Is it possible to know the Real Truth? Are we in a position to ever know what’s really really going on? If you’re skeptical, Bradley thinks that’s fine, but if you say we can’t know, or that we shouldn’t spend time trying to know, Bradley offers these three points:
If you say metaphysical knowledge is impossible, you just made a metaphysical statement. You’ve just demolished the justification for your own admonition.
1a. If you want to undermine a work of metaphysics, you can’t do that with a blanket statement that metaphysics is impossible. You’ll have to read the actual metaphysics and argue against it. Otherwise, it stands as a possibility if nothing else.
If you say that metaphysics is not informative, useless to practical business, and offer this as a reason people shouldn’t engage in it, Bradley says: religion. People do want to know if there’s something beyond the obvious. Shouldn’t we temper the dogma and superstition that is eager to meet these questions with an open forum for careful thought? It’s here that Bradley lays a foundation stone for analytical philosophy. He says we explore truth in literature and art, philosophers need to be contributing.
But hasn’t it all been said? Why rehash what people were exploring 2000 years ago? Do you think you’re going to do a better job? Bradley’s answer is that it may be that nothing new can be said, but every generation needs to express for itself what it envisions human life to be. We do it in poetry and literature, it’s right that philosophers should to the same. Maybe not all of them, but the ones who are so constituted.
I would defend metaphysical activity too for in engaging in it we can evaluate certain concepts and whether they themselves are worthy of being examined or not for that matter and whether they are or not one is still doing metaphysics as Bradley purports.
I do think the cross-examination of metaphysical claims should be done for its own sake but also in so doing it might inform the sciences, primarily physics and if physics requires a certain scientific shift philosophical metaphysics is able to provide it.
It looks to me like there are two ways that the statement “Metaphysical knowledge is impossible” could be self-contradictory or paradoxical. It could be claiming a type of knowledge which it also claims is impossible; or it could be engaging in a type of discourse which it claims cannot be engaged in.
I don’t think it’s contradictory in either way. I can say, “Metaphysical knowledge is impossible” without also asserting that I know this to be true, in a JTB sort of way; I can simply mean, “It looks to me like metaphysical knowledge is impossible” or, more strongly, “It’s highly likely that metaphysical knowledge is impossible, though I can’t know that for sure.” Does this refer to my own statement as well? Yes, but there’s no self-contradiction; it’s also highly likely that I can never know the truth of my own statement, which nevertheless doesn’t diminish its likelihood.
And nothing in the statement “Metaphysical knowledge is impossible” implies that I can’t still make metaphysical statements – which would be the second possible self-contradiction. The (metaphysical) statement doesn’t say that metaphysical discourse is impossible.
Perhaps Bradley had all this in mind when he distinguished between a legitimate skepticism about metaphysical knowledge, and an unjustified “metaphysical atheism,” as it were. But it’s been forever since I read him so I’m not sure.
I think you’re pointing out that there are hard and soft ways to take the statement. It may be that soft takes on the statement are not contradictory, but the hard version (taking it at face value) appears to be a performative contradiction. To deny that is, you’d have to explain why it’s impossible without venturing into the realm of metaphysics.
Yes. And that it’s only prejudice or habit which insists that JTB-knowledge or certainty is required in order to reach interesting conclusions in metaphysical inquiry. It’s odd to me that we would even take the “certainty” sort of statement as the “face value” way of talking, though perhaps you’re right.
If the speaker does, however, assert strong-or-JTB knowledge that metaphysics is impossible, I agree that there’s a performative contradiction.
Same as above. I can offer opinions, explore possibilities, all erected on various hypotheses. I’m calling that “making metaphysical statements” – which are not intended as declarations of certain knowledge – but again, if you read “statement” as “statement of JTB-strong knowledge,” then yes, a metaphysical statement of that sort would be a performative contradiction on the part of this speaker.
I’m happy to adopt your “strong” reading for the purposes of the OP, and Bradley’s point. If that’s what both of you mean, then you’re quite right – “atheism about metaphysics” can’t get off the ground at the assertion level.
Although it is acceptable to scrutinise the usefulness of metaphysics or if indeed metaphysical activity is possible , the claims of it are usually consequential to real world application for such that they inform even ethics, for every ethical system usually smuggles in some metaphysical claim such as what is a person or is there free will and even meta-ethics which is pure metaphysical speculation.
Yes, plus Bradley believed that as worldviews change, humans need to go back through metaphysical issues. (my wording) So for example, notice how we dive into science when we’re talking about free will. That would be an example of what Bradley was saying.
Amen to that! Metaphysics in particular demands a certain kind of insight which can only be acquired and validated first-person, as it were. Unlike scientific measurement for which third-person consensus is the sine qua non, metaphysics may require more than the acquisition of information. It may require a transformation in the very understanding through which we apprehend reality — a transformation that cannot simply be communicated as a set of propositions, but must in some sense be realised.
