Edward Jonathan Lowe and the Possibility of Metaphysics

Logical Positivism and Analytic Philosophy have opposed metaphysics for decades, but now some contemporary analytic philosophers have turned their attention to metaphysics, regarding it not only possible but indispensable. So now a rich tradition of analytic philosophy exists. Edward Jonathan Lowe, in an extensive academic project and a book reminiscent in its confrontation with metaphysics of Kant’s critical philosophy, has tried to show the possibility of metaphysics and to present his own non-Kantian and realist metaphysics. He argues that, in a clear distinction between metaphysics and empirical sciences, the task of metaphysics is not to say what there is, but to state what can exist. According to him, the subject matter of metaphysics is “possibilities”, while empirical sciences have “actualities” as their subject matter. He defends metaphysics as an intellectual activity, with a central role for philosophizing and a priority for metaphysics against empirical sciences, so that metaphysics and the metaphysical possibility of specific subject matters of sciences are always prior to all scientific theorizing. The findings of metaphysics are the foundations of the empirical sciences, expressive of the possibilities of existence, and help to specify the categories of existence and the relations between these categories. In his project, Lowe has tried to deduce the “possibility of metaphysics” from “metaphysical possibility”, to present his own metaphysical system as an indispensable autonomous discipline, and, accordingly, to solve some problems of philosophy.