Metaphysics for the Third Millennium
Rome (Italy) 2000.
The report for the Conference
1. The Question about the Fate of Metaphysics in the Light of the Problem of Being
Since the end of the nineteenth century and the whole twentieth century metaphysics was severely criticized by pragmatism, positivism and post-positivism, analytical philosophy, existentialism, structuralism and other philosophical schools and directions. The critique of classical metaphysics was directed, first of all, towards statements about the existence of the ultimate, limiting, and absolute bases for all existence. In the twentieth century, along with the trend towards the removal of the preceding metaphysics, there appeared a number of new metaphysical interpretations. Here it is possible to point to works by H. Cohen, P. Natorp, H. Rickert, J. Agazzi, I. Lakatos, A. Whitehead, R. Collingwood, J. Austin, P. Strawson, K.O. Apel, and J. Habermas.
One of the famous critics of classical metaphysics was M. Heidegger. Heidegger pointed out the futility of metaphysics as a way of philosophical thinking. In his view, science and metaphysics cannot conceive of being; he is right in saying that metaphysics is inherent in personal nature. This nature determines the fact that a person as a free and final essence constantly appeals to foundations, doomed to constant justification of personal existence and concerned about what Heidegger called providing bases. This "metaphysical invariant" comes to light in different variants of metaphysics in both its classical and modern modifications. In my opinion, in metaphysics the motif of sin and salvation is also present. This motif draws our mind into the sphere of metaphysical thinking.
Perspectives of metaphysics for the twenty-first century can be considered only as a result of prior analyses and in the light of the criticism to which it was subjected in the twentieth century. The existing critique of metaphysics pertains to science as well, which, at least in its classical variant, was closely connected with a metaphysical way of thinking. I shall consider analysis of the point of view critical of science, which was supported by Heidegger and is well known.
According to Heidegger, science gravitates towards building a picture of the world. This is connected with the essence of scientific cognition as representation of reality. Heidegger relates this feature to both classical and nonclassical scientific theories. In Science and Comprehension, Heidegger wrote that science establishes the real. It requires that the real should always be represented as a result of one action or another, i.e. in the form of foreseeable consequences stipulated by reasons.1 In scientific consciousness reality appears in the form of a thing which is external and transcendental in relation to reason. On this basis the existence of such an existing given is conceived. For scientific consciousness that which has a sufficient reason exists. This is the essence of metaphysical understanding of reality. As Heidegger pointed out, its kernel is the principle of sufficient reason. Metaphysical thinking is called to provide the reason for any existing thing. Science, relying on a metaphysical way of asking about being, considers any existing reality as predetermined. The objects of scientific cognition thus emerge as those subject to calculation and measurement. In science, as M. Plank pointed out, only that which can be measured is real. Science understands the world as "made," as a product, and therefore that which "is made" is cognized. In this fact Heidegger sees the restriction of science.
Heideggers critique of science and metaphysics stems from an idea of the difference between being and the existent. Heidegger stressed that metaphysics does not distinguish between being and the existent. This is expressed in fact that metaphysics reduces being to the existent, but it does this unconsciously, because the existent is viewed as a thing. Being cannot be a thing and thus it is something "elusive" for metaphysical thinking. Lets consider more attentively the reasoning of M. Heidegger.
In his later work Proposition Concerning Reason, Heidegger stressed that the existent is one thing or another and, consequently, is varied existing; being, on the contrary, is something single, absolutely singular in its unconditional singularity.2 Being must be thought of as a pure presence before the definitions of its properties. Being is the thingness of things, but not something general in things; it is the basis for any object. Being as a basis remains without a basis itself; that is to say, it is unconditioned. Classical metaphysics, in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason, requires that being should have its first basis in the form of some existent. With such a requirement, according to Heidegger, metaphysics leads thought away from the possibility of conceiving being. In fact, being exists, but it is different from any existent. Being consists of transcendence, a constant overcoming of any form of object. According to Heidegger, the ontological basis for transcendence is nothing. Nothing, he wrote, is like being, because both have no existent, but being is not nothing in the sense of nihil negativum, negative empty nothing.3 Nothing is a condition for the possibility of revealing the existent as such for a human being. Metaphysics could thus have met the requirement to conceive of being if it had been able to give a sense to nothing or nonexistence.
2. Absolute Existences in a Scientific Theory
Unlike philosophy, science always solves the question about what the existent is and what nonexistent means. In science there are methods which allow one to answer this question. For instance, there abound proofs of the impossibility of some existences in the world, many of which are based on the principle of sufficient reason. In the history of science there are numerous examples where some existence is denied on the strength of the fact that its necessary and sufficient reason is absent. A new scientific theory is often formed on the basis of such proofs. Negative discoveries in science are no less significant than positive ones. Einsteins theory of relativity is based on the principle of the impossibility of transferring signals with superlight velocity. The uncertainty principle in quantum physics is of this kind. In thermodynamics there is the principle of the impossibility of a perpetuum mobile. In its negative form this principle confirms what mobiles can exist in reality.