(I’ll read the text, with interest, now it has been raised.)
I’m not sure I can, as it’s so complicated. I used them somewhat interchangeably because I wanted to make my point in the broadest way. Personally I tend to reserve “certainty” for logical certainty, but when we talk about the world, it seems rather arbitrary to draw the line there and say that “The sun will rise tomorrow” is in any way uncertain. As for JTB, I think it’s a good, or good-enough, yardstick for the kind of metaphysical knowledge that someone like Bradley probably had in mind. If I know X, that’s because it’s true, and my reasons for believing it are justified, and I do believe it, for those reasons. I don’t find myself much caring whether that’s the same as being certain – do you see anything important at stake there? Possibly the question of fallibility.
Yes, I think this is an obvious point, and one that antifoundationalists are often accused of overlooking. This criticism shows up on the forum a lot.
I think it rests on a misunderstanding of the position. The antifoundationalist need not claim that metaphysical knowledge is impossible, as though they had discovered some deeper truth about the limits of human knowledge. This confuses a claim about the nature of reality with a judgement about how we should conduct our intellectual inquiries.
We can question the point of pursuing metaphysical knowledge, or the prospects of achieving it, without pretending to have established some ultimate truth about the limits of human understanding.
To me, the objection assumes that unless we can settle the matter on some foundational level, we have no grounds for scepticism about the enterprise. But this just reinstates the demand for foundations that the antifoundationalist rejects. We don’t need to establish the impossibility of metaphysical knowledge, or claim privileged access to its limits, to judge that metaphysical arguments have failed to convince us or that pursuing them is of little value.
We can therefore dismiss metaphysics not by proving it impossible, but by rejecting its demand for ultimate foundations as an unhelpful philosophical project. The question is not whether metaphysics can be disproved, but whether it offers anything useful that we cannot achieve without it.
There’s really no philosophical detergent for washing out skepticism. It always wins because there might be an evil demon making you think this or that. It’s a card that trumps all knowledge past to future. In the face of this, why don’t we just give up using the word know?
I think basically because we need that word. Once we’re updated on the evil demon issue, we just use the word conditionally. If there’s no evil demon tricking me, I know Stephen King wrote Carrie. It’s with this conditionality that we ponder the JTB rule. JTB doesn’t require that anybody have transcendent knowledge. We go with the conditional version of truth, as we do most everywhere else in life.
Bradley’s skeptic is saying that metaphysical knowledge is impossible. Are we supposed to take that conditionally? Probably not. Since metaphysics implies transcendence, the skeptic probably means that we can’t know what’s really going on because of the limitations of the human organism or something along those lines.
But how does the skeptic know this? I think that’s what Bradley is getting at.
Responsible skeptics and most I’m aware of don’t argue this.
More nuanced scepticism like Graham Oppy’s will question the grounds on which metaphysical knowledge claims are made without concluding that such knowledge is impossible. The point isn’t to establish a deeper truth about the limits of human knowledge, but to remain unconvinced by claims that have not been adequately justified. This needn’t be taken conditionally; it is a position of epistemic restraint, not a claim to have settled what can or cannot be known.
I like the notion that obtaining metaphysical information may transform the seeker of that information. It’s like the tool we use to measure will be transformed as the measurement takes shape.
We have to be the metaphysical truth, we have to instantiate it, before we can conceptualize and analyze it.
We form the ground as we take the step and then see ourselves standing somewhere new. A perilous journey.
And the responsible skeptics will not say this is impossible and make claims about reality, they will simply say they withhold belief in such claims until they can be proven.
Now the discussion about what counts as a demonstration of such metaphysical claims is, of course, a different matter. And perhaps a matter of disposition or aesthetics…
You can say what you feel about it, but you can’t tell me what I ought to believe about it. Besides, Bradley himself addresses these objections right at the outset.
Until now, I’ve never read it, but looking at the introduction I think it’s the kind of book I’m now ready for. I recall reading that it greatly impressed a young Bertrand Russell, right up until his ‘revolt against idealism’ which was so formative for English-speaking philosophy in the 20th century.
The other place I read about Bradley was in T R V Murti Central Philosophy of Buddhism, where Murti provides detail comparisons of Buddhist and idealist philosophies.
I’ve found a quality .pdf of Bradley and intend to spend some time reading it.
That’s cool. A leading expert on Bradley is actually French. Bradley’s reputation was destroyed by Russell and Ayers in a way that wasn’t completely fair, and his work was buried until the 1970s when people started looking into the foundations of analytical philosophy.
But it’s said that his writing can be difficult. This is an interview with the French guy I mentioned:
