Metaphysics in the Age of Scientific Hegemony

This book consists of a series of essays which concern themselves with the persisting relevance of metaphysical speculation in our time. It delves into Hegel’s politics, the ethics of Confucius and Aristotle, the research of Leibniz, with its astonishing anticipations of modern ideas, Wittgenstein’s reflections on language, the meaning of music and art and a capital instance of a failed enquiry into life and mind from a scientific point of view. In all these instances, the focus is on the autonomous agency of the human being.

Metaphysics as a philosophical discipline has long been under fire for its doctrinal presumptions, but never more so than under the hegemony of science. Yet, as the essays in this volume demonstrate, it remains an indispensable tool for thinkers in all areas of research in which the human creature is under the spotlight. That this involves a reversal of competences has not been seriously accepted—predominantly in terms of the gulf between autonomous agency and the mechanistic doxa under which science is compelled to operate. This volume seeks to put the torch on these discrepancies, where presuppositions end and understanding must take over.