The Metaphysical Itch

I am composing this editorial in the middle of summer. If you have read my previous editorials, written over past summers (and even during other seasons), you might surmise that this is going to be another piece that will cover a strange topic or two. You might also conclude that this current editorial possibly reflects the mind of someone who has suffered from heat exhaustion or, in the case of editorials written during other seasons of the year, from some other malady.

I confess: I have what has been called “the metaphysical itch” (Post, 1991). This is not a physical itch that a simple hand scratching can ameliorate. Rather, it is a perpetual, persistent condition often associated with individuals who are never content with what they think they know and are irritated by what they think they do not know. Because metaphysics is a complex and often convoluted construct, I will address a few aspects here—after all, I am only an amateur metaphysician.

I suspect that you might be thinking of two questions, at least: (1) What in the world is metaphysics? (2) What does metaphysics have to do with theory, research, and practice on the education of d/Deaf and hard of hearing (d/Dhh) children and adolescents? Answering the first question should pave the way for interesting perspectives on the second question. I shall propose that a good dose of the metaphysical itch should lead to an improvement of our theorizing, research, and practice—or, at the least, to the proffering of interesting ideas for further scholarly investigations and dialogues.

It is easy to state that metaphysics means “beyond physics” or is a branch of philosophy. It is much harder to define metaphysics; even metaphysicians themselves cannot reach a broad consensus (e.g., see Peters, 1963; Post, 1991; Taylor, 1983). On a deep philosophical level, metaphysics is concerned with fundamental constructs (e.g., ultimate reality, free will, moral responsibility) or questions—for example: Who am I? Why is there a universe? What is the essence of things? (Beebee, Effingham, & Goff, 2011; Post, 1991; Taylor, 1983). Attempts to address these constructs or questions have been categorized as vague musings, uncontrolled speculations, beautiful poetry, or—at best—efforts to achieve serious, systematic understandings of entities and how they relate to each other (e.g., Peters, 1963).

Some philosophers have argued that metaphysicians tackle constructs or questions that cannot be addressed by scientists or scholarly researchers who ascribe to a particular version of the scientific method (e.g., Eacker, 1975; Post, 1991). In my field (education of d/Dhh individuals), it has been argued that misunderstandings result from interpretations emanating from different epistemologies, and this situation cannot even be resolved or discussed without appealing to metaphysics (Paul & Moores, 2012). Nevertheless, serious scientists and research scholars often avoid any type of metaphysical thinking, a stance exemplified by the following passage from a book I highly recommend, Seven Psychologies (Heidbreder, 1933):

It is true that some of the most brilliant achievements of science have been accomplished by the method of combat—by championing a hypothesis against every kind of opposition until it is proved right or wrong, or partly right and partly wrong. But this is only one of the ways in which science wins its successes. Sometimes it gains its victories through the workers who are so interested in the particular problems of a particular class of facts that they deliberately postpone or ignore, for the time, the consideration of the more remote and far-reaching implications of those problems.

(p. 326)

Given my impoverished imagination and amateur status, I tend not to expend too much energy and time on the “deep” issues of metaphysics, albeit I do wonder about “the more remote and far-reaching implications” of our research findings or scholarly debates. I prefer to describe metaphysics as the practice of thinking clearly and critically, including the use of imaginative and wild thinking to develop new insights, resolve problems, or obtain an array of perspectives on a construct (see also Beveridge, 1980). This description has been associated with the work of William James, who was, at least, a metaphysician and...