Chris, (01)
I certainly agree. (02)
CP> However, one reason I would suggest for being aware of the name,
> if not actually using it, is that so much work has been done in
> (blue-sky, impractical) philosophy in rigorously laying out the
> choices - and the name 'metaphysics' (or 'metaphysical choices')
> points to this work. It would be a pity if people were not aware
> of it. (03)
Following is one of my favorite quotations by Peirce (CP 1.129): (04)
Find a scientific man who proposes to get along without any
metaphysics -- not by any means every man who holds the
ordinary reasonings of metaphysicians in scorn -- and you have
found one whose doctrines are thoroughly vitiated by the crude
and uncriticized metaphysics with which they are packed. We
must philosophize, said the great naturalist Aristotle -- if only
to avoid philosophizing. Every man of us has a metaphysics, and
has to have one; and it will influence his life greatly. Far
better, then, that that metaphysics should be criticized and
not be allowed to run loose. (05)
A man may say "I will content myself with common sense." I, for
one, am with him there, in the main. I shall show why I do not
think there can be any direct profit in going behind common sense
-- meaning by common sense those ideas and beliefs that man's
situation absolutely forces upon him. We shall later see more
definitely what is meant. I agree, for example, that it is better
to recognize that some things are red and some others blue, in
the teeth of what optical philosophers say, that it is merely
that some things are resonant to shorter ether waves and some
to longer ones. But the difficulty is to determine what really
is and what is not the authoritative decision of common sense
and what is merely obiter dictum. In short, there is no escape
from the need of a critical examination of "first principles." (06)
John (07)
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