Antifoundationalism

Contents

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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pp. vii-x

None of the papers in this volume has previously appeared in print and most were written expressly for this collection. Editing such a book can be an arduous task, but we were fortunate enough to be working with an enthusiastic and able group of scholars who met deadlines efficiently and uncomplainingly and did more than their part to forward our collective enterprise. All of us owe a debt to our editor, Jane Cullen, whose support and good judgment contributed immeasurably,..

INTRODUCTION

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pp. 1-12

My task here is to introduce a collection of original essays, arranged in historical order, concerning various issues of foundationalism and antifoundationalism throughout the philosophical tradition. An introduction should seek to present the book to follow, to lead into it, to induce the reader to follow along in the book; it should not seek to take the place of the book...

One. The Limits of Metaphysics and the Limits of Certainty

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pp. 13-40

Possibly the most mysterious and provocative remark in the whole of pre-Socratic philosophy is the famous fragment from Anaximander: "Out of those things whence is the generation of existing things, into them also does their destruction take place, as is right and due: for they make retribution and pay the penalty to one another for their offense [or 'injustice,' adikia]...

Two. Foundationalism in Plato?

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pp. 41-56

The several forms of foundationalist theories of knowledge aim to avoid infinite regresses of justifications through locating principles that stop the regress and justify whatever else is known. Strong forms of foundationalism require that these principles be in some sense self-certifying, for example, by direct presentation through...

Three. Foundationalism and Temporal Paradox: The Case of Augustine's Confessions

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pp. 57-84

In book XI of the Confessions Saint Augustine introduces a series of celebrated paradoxes, a dialectical chain of impasses and resolutions concerning the nature of time. This mind-numbing sequence of contradictions constitutes an argument from which Augustine appears to draw three conclusions. These are that: the present is the whole of temporal reality (that is, past and future are not...

Four. Hierarchy and Early Empiricism

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pp. 85-104

Foundationalism is a term of art, and one of recent vintage. It is also a term of criticism; those who espouse foundationalism seem to be rather defensive about it. The main target of the critics of foundationalism appears to be the views of logical empiricists and sense datum theorists. But these views are seen as being new incarnations of very old ideas, found articulated in a work as early...

Five. Hegel, German Idealism, and Antifoundationalism

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pp. 105-126

This essay concerns the foundations of knowledge in German idealism, with particular attention to G. w.F. Hegel's ambiguous interest in antifoundationalism. We can begin with a comment on the meaning of "German idealism." There is an unfortunate tendency to consider this period as beginning with Johann Gottlieb Fichte and encling with Hegel. In my view this tendency should be resisted since it eliminates from consideration two of the most...

Six. Nietzsche and the Problem of Ground

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pp. 127-142

The history of metaphysics has largely been guided by what Leibniz calls "the grand principle" of ground whose concise formula states, "Nihil est sine ratione."Nothing is without reason or ground, without ultimate explanation, without the certitude of dialectic presence. Moreover, the principle of ground signifies a system of concepts, a totality of connected ideas in a unique dialectic terrain that consolidates reason and ground...

Seven. Like Bridges without Piers: Beyond the Foundationalist Metaphor

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pp. 143-164

Foundational metaphors have long been privileged in philosophical writing. They have seduced even pragmatists. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss, for instance, selected the following sentence from Charles Sanders Peirce as a fitting opening for their multivolume collection of his writings: "To erect a philosophical edifice that shall outlast the vicissitudes of time, my care must be, not so much to set each brick with nicest accuracy, as to lay the foundations deep and massive."...

Eight. Pragmatism and the Reconstruction of Metaphysics: Toward a New Understanding of Foundations

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pp. 165-188

Though the understanding of a particular philosophic method is perhaps tile key to understanding any philosophic position, this is more than usually crucial to understanding the position of classical American pragmatism-i-that movement incorporating the thought of William James, John Dewey, Charles Peirce, C. I. Lewis, and G. H. Mead.¹' Various forms of inadequate appreciation...

Nine. Metaphysics without Mirrors

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pp. 189-208

In his well-known book Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature Richard Rorty attacks the mentalistic and epistemological foundationalism and universalist, antihistoricist pretensions of "mainstream" Western philosophy from Rene Descartes to contemporary "analytic" philosophy, and proposes a new approach to philosophizing. Along with Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, W. V. O. Quine, and Wilfrid Sellars, he credits John Dewey with revealing the arbitrariness and confusion of the entrenched ways of doing and conceiving philosophy and with opening the way to a new and more appropriate approach. I-Ie nevertheless finds none of these philosophers to have articulated ...

Ten. Metaphysics and Validation

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pp. 209-238

Metaphysics, it has been reputed, is dead, or has at least run out of things to say. Presumably at least some of us do not ascribe to such a view, even if we sometimes feel at a loss to articulate what it is that we do when we d.o metaphysics. I do not think that there are any easy answers to this, in part because I do not think we can overcome our perplexity on purely methodological grounds. In other words, in the spirit of Martin Heidegger, what metaphysics is, is itself a metaphysical question. In what follows, I first review a few key points in several contemporary approaches to metaphysics, namely, those of Richard Rorty, Nicholas Rescher, and Donald Davidson (section I). I then suggest an alternative nonfoundationalist way of looking ...

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

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pp. 239-242

INDEX OF NAMES

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pp. 243-246

INDEX OF TITLES

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pp. 247-251