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moralobjectivity.net: copyright Robert M Ellis 2011
Common but unhelpful assumptions 2: The need to accept or reject metaphysical claims
Metaphysical claims are ones that, in practice, have no possible criteria to verify or falsify through experience. For example, that individuals are free or that God exists. If I as an individual (or alternatively a community of people), try to specify in advance what experiences I could have that would make these claims true or false, there are no possible experiences I could specify that would show either their truth or their falsity Even a loud voice rumbling in the heavens announcing "I am God" would not prove God's existence, but at the same time no amount of scientific explanation of religious phenomena would prove that he does not. Religious claims provide one obvious type of metaphysics, but there are many more: Platonic essences, mathematical absolutes, freewill and determinism, moral and political absolutes, claims about the ultimate physical structure of the universe and claims about our own natures.
It is often assumed in Western thought either that metaphysical claims must be accepted even though they cannot be demonstrated, or that metaphysics can be denied so that we live in a world of mere surfaces and acknowledged constructions. It is also often assumed that those who try to strike any kind of middle path between acceptance or denial are really on the other side (whichever 'side' the 'other side' is seen as being). For example, theists often regard agnostics as a type of atheist, whilst those who try to find a balance between freedom and justice in political ideology are portrayed as traitors to the cause of each. However, we do not have to either accept or deny metaphysics. The alternative is metaphysical agnosticism.
Agnosticism is not in the least an indecisive or impractical position. On the contrary, it requires determination to avoid being pushed onto one side or the other by warring metaphysical groups. It as also a more practically useful option that any metaphysical commitment, because it requires us to justify our positions in the terms of our experience, where we are in a position to act on them. Metaphysical beliefs, on the other hand, have to be imposed on the world we experience, and as a result are often forced on it in a way that creates conflict and stops us addressing conditions effectively.
It is our constant desire to freeze the world in accordance with a passing idea of it that grips us - but conditions elude us. If we can start to accept that we will never know whether we have a complete account of it, and to take this into account in our thinking, then we can start to think beyond metaphysical assumptions. However, this is a major challenge, requiring a shift from a dualistic to a non-dualistic approach. Dualism seems to be coherent in terms of its own assumptions, one of which is that metaphysics is unavoidable, but it does not take into account the possibility of these assumptions being false.
Freeing ourselves from metaphysics does not involve a sudden blast of enlightenment or a revelation from God (believing in these, in fact, is just another way back into metaphysics). Instead, it requires the simultaneous, incremental chipping away at interlocking dualistic assumptions (of which seven key ones are given in this section of the website, listed in the margin). We cannot get free of dualism without taking scepticism seriously so as to cast doubt on metaphysical claims (1), nor without reconceiving objectivity (3) and focusing on the practical situation as the basis of judgement (4). We have to understand the meaning of the terms we are using as based on experience, not as representations of truth-conditions or expressions of the self (5). Metaphysics is further supported by the fact-value distinction (6) and assumptions about the self (7). Though there may be other ways of avoiding metaphysics than through the philosophical study of these ideas, they will at least need to be worked on through practical correlates to develop an more non-dualistic approach.
However, the main point here for now is that there is an alternative to the acceptance or rejection of metaphysics. The possibility of this alternative can only be appreciated by not prematurely dismissing it through the imposition of one of the linked assumptions involved in dualism. If we can only persevere in trying to conceive an alternative, the long-running dualistic problems of Western thought, with their associated practical effects, become more tractable. To ask for perseverance in trying to understand an alternative is not to ask for open-ended faith. Perseverance has limits in mind, but those limits are extended in accordance with the complexity of the conditions that we are trying to address.
Links to related discussion elsewhere on the site:
Dualism and non-dualism (thesis)
The Philosophy of the Middle Way
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