However, in physical theories there is another amazing phenomenon, which attracts little attention: in physical theories there are necessary suggestions about the existence of physically impossible existences. The analysis of classical and modern physical theories confirms that each fundamental theory contains a suggestion about the existence in the world of some strange, absurd objects the existence of which can neither be allowed as possible nor denied. Physics, like other sciences of nature based on experience, deals with the existent, and one gets some knowledge concerning it. The subject of these sciences is not things that do not exist. At the same time, in any fundamental scientific theory we can find beliefs about certain impossible existences. In this connection, there is an important and interesting question about why, for instance, a physicist necessarily thinks of what does not exist. This question requires philosophical analysis of the idea of nonbeing in the structure of scientific knowledge and cognition.
Galileo showed that the condition of inertial motion is physically indistinguishable from the condition of rest. The method suggested by Galileo presupposed that the criterion for a difference in any physical condition must be physical experience. Galileo identified an observer with real physical experience. He located an observer within the world that observes itself by means of experience. Galileo also allowed the existence of an external observer. These two types of observers see the world differently: that which is distinguishable in the world of one observer is indistinguishable in the world of the other observer. And the external observer distinguishes two conditions of bodies (motion and rest), but they are indistinguishable for an internal observer. The belief about the external observer was developed later by Newton and Laplace. Absolute space and time in Newtons mechanics is a physical form of expression of existence which is transcendental in relation to any physical experience, a real reference system, and an internal observer. Laplace likened this external observer to a Divine Mind which "sees" and knows that which is inaccessible for an internal observer. This transcendental subject, which is an absolute space, is expected to exist, since this subject is necessary for distinguishing different conditions of a mechanical body (rest, inertial movement, accelerated movement), but this subject does not have the attributes of physical reality.
It is well known that Einstein used the same method, comparing the descriptions of physical processes given by external and internal observers. That which exists for one observer is an impossible existence for the another. However, both external and internal observers are local and are connected with physically possible relative reference systems. In this Einsteins position differs from that of Galileo in principle. Einstein excluded the transcendental subject from the analysis of the observable world. Such a world, with a transcendental subject, simply does not exist. This statement was vividly shown in Einsteins analysis of the notion of the simultaneity of two events. Nevertheless, Einstein resorts to another transcendental existence to ground his theory. This becomes clear in the interpretation of the general theory of relativity by H. Weyl.
Modern unified theories of matter are based on the theory of the gauge fields by H. Weyl. Weyls theory is not only an effective mathematical model, but also contains some ontological statements, which are nontrivial and very interesting for our analysis.
The idea of gauge invariability of our world consists of the assumption that physical laws may be invariant with respect to local gauge transformations if some physical field exists for compensation of changes from one point to another. Thus, the theory of local gauge transformations yields a geometric description of physical forces and fields.
The fundamental idea of Weyls theory is the assumption that there exist absolute ideal measures of physical values. These measures are distributed throughout Weyls space, or the space of gauge transformations. This space has a wonderful property: transference of a real physical value in Weyls space results in the changing of its scale.
Ideal measures are strange, absurd objects. They cannot be defined as physical objects because one cannot conduct physical experiences in which these objects could be thought of as existent. If the ideal scales were real physical objects, they would change own their scale during transfer along Weyls space. However, this fact would conflict with the epistemological status of the ideal scales as a means of measurement, for they do not depend on the properties of space. At the same time if the ontological status of the above-mentioned ideal scales as identical to each other is not assumed, it is impossible to speak about the existence of gauge transformation of real physical values. One can thus speak of ideal scales as metaphysical objects. The existence of such objects is based on the acceptance of the existence of the gauge invariability of physical laws.
Ideal scales of Weyls space are thus impossible objects in the physical world. They can be understood as being, which is different from any existent in the physical world. The relation to this being determines any existent in physical reality. We conceive of this being as an absolute existence, which does not have the predicates of existing in the physical world.
The ideal scales give a physical sense to gauge transformation and allow us to substantiate gauge invariability of the physical laws. An impossible existence may be interpreted in two ways. On the one hand, it can be understood as a subject of transcendental existence; on the other, as a sense dimension of objects. Accordingly, we may say, for instance, that calibration of ideal scales can be changed arbitrarily, but these changes cannot be found in real experience and do not affect the physical processes. Japanese physicist R. Utiyama expresses this idea in saying that it does not matter how God fixes the measured relation (calibration) in each point; we still are not able to observe it. And if He decides to change calibration, we shall not be able to observe it, either.4 Here God is understood as a transcendental subject who knows and notices what an empirical subject or internal observer does not see or know.
