Reflections on the Possibilities of Metaphysics

Admittedly, ours is not an age of metaphysics. It is not a period when philosophy is dominated by the system-builder and the speculative constructionist. The grand and integrative view of the whole of Reality is not fashionable and, in a very profound sense, man has become a problem unto himself. Positivism, existentialism, linguistic analysis-these, each in its own way, have determined the course of development of contemporary philosophy. Metaphysical statements, so we are told,x are but expressions of feelings, of wishful thinking, of unconscious needs, desires, and fantasies, and are therefore not true of Reality. The statements may be profoundly important to the individual who makes and believes them, but they have no objective reference. They are not knowledge. A philosophical problem is solved, according to this view, when we have explained why the philosopher is interested in it; why he has raised it at all. The problem is solved, in other words, when we know the subconscious needs and desires of the philosopher himself; when we comprehend his sublimations and frustrations, his insecurities and his startling compensations. But is philosophy, so understood, really more than psychotherapy of a particular kind? Is it a discipline worth pursuing in itself; worth the devotion of a lifetime? Or must we abdicate as philosophers and leave the field to psychoanalysts and therapists? One well may wonder. Still, philosophy is born of wonder-and of a questioning disbelief in the obvious. And, traditionally at least, the philosopher has not been preoccupied with problems of language. His concern with the clarification of linguistic expressions has been subservient to other ends. And never did it occur to him that his use of language was but the product of wishful thinking. He was crucially concerned with