During the 20th century, metaphysics saw significant developments and diversification, as new philosophical movements and ideas emerged in response to earlier challenges and insights. The following provides more detailed descriptions of major developments in metaphysics during the 20th century, including arguments and debates:
Analytic Philosophy: Analytic philosophy, originating in the early 20th century, emphasized clarity, logical rigor, and the analysis of language. Key figures like Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein contributed to metaphysics by exploring reality through the lens of logic and language. Russell's logical atomism posited that reality consists of simple, irreducible facts or "atoms" reflected in language structure. Wittgenstein's early work, "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus," argued that language depicts the world's logical structure. Later, in "Philosophical Investigations," he proposed that language functions through diverse practices or "language games," challenging the idea of a single, underlying reality. This groundwork led to logical positivism, which aimed to eliminate metaphysical speculation in favor of empirically verifiable statements, though it faced criticism for its own metaphysical assumptions.
Phenomenology: Edmund Husserl developed phenomenology to study the structures of conscious experience, aiming to provide insights into the nature of consciousness and the relationship between the mind and the world. Martin Heidegger expanded upon Husserl's ideas, arguing that humans are "thrown" into the world and must confront the question of Being. This led to debates about existence, language's role in shaping our understanding of reality, and the relationship between human subjectivity and the external world.
Existentialism: Existentialist thinkers like Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus rejected traditional metaphysical systems, focusing instead on human conditions and subjective experiences of the world. Sartre's concept of "radical freedom" argued that individuals are always free to choose their actions, and these choices define their essence. This focus on individual responsibility and choice generated debates about existentialism's implications for ethics, social and political philosophy, and life's meaning.
Process Philosophy: Alfred North Whitehead developed process philosophy, positing that reality fundamentally consists of events or processes rather than static objects. This dynamic conception of reality generated debates about time, change, and causality. Critics argued that process philosophy struggled to account for enduring objects or entities, while proponents countered that it provided a more accurate description of the world's fundamentally dynamic nature.
Frankfurt School and Critical Theory: The Frankfurt School, including thinkers like Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse, developed critical theory as an interdisciplinary approach to understanding society and culture. Although not solely focused on metaphysics, critical theorists critiqued and analyzed the metaphysical assumptions underlying various social, political, and cultural phenomena. They explored issues related to ideology, power, and the nature of social reality, challenging traditional conceptions of objectivity and the subject-object relationship in the process.
Post-Structuralism and Deconstruction: Post-structuralist thinkers like Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault challenged traditional metaphysical categories and assumptions. Derrida's deconstruction aimed to expose the instability and contingency of the concepts and structures that underpin our understanding of reality. This led to debates about meaning, representation, and language's role in constructing our understanding of the world. Critics accused post-structuralism of relativism and nihilism, while proponents argued that it revealed complexities and nuances often overlooked by traditional metaphysical systems.
Emergence and Complexity: New developments in the natural sciences during the late 20th century led to growing interest in the metaphysics of emergence and complexity. Theories of emergent properties and complex systems sought to explain how new levels of organization and phenomena arise from the interaction of simpler components. This sparked debates about the nature of causality, the relationship between different levels of explanation, and the possibility of reductionism. Critics of emergence argued that it was a vague and poorly defined concept, while proponents maintained that it provided a valuable framework for understanding the structure and behavior of complex systems across various domains, from biology to social sciences.
These examples illustrate the rich and diverse landscape of metaphysical developments during the 20th century. Philosophers engaged with new ideas and challenges from a variety of perspectives, leading to lively arguments and debates that continue to shape the field today. The 20th century witnessed a shift from grand, unified metaphysical systems to a more pluralistic and specialized approach, reflecting the growing influence of interdisciplinary research and the increasing complexity of our understanding of the world. By integrating insights from fields such as the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities, metaphysics in the 20th century continued to evolve, generating new questions and exploring novel approaches to age-old philosophical problems.
Analytic philosophy, which emerged in the early 20th century, is characterized by its emphasis on clarity, precision, and logical rigor in philosophical inquiry. Analytic philosophers typically focus on the analysis of language, concepts, and logical structure in their investigations. The relationship between analytic philosophy and metaphysics has been complex and has evolved over time, with different analytic philosophers holding various views on the subject. Generally, there are three main approaches to metaphysics within analytic philosophy:
Logical Positivism and the Rejection of Metaphysics: In the early to mid-20th century, the logical positivist movement, represented by philosophers such as A.J. Ayer and Rudolf Carnap, was highly influential within analytic philosophy. Logical positivists argued that only statements that can be empirically verified or are true by definition (analytic truths) have meaning. As metaphysical statements often deal with abstract concepts and are not directly verifiable by empirical means, logical positivists considered them to be meaningless and rejected metaphysics as a legitimate area of philosophical inquiry.
Ordinary Language Philosophy and Metaphysics: In the mid-20th century, ordinary language philosophy, which emphasized the analysis of ordinary language use to solve philosophical problems, emerged as another approach within analytic philosophy. Philosophers such as J.L. Austin and Gilbert Ryle argued that metaphysical problems often arise due to misunderstandings or confusions in the use of language. They believed that by examining and clarifying the way we use language, many traditional metaphysical problems could be dissolved or shown to be misconceptions.
