Philosophy Synthesis I

Prepared by
Archie R. Magarao
Phase I
Turn to the
Subject
Phase II
Turn to
Historicism
Phase III
Turn to
Language
Key
Figures



Descartes



Kant,



Locke



Hume
Key
Thoughts
Emphasis on
epistemology over
metaphysics
Since the time of Locke, metaphysics has been challenged as extending beyond the
capacities of human reason
Locke maintains that in books of metaphysics we find an infinite number of
propositions that nevertheless tells us nothing of the nature or reality of things
existing without us so that metaphysical propositions are not tautological, they are
merely trifling.
For Hume, metaphysics is not properly a science but arises either from fruitless
efforts of human vanity which would penetrate into subjects
Key Figures
Post-Hegelians
Marx, Engels, etc.
Key Thought(s)
The attack is on what it is
that metaphysics claimed
to know.
the primacy or the
possibility of metaphysics
is under criticism
All human knowledge
was socially constructed
or context-bound, or that
there were no natures or
ultimate reality to be
known.

All human knowledge
was socially
constructed or context-
bound, or that there
were no natures or
ultimate reality to be
known.
What a thing is cannot
be separated from its
historical context.
Key Figures
Wittengenstein,
de Saussure,
Frege, Cassirier,
Levi-Strauss,
Heidegger
Key Thoughts
Insistence of the
importance of
language in
relation to
thought
Thought requires
language to be
even possible.

If something cannot be
coherently expressed or
articulated in language, it
makes no sense to affirm
or deny anything about
it.
In the 20
th
century, the
linguistic turn called
into question any attempt
to talk of metaphysical
truthparticularly
whether metaphysical
propositions could be
true.
Everything or
the reality of
things need no
explanation or
accounting for
PRAGMATISM
EXISTENTIA-
LISM
NATURALISM,
POSITIVISM,
MARXISM
We have no reason to claim that there is a cross-cultural standard of rationality
or a single, universal model of reason.
Reason is a tool that without warrant marginalizes certain aspects of experience
and certain groups and thus hegemonic and oppressive.
Mistrust in reason and rationality (Feminism,
Marxism, Deconstructionism etc.)
One of Karl Poppers concern about metaphysics from Plato to Hegel is that
comprehensive metaphysical accounts have tended to bring with them political
systems that allegedly leave no room for human (political) freedom and
autonomy.
If there is no stable core of philosophical problems, if reality is in large part,
or wholly socially constructed and if knowledge and categories of knowing
are ultimately historical , a systematic metaphysics would be not only beside
the point but impossible.
If there can be a metaphysics, what method or methods might one use?
Suspicion of any systematic
metaphysics


What is your assessment to the
contemporary challenges on
metaphysics?