A Metaphysics for the Future

by Allinson, Robert E.

• ISBN13: 9781840149289
• ISBN10: 1840149280
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-02-01
• Publisher: Ashgate Pub Co

Summary

A Metaphysics for the Future is a work of original philosophy but at the same time is a humanistic commentary on the moral malaise of our time. It reviews the intellectual events that have brought us to our present point of relativism in ethics and skepticism in knowledge and presents a new viewpoint which offers a way out of our intellectual impasse.Philosophers discussed include Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Wittgenstein, Searle and Rorty. The thoughts of the physicists Penrose and Hawking are examined. Topics covered include the philosopher as diagnostician, the mind-body problem, the foundation of truth in mathematics, preconceptual and postconceptual knowledge, representationalism, the picture theory of truth, Wittgenstein's Ladder, the concept of metaphysical truth, the concepts of Yin and Yang, the synthetic a priori and post-Modernism. A sophisticated text for courses in metaphysics and epistemology.Professor Robert E. Allinson is the author of many books including the forthcoming Ashgate title, Space, Time and the Ethical Foundations, and Understanding the Chinese Mind: The Philosophical Roots, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000 (Tenth Impression). He serves on eight editorial boards including The Journal of Chinese Philosophy and Asian Philosophy. His work has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, French, German and Italian. Professor Allinson has been a Senior Associate Member of St. Antony's College, Oxford University, an Associate Member of Balliol College of Oxford University and Visiting Fellow at the Graduate School of the Department of Philosophy at Yale University. He is now a professor in the Department of Philosophy at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. XIII
A Legitimization of Philosophy	p. xiii
Prologue	p. XXIX
On Finding a Suitable Label	p. xxix
Introduction	p. 1
Freeing Wittgenstein's Prisoner	p. 1
The Cult of Linguisticism	p. 10
	p. 39
The Nature of Metaphysics	p. 39
What is Metaphysics?	p. 41
A Typology of Metaphysics	p. 55
The Metaphysics of the Mystic	p. 55
Theistic Metaphysics
Theistic, Religious Metaphysics
Non-Theistic, Doctrinal, Religious Metaphysics
Non-Theistic, Non-Doctrinal, Religious Metaphysics
Rationalist Metaphysics	p. 59
The Metaphysics of Appearance and Reality	p. 60
The Metaphysics of Transcendental Conditions	p. 61
The Metaphysics of Experience	p. 62
Revisionary and Descriptive Metaphysics	p. 62
The Metaphysics of Absolute Presuppositions	p. 63
Hegelian-Dialectical Metaphysics or Developmental Metaphysics	p. 64
The Metaphysics of Hartshorne	p. 65
Similarities between Hartshorne's and the Present View	p. 65
A Comparison between Specific Metaphysical Truth Claims in Hartshorne's and in the Present Work	p. 66
Categorial Contrast	p. 70
Degrees of Metaphysical Truth	p. 71
Regional Metaphysics	p. 75
Pedagogical Approaches to the Study of Metaphysics	p. 79
The History of Systems	p. 79
The Approach by Topics	p. 80
The Approach by Problematic	p. 80
The Approach by Perspectives	p. 81
Cyclical and Dialectical Progression	p. 81
Hermeneutics	p. 82
Modified Hegelianism	p. 83
Chinese Modified Hegelianism	p. 84
Metaphysical Principles and Metaphysical Insight	p. 87
	p. 101
The Nature of Knowledge	p. 101
The Modes of Knowledge, The Case of the Idiot Savant and How Many Angels can Dance on the Head of a Pin?	p. 103
Prelinguistic Knowledge	p. 103
The Case of the Idiot Savant	p. 106
Philosophical Debates	p. 110
Intentionality Versus Behaviorism	p. 110
The One and the Many	p. 112
Space in the Philosophy of Kant	p. 113
How Many Angels Can Dance on the Head of a Pin?	p. 115
Postconceptual Knowledge	p. 117
The Doctrine of Transcendental Reflection	p. 117
Space and Time	p. 121
Descartes' Legacy and Exorcising the Ghosts of the Cartesian and the Hermeneutic Circles	p. 127
Preface to the Cartesian Legacy	p. 127
Summary of the Cartesian Legacy	p. 135
Exorcising the Ghost of the Cartesian Circle	p. 136
Exorcising the Ghost of the Hermeneutic Circle	p. 138
Husserl's Red Herrings	p. 145
The Intentionality of Consciousness	p. 145
The Reality of Other Minds	p. 147
The Transcendental Ego	p. 147
The Proof of the External World	p. 149
The Bogeyword, 'Intuition'	p. 159
The Laws of the Mind and the Laws of the Universe	p. 171
The Distinction Between Empirical Psychology and Phenomenological Epistemology	p. 181
Defining the Realm of Pure Phenomenology	p. 203
The Logic in Phenomenology	p. 207
Phenomenological Truth	p. 207
The Forgotten Fourth	p. 217
Bibliography	p. 233
Index	p. 239
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