The second statement says that an impossible existence can be understood as a sense dimension of the physical world. The sense of an existent is closed for it. According to H. Weyl, physical force and gauge changing are not distinguished. The changing of calibration, which is not observed in experience, is the sense of the compensating act of the physical force. Therefore, an impossible existence in relation to an internal observer existence gives a sense to the physically observed existent.
It is necessary to state that in sciences dealing with nature there are a lot of absurd ideas which make sense though they do not have referents in the real world. As J. Deleuze wrote, they are from "super-being."5 The Divine Mind, absolute space, absolute time, the perpetuum mobile, an ideal scale, and others are physically impossible existences. Any physical theory must contain beliefs about impossible existences. Without them a person cannot comprehend nature and physical experience or substantiate physical principles and laws. We have to conceive of being as nothing, an impossible existence, and we thereby give a sense to the being of the existent.
As was already mentioned, physically impossible absolute existences are absurd. On the one hand, they must exist in physical reality as a condition for the possibility of its cognition, but, on the other hand, they are not the object of any experience; i.e., they do not have the predicates of existence, or thing determinations, in the physical world. Such kinds of absurd existences are not an object of knowledge and do not have corresponding notions. Knowledge about them is not a representation. If it is possible to say so, they are self-representative. I thus call them symbolic existences.6 And though such existences do not have a "place" in the world, they can be thought of as a semantic "dimension" of the being of the existent. Being is conceived of as a principle and basis for distinguishing varied existences, which are not distinguishable from the physical point of view, or real physical experience. As can be seen from the previous analysis, being is conceived of by means of object beliefs in the form of metaphoric or antinomy definitions of impossible absolute existences.
3. Hermeneutic Function of Metaphysics
Metaphysical requirement of providing a reason can lead to that we meet impossibility to represent a certain existence (being). Metaphysics distinguishes between being and the existent in the form of non-object and object knowledge. Being is conceived of as an unconditional reason for the existent, but this reason is not some existent. I believe this is the evidence that Heideggers claim to metaphysics is not just, on the whole. It can pertain only to some classical interpretations of metaphysics, which are formed in the philosophy of the Enlightenment. Classical metaphysics stemmed from the fact that there is only one correct "point of view" or "standpoint" from which truth could be seen. The fundamentalism of classical metaphysics leads to thinking about the basis for existence as a certain existent. As can be seen from the previous analysis, scientific thinking allows some nonexistent thing as a reason for the existent, which is conceived of as something which is absolute and does not have predicates. These absolutes establish "nobodys" standpoint, or, as Thomas Nagel said, the view from nowhere,7 and in accepting any particular "point of view" one is able to recognize the presence and justification of another "point of view."
The philosophical concepts of relativism and perspectivism are based on the idea of relativity in physics. The belief about the relativity of the existent resulted from the recognition of the existence of a number of equal observers. None of them is given a privilege. From the physical point of view, or from the point of view of laws of nature, different ways of representation of a physical object are equivalent, or empirically indistinguishable. I would like to stress that relativity means indistinguishability of "points of view" concerning some experience. This relativity makes sense in the context of the invariant absolute, different "points of view" which are its projections. Scientific experience must allow only such interpretations, which can be transformed and "transit" into each other. In essence, we have to say the same of all observers rules of transit between understandings of the results of observations, received by each of them. The multiplicity of the local observers is identified with physically possible forms of existence of the world. Metaphysics supposes the existence of being as a subject of understanding of possible rational interpretations of nature. In view of this subject, it is possible "to translate" the language of one description (interpretation) of the observed picture of phenomena into the language of another description. Metaphysics works out the invariant rules of translation of different rational interpretations of reality.
Metaphysics thus tries to learn what lies beyond the limits of any possible experience; it allows us to recognize justification of any reasonable "point of view." Metaphysics seeks the conditions for the possibility of mutual understanding and coordination of different types of rationality by assuming nobodys point of view, connected with impossible absolute existences in the world. I herein see the eternal importance of metaphysics.
(This paper was prepared with the support of the Russian Fund for Basic Research. Project 00-06-80092.)
1 Heidegger M. Being and Time (Moscow: Respublica, 1998) P.245.
2 Heidegger M. Proposition about Reason (S.-Petersburg: Aleteia, 1999) P.145.
3 Heidegger M. Being and Time (Moscow: Respublica, 1998) P.419.
4 See: Utiyama R. A Physics Come to That? The theory of gauge fields (Moscow: Nauka, 1986.) P.162.
5 Deleuze J. Logic of Sense (Moscow: Academia, 1995) P.53.
6 See in detail: Nevvajai I. Freedom and Knowledge (Saratov: Academy of Law Press, 1995).
7 See: Nagel T. The View from Nowhere (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).