Revival of Metaphysics in Analytic Philosophy: In the later part of the 20th century and into the 21st century, there has been a revival of interest in metaphysics within analytic philosophy. This resurgence is associated with philosophers such as David Lewis, Saul Kripke, and Alvin Plantinga. These philosophers have developed new metaphysical theories using the tools and methods of analytic philosophy, such as modal logic, possible worlds semantics, and counterfactual analysis. Contemporary analytic metaphysicians engage with traditional metaphysical topics, including causation, time, personal identity, free will, and the nature of abstract objects, often employing formal logic and mathematical tools in their investigations.
Analytic philosophy's view of metaphysics has evolved over time, ranging from the early rejection of metaphysics by logical positivists to the more recent resurgence of interest in metaphysical questions. Contemporary analytic philosophers often engage with metaphysical topics, using the clarity, precision, and logical rigor characteristic of the analytic tradition to explore and develop new theories.
(Quoted from: Introduction to Metaphysics (pp. 225-227). 2012. Highlights added).
"It was Heidegger who brought the history of metaphysics to light. Before him, and for most of modernity, metaphysics had been no more than a type of philosophy that sought to pass beyond experience and which one could easily avoid by favoring, for example, the experimental sciences—a positivist and rather convenient concept of metaphysics that can be found in the works of Carnap and Habermas.
And yet Heidegger showed that favoring experience in this way actually stems from a metaphysical decision. Even the claim that the only true reality is that of the so-called [!] sense experience is metaphysical because metaphysical thought, since Plato, has always limited reality to what can be overseen and regulated.
Thus there is continuity between Plato and the most militant empiricism: in both cases, thought always decides what really is. And the separation of ancient metaphysics, founded on Being, from modern thought, resting on subjectivity, thereby disappears.
Heidegger was also one of the first to show how the modern term “subject” was in fact the translation of an old concept taken from Greek ontology, hupokeimenon (the Latin subjectum). But the Greek term—and the Latin one for that matter—was never used to characterize the human perspective. It simply designated a substrate subsisting by itself, which lies (keimenon) at the foundation of a thing’s determinations (thus we speak of a grammatical “subject”). Since human thought has now become the new foundation for the determinations of what is, the human subject must be included in the history of metaphysics.
The discovery of modern subjectivity’s forgotten ontological foundations reaffirms the urgency of the question of Being not only for philosophy, but also for humankind itself. Giants such as Descartes and Kant attempted to do away with the question of Being and replace it with a more fundamental perspective that supposedly contained the determinations of all that is: an analytic of the cogito or of the pure understanding. Heidegger showed us ontology’s destitution was in fact a substitution. What replaced the old “pompous” ontology was no less than the “metaphysics of subjectivity.” The founding, permanent, and therefore true Being became thought.
Although Descartes avoided the term ontology, he appropriately spoke of a new metaphysics or first philosophy. But the cogito’s metaphysical importance rested on its ontological importance, which stemmed from the reduction of Being to thought (ens cogitatum).
Again it was Heidegger who showed how this masterful re-determination of Being by thought was preserved in Kant and Hegel’s metaphysics and eventually reached it culmination in Nietzsche’s understanding of Being as “will” and “value.” By reducing Being to a value for a will to power, Nietzsche simply expressed the secret essence of metaphysical Platonism. Read from Heidegger’s perspective, Nietzsche appears as the most consistent metaphysical thinker! But Nietzsche also recognized that if Being is reduced to will and value, which is then ratified by the dominion of technology—the only possible way of thinking that remains, then nihilism and the death of God are the inevitable destiny of the Western world."
Philosophy of Existence:
The term "existence" is striking, and eminently important. As we have seen, the word itself first means a projection, a spouting: Exsistere or existare means “to stand outside of” or “to spring out of.”
Kierkegaard interprets it in this way (under Schelling’s influence):
"Existing does not designate an observable reality as much as an event, an active upheaval or outgrowth, which resists being grasped rationally. The term expresses the sudden appearance of humankind itself exposed to its Being—and therefore to its nothingness—and who is thereby confronted with a decision about its Being: “the Self is a relation which relates itself to its own self,” writes Kierkegaard at the beginning of Sickness unto Death. Suspended above nothingness, existence is not a clearly defined reality, but a perpetual relation to self; in a word, anxiety awaiting resolution. As a Protestant preacher, Kierkegaard sought to remind individuals that their existential and religious choices decide the fate of their Being. His existential call was accompanied by a critique of conceptual philosophy, especially Hegel’s, who was the Dane’s sworn enemy. According to Kierkegaard, Hegel, by reducing reality to a universal and reassuring order, had sidestepped the fundamental human reality, its concrete existence and the individual—and in a way irrational—decisions it must make.
His existential call was accompanied by a critique of conceptual philosophy, especially Hegel’s, who was the Dane’s sworn enemy. According to Kierkegaard, Hegel, by reducing reality to a universal and reassuring order, had sidestepped the fundamental human reality, its concrete existence and the individual—and in a way irrational—decisions it must make.