Tractatus Parmenideo-Philosophicus

In making the Parmenidean Ascent, one transcends metaphysical distinctions and is freed from the illusions of relational thinking. This freedom from the burden of attempting to make our words and sentences match or correspond to an independent reality and to invest our thoughts with metaphysical significance promises to enable us finally to see the world aright as Wittgenstein would put it. This chapter—which is as far as possible freed from any distinctions— is an imperfect attempt to exhibit the spirit of play that comes with the freedom from relational metaphysical explanation.

Metaphysical Explanation

In chapter 8, the Parmenidean, Bradleyan methodology turns its sights on metaphysical explanation. The Parmenidean Ascent in this chapter does not proceed—as in previous chapters—by showing that proponents of this notion fail to meet an explanatory demand. Rather, the argument is that proponents of metaphysical explanation are committed to irrational actions in positing certain facts. These actions are arbitrary, performed without sufficient reason, and violate Ockham’s Razor, which counsels us not to multiply entities without needing to do so. This chapter shows how attempts by Schaffer to avoid the force of this argument by modifying Ockham’s Razor are inadequate. Throughout the chapter, connections between this argument and Quine’s arguments against modality are highlighted. The upshot is that differentiated, relational metaphysical explanation needs to be given up, that a structured ontology must be rejected, and that we must make a Parmenidean Ascent with regard to metaphysical explanation.

Meaning

In its most general form, the explanatory demand with regard to meaning addresses the question: what is it for representation or aboutness or meaning to be present? This question can focus on linguistic meaning in particular or on aboutness in general, including non-linguistic aboutness. Through a detailed analysis of leading theories—including those of Grice, Searle, Soames, Descombes, Horwich, Putnam, Kripke, Lewis, and Davidson—it is shown how the failure to meet the explanatory demand with regard to meaning is pervasive. A Bradleyan regress argument is then deployed to make a Parmenidean Ascent: there is no differentiated meaning, instead all is meaning. This ascent is intimated—perhaps unwittingly—in the classic arguments of Quine’s “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” and Davidson’s “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme.” The chapter closes with a Parmenidean Ascent with regard to truth that follows from the Parmenidean Ascent with regard to meaning.

The Taming of Philosophy

The biggest source of resistance to the Parmenidean Ascent is the implausibility of its radically monistic conclusions. Philosophers have been taught to avoid at almost any cost any such implausible or counterintuitive results. Thus, to complete the defense of the Parmenidean Ascent, it is necessary to weaken the hold of the method of intuition and the related reliance on common sense. This chapter outlines various forms of the method of intuition to be found in thinkers as diverse as Bealer, Lewis, Sider, and also Rawls with his method of reflective equilibrium. The method of intuition is shown to be both unduly conservative and also arbitrary with regard to which opinions are favored. The chapter then explores the historical factors behind the rise of the method of intuition. Here the focus is on the reaction against Bradley by the early analytical philosophers, Moore and Russell, who question-beggingly reject Bradley’s commitment to the PSR.

Substance

This chapter identifies the source of the failure to satisfy the explanatory demand with regard to being or substance. The culprit is the presupposition that we are trying to understand what it is to be a relational substance, a substance that stands in relations. Chapter 3 argues that any attempt to meet the explanatory demand for a relational substance is embroiled in vicious explanatory regresses or circles. Potential objections to this argument are shown to be lacking, and a comparison between this argument against relational substance and Bradley’s famous regress argument against the reality of relations is offered. The only way to save the notion of substance is to affirm undifferentiated or non-relational substance. This is a Parmenidean Ascent with regard to being: there are no beings, not even one being, rather there is simply being. A comparison between this conception of being and Aquinas’ conception of God is offered.

Knowledge

Chapter 5 begins by showing how the explanatory demand with regard to knowledge—what is it in virtue of which a given state is a state of knowledge?—drives so much work in epistemology. As in the cases of the chapters on substance and action, this chapter argues that leading theories of knowledge all fail to meet this explanatory demand. Theories examined include contextualist and non-contextualist theories, as well as knowledge-first theories. Authors criticized include Goldman, Dretske, DeRose, Lewis, Stanley, and Williamson. With the help of another Bradleyan regress argument, the underlying problem in each case is revealed to be the presupposition that one is dealing with differentiated or relational knowledge. As before, the way out of these difficulties is to make a Parmenidean Ascent with regard to knowledge: all is knowledge and there is no differentiated knowledge.

Meaning, the History of Philosophy, and Analytical Philosophy

Chapter 7 considers the consequences of the Parmenidean Ascent with regard to meaning for the alleged distinction between philosophy and the study of its history. The argument that any such distinction is unintelligible focuses on the disregard of the history of philosophy in certain quarters of analytical philosophy. The argument identifies three pillars or struts of analytical philosophy: realism, the method of intuition or common sense, and discreteness in metaphysics. The chapter then shows how each of these three struts is implicated in the disdain for or ignoring of the history of philosophy. Rejecting an isolationist response to this analytical forgetfulness—a response that separates the study of the history of philosophy from philosophy itself—the chapter goes on to challenge the struts of analytical philosophy and to make a Parmenidean Ascent with regard to the distinction between philosophy and the study of its history.

The Call of Parmenides

Chapter 1 advances an interpretation of Parmenides as rejecting all distinctions and all non-being and as thus espousing a radical form of monism. Parmenides’ monism is so radical that, according to him, non-being cannot even be thought of or spoken of. Strong textual evidence is marshalled for seeing Parmenides’ rejection of distinctions as driven by his explicit and implicit commitment to the Principle of Sufficient Reason, the PSR, according to which each fact or thing has an explanation. The Parmenidean rejection of all distinctions amounts to a paradox in part because, in saying that non-being cannot be thought or said, Parmenides seems to be speaking of non-being. Comparison of Parmenides’ paradoxical view and Wittgenstein’s position in his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus is developed. Important secondary literature on Parmenides is engaged with, particularly the writings of G. E. L. Owen and Alexander Mourelatos.

Tamers, Deniers, and Me

Chapters 10 and 11 attempt to counteract the resistance that will inevitably meet the extreme, Parmenidean conclusions in this book. Chapter 10 explores attempts to avoid these results by limiting the principle of sufficient reason (the PSR). This attempted modification is the taming strategy with regard to the PSR. This chapter identifies Kant and Dasgupta as representative (and very different) examples of PSR-tamers, and it shows how these taming strategies are each incoherent. Much use here is made of one of Leibniz’s arguments for the PSR which—though, perhaps, unsuccessful—is instrumental in mounting the charge of incoherence against the taming strategy. Connections between the limiting of the PSR embraced by tamers and the radical form of monism operative throughout this book are explored.

Substance

The first case in which this book identifies the pressure to make the Parmenidean Ascent is that of substance or being. This chapter analyzes several episodes in the history of philosophy in which philosophers appropriately issue an explanatory demand when it comes to substance: what is it in virtue of which a substance is a substance? These philosophers all then go on to fail to observe this explanatory demand in their own positive accounts of substance. The views of Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, and Jonathan Lowe are examined in some detail. This pervasive failure of a wide swath of prominent theories of substance leads to the suspicion that there is something systematically amiss with the notion of substance. Chapter 3 seeks to identify the culprit.