised domains of discourse.) Metaphysics is essentially meaningless talk, the only real world is described by: — Wayfarer

I do understand the need for abstract frameworks, and in so far as metaphysics fills that need, I take my hat off to it, but generally such fields are well situated in the physical. It's a semantic dogma of mine...

But none of those questions are resolvable by physics itself - meaning that they must be 'meta-physical' (over and above, or beyond, physics.) — Wayfarer

They aren't resolvable in physics but they do come from physics. How do we tell the difference between an as yet unverified physical model and a hypothetical metaphysical model? Once we support one of the competing hypotheses with predictive power/experimentation, I view it as no longer being a purely metaphysical hypothesis. I would prefer not to think of such conundrums as meta-physical to begin with.