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THE END of METAPHYSICS: LOGICAL POSITIVISM and POSTMODERNISM by Owen Blayne Chapman a Thesis Submitted to the Department of Phil

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THE END of METAPHYSICS: LOGICAL POSITIVISM and POSTMODERNISM by Owen Blayne Chapman a Thesis Submitted to the Department of Phil THE END OF METAPHYSICS: LOGICAL POSITIVISM AND POSTMODERNISM by Owen Blayne Chapman A thesis submitted to the Department of Philosophy in conformity with the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts Queen's University Kingston, Ontario, Canada September, 1997 copyright O Owen Blayne Chapman, 1997 National Library Bibliothèque nationale 191 om,, du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowulg the exclusive permettant B la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distriiute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de rnicrofiche/nlm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent êeimprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation, Recent reevaluations of logical positivism have called into question the standard phenomenalist interpretation of that movement. These reevduations have focused on the anti-metaphysical agenda pursued by the positivists in a way which opens up their ideas to pragmatic interpretations of their views on truth about fundamental reality. In this thesis 1 explore how these new developments make room for a cornparison between positivism and the contemporary philosophical position known as postmodernism. 1 conclude that while the positivists' methodology still situates them within the modem pandigm. the ad-metaphysical sensitivity which is common to both movements calls for a re-description of the relationship behveen the two schools. ACKNO WLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank fist of al1 Sergio S ismondo for his help in tahgthe abstract ( fuuy ?) thoughts behind the idea for this paper and Runing them into the workable form which 1 have attempted to lay out in the pages below. His efforts at pushing me towards producing material and then fine tuning the often serni-coherent results were immensely appreciated. Without Sergio's support as an advisor and &end the completion of this thesis on Ume would certainly not have corne about. Henry Laycock's cornrnents as second reader were also very helpful in pointing out areas of unclarity in the very rough cirafts which he received. The entire philosophy department at Queen's University is to be cornmended for their efforts at developing an atrnosphere in which a student like myself could so easily find the kind of advice and guidance which makes one's first foray into graduate studies so much easier. The presence and support of family and fiiends dong the way tumed the lonely task of research and writing into an experience which combined work with play in a way essential to my state of well being. On this note 1 would particularly like to thank the members of the household at 5438 Jeanne-Mance whose generosity paved the way for one of the happiest and most fulfilling surnmers of rny life. Lastly. I'd like to thank God for dying and making al1 the remarkable scholarship which followed this event a possibility. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS 2: LOGICAL POSITMSM ............................................. -7 THE RECEIVED VIEW ............................................ 7 NEO-KANTIANAPPROACH ...................................... 16 THE "SUBTLE" VERIFICATIONIST APPROACH ...................-23 3 THE PRAGMATIC TURN ........................................ 28 3: POSTMODERNISM ................................................ 32 THE DILEMMA OF POSTMODERNITY ............................ -32 THE "OVERCOMING OF METAPHYSICS .......................... 36 BENG-AS-PRESENCE .......................................... -43 EXAMPLES ....................................................47 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................60 VITA ................................................................63 CHAPTER 1 : INTRODUCTION The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?' he cried; "1 will tell you. We have killed him-you and 1. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth fkom its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we rnoving? Away fiom al1 suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward? sideward. fonvard, in ail directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing?... God is dead. God remains dead. And ive have killed him.... Here the madrnan fell silent and looked again at his listeners: and they. too, were silent and stared at hirn in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "1 have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done. still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the most distant stars-und yet they have done if themselves." ' According to many, modemity's unchallenged hold upon the style and content of philosophy has come to a close. Most situate this shift in Nietzsche3 infamous pronouncernent of the death of God. When Nietzsche's madman entered the marketplace and made his decree he realized momentarily afier that he had come too rarly. Thus at the moment of its conceptionpostmodernity withdrew in order to allow modernity its death throes. Modernity would finish itself off. "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him." The aftershocks of this death would take a number of years to be Modemity is ofien distinguished by its comrnitrnent to the developrnent of sysrerns of knoivledge (epistemologies) which start from clear and indisputable 'Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gav Science, tram. Walter Kauhann. (New York: Vintage Books, 1974), p. 18 1-82. -7 forrnu'utions. These foundations have c harac teristicdly taken the form of rneraphysical assertions. Thus when Descartes claimed that God guaranteed for him the truthflllness of clear and distinct ideas, he used this understanding to raise an epistemologicd structure which started From the simple thought of his being a diinkuig being and therefore existing. and finished by establishing the existence of everything else around him. The certainty with which Descartes asserted the truthfulness of clear and distinct ideas he rrained from a metaphysicai insight concerning God's non-deceptive nature. For God to C be perfect. as God must be, it is impossible for God to be a deceiver, since that would imply an imperfection. Since clear and distinct ideas which Descartes found in himself came from God, it was impossible that these ideas were faise due to the fact that God did not deceive. Thus one way of reading Descartes' position understands him as asserting the daim that if 1 have a clear and distinct idea that 1 am not dreaming and that there are other objects and people who exist around me etc., these ideas must be true. Descartes' epistemology moves from the security of one foundational concept (clarity and distinctness equalling tmthfulness) to the development of an entire world picture. For Kant, the non-subjective nature of the mind's arena of pure intuition was the foundational concept he used to devetop his own epistemological system. Objects extemal to the mind which could not be perceived and appreciated objectively due to the subjective nature of our sense impressions could be so perceived, according to Kant, rvithin the pure intuition which was a SO~of nonphysical space within the mind--what we might now cal1 the imagination. Kant used this concept to explore the nature of true statements which seemed to hold pnmarily due to the logical relations between their 3 components. but which also had interesting things to Say about the nature of the world around us. Euclidean geometrical truths, for instance, were on the one hand sirnilar to algebraic or logical tmths (like a=a) in that their contents were discoverable through pure conceptuai manipulation, and yet on the other hand seemed also to hoId over the structure of the world as it existed externally to the mind. Kant designated tmths of this sort "synthrtic n priori " in a narne designed to express both their empirical as well as their conceptual or logical nature. "Visualizing" empirical objects within the space of pure intuition allowed one to establish the synthetic a priori nature of their geometricai form. The inability for Kant to intuitively visualize objects which did not conform to the rules of Euclidean geometry caused him to maintain that at the level of human experiential ability space had to be Euclidean. Hurnean skepticism rnaintained that objective knowledge about the empirical structure of the world could never be had since confïnning evidence which one might gather in support of a hypothesis could always be called into question due to the limited (and subjective) perspective fiom which it was collected.
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