The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics Making Sense of Things The Evolution of Modern Philosophy Series

This book is concerned with the history of metaphysics since Descartes. Taking as its definition of metaphysics 'the most general attempt to make sense of things', it charts the evolution of this enterprise through various competing conceptions of its possibility, scope, and limits. The book is divided into three parts, dealing respectively with the early modern period, the late modern period in the analytic tradition, and the late modern period in non-analytic traditions. In its unusually wide range, A. W. Moore's study refutes the tired old cliché that there is some unbridgeable gulf between analytic philosophy and philosophy of other kinds. It also advances its own distinctive and compelling conception of what metaphysics is and why it matters. Moore explores how metaphysics can help us to cope with continually changing demands on our humanity by making sense of things in ways that are radically new.

Preface; Introduction; Part I. The Early Modern Period: 1. Descartes: metaphysics in the service of science; 2. Spinoza: metaphysics in the service of ethics; 3. Leibniz: metaphysics in the service of theodicy; 4. Hume: metaphysics committed to the flames?; 5. Kant: the possibility, scope, and limits of metaphysics; 6. Fichte: transcendentalism versus naturalism; 7. Hegel: transcendentalism-cum-naturalism; or, absolute idealism; Part II. The Late Modern Period I: The Analytic Tradition: 8. Frege: sense under scrutiny; 9. The early Wittgenstein: the possibility, scope, and limits of sense; or, sense, senselessness, and nonsense; 10. The later Wittgenstein: bringing words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use; 11. Carnap: the elimination of metaphysics?; 12. Quine: the ne plus ultra of naturalism; 13. Lewis: metaphysics in the service of philosophy; 14. Dummett: the logical basis of metaphysics; Part III. The Late Modern Period II: Non-Analytic Traditions: 15. Nietzsche: sense under scrutiny again; 16. Bergson: metaphysics as pure creativity; 17. Husserl: making sense of making sense; 18. Heidegger: letting being be; 19. Collingwood: metaphysics as history; 20. Derrida: metaphysics deconstructed?; 21. Deleuze: something completely different; Conclusion.

A. W. Moore is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford and Tutorial Fellow of St Hugh's College, Oxford. He is the author of three previous books: The Infinite (1990); Points of View (1997); and Noble in Reason, Infinite in Faculty: Themes and Variations in Kant's Moral and Religious Philosophy (2003). He is also the editor or co-editor of several anthologies, and his articles and reviews have appeared in numerous other scholarly publications.