[MD] Ironistic Metaphysics

[Matt Kundert]

John,

Matt said:
What John wants to say is that metaphysics is whatever 
your assumptions are, which are the only things (aside from 
the logical apparatus) that enable you to deduce 
things--which, outside symbolic logic, means _think_ things.

John said:
Well no.  At least I would not term it that particular way.  
There is a difference between an assumption and a conclusion.  
All conclusions build upon some assumptive basis somewhere, 
but I define metaphysics in the normal dictionary way of that 
which is concerned with the primary realities of self, other and 
value - A study of roots, first causes, etc, which may be 
formed by differing processes of reason, deduction or 
assumption.   When this is unconscious, then there are assumed 
stances on the basis of these primary realities and I assert 
that this unconsciously assumed stance is a metaphysical 
stance.  A weak one, but nevertheless, metaphysical.

Matt:
To my way of thinking, my "assumptions" covers both explicit 
assumptions and the unconscious ones you're talking about.  
Everything we _do_ (both say and non-verbal action), in this 
understanding, can be traced back to some "thing" that 
prompts us to do it.  These "things" can all be--at least this 
is the hypothesis--explicated and made explicit in linguistic 
form (a proposition, something that can stand in an inferential 
relation to other propositions).  So, for instance, even if "anger" 
is found to be the source of our kicking our brother's ass, that 
anger can be explicated as the "assumption" or "root" of our 
action.

Steve and I would say "philosophy" is the "rooting out," if 
you will, of these unconscious roots of our actions, verbal 
and otherwise.  Others would call it "metaphysics."  Under 
the wide auspices of "figuring out what our unconscious 
assumed stances are," I (and I think Steve) would consider 
the differences between calling this "philosophy" or 
"metaphysics" merely verbal, and uninteresting.

There is something else, though, that Rorty points to, 
something the Greeks started, and Plato really kicked into 
gear, and this is a particular assumed stance to the rooting 
out of unconscious assumed stances.  Rorty wants to take a 
different assumed stance to the rooting out of our background 
assumptions than Plato did, and so does Pirsig (think of the 
difference he creates between rhetoric and dialectic at the 
end of ZMM).

One virtue of Rorty's arrangement of 
words-referring-to-activities is that we can reserve 
"metaphysics" (as he does) for the special thing Plato does 
and "philosophy" for the wider, unavoidable thing you're calling 
metaphysics.  So when you say, relatedly, that "Metaphysics 
covers the whole shebang," Steve and I would substitute 
"philosophy," and the only difference so far as I can see is 
verbal.

Matt

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