Metaphysics and its method: A contribution to contemporary metaphilosophy

• Applicant: Dr. Sebastian Stein
• Subject Area: Theoretical Philosophy ; History of Philosophy
• Term: since 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 403832664

Given the numerous presently competing definitions of metaphysics, the question arises as to which is the correct one. An answer seems to require a criterion that stands above the competing propositions. This is problematic insofar as metaphysics traditionally sees itself as first philosophy (with an unsurpassable standpoint), that is, as its own meta-metaphysics. What standard, then, does the sought-after perspective imply, and how can it justify its status as being (1) true metaphysics and (2) superior to the evaluated approaches to metaphysics? In this context, absolute idealism of post-Kantian provenance defines two desiderata that any metaphysics should fulfill: (1) the metaphysical desideratum of formulating a first-order speculative concept of truth that adequately grasps the relation between the particular, the universal and the individual, and (2) the superordinate desideratum of second-order self-justification, according to which metaphysics must present itself as self-thinking truth. The projected work wants to investigate how the desiderata were dealt with in the pre-Kantian, neoclassical metaphysics-grounding thought of Aristotle and Spinoza, to what extent the desiderata themselves can be justified in a post-Kantian context, and whether they can be successfully applied as a criterion of evaluation in the debate between the currently effective schools of neo-empiricism, neoclassical and neorationalist metaphysics and consciousness-based metaphysics.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants