P.F. Strawson helped to define the notion of “descriptive metaphysics” and also defend it as an acceptable and feasible philosophical position.
There have been many
examples of what could have been called descriptive philosophy
- if not actually descriptive metaphysics. Because descriptive
metaphysics is precisely that – descriptive, it followed (to Strawson) that it's
not the philosopher’s “task to modify or correct the structure of
commonplace thinking”. Commonplace thinking would be left untouched
by Strawson precisely because it's related to what he saw as the
“conceptual structure” or “central core” of “human
thinking”. Commonplace thinking simply embodies or expresses
Strawson’s “conceptual structure” or “central core of human
thinking”. And because that’s the case, such a logically
fundamental, universal and a-historical basis to commonplace thinking
can't be changed, modified or corrected even if a philosopher wanted
to do such things. Such a philosopher would be attempting to tamper
with the fundamental forms and logical features of minds.
It's also been said that
“ordinary language philosophy” was a “descriptive” kind
of philosophy (if not actually metaphysical in nature). In this case,
rather than leaving our commonplace thinking alone, the ordinary
language philosopher left our “commonplace idioms” well alone.
Wittgenstein put the
basic position of “descriptive philosophy” in his usual radical
way. He believed that such a philosophy basically “leaves
everything as it is”. In Wittgenstein’s own version of
descriptive philosophy, the only task such a philosophy had
(according to the Tractatus and the Wittgenstein of the first
half of the 1920s) is to analyse the propositions of the natural
sciences. And even then only to analyse and describe such
propositions, rather than modify or correct them. Indeed it would be
rather unbecoming of the Wittgensteinian descriptive philosopher to
correct, modify or alter the propositions given to him by the natural
sciences. This was primarily the case in terms of scientific
propositions because such propositions would already contain correct
and acceptable ‘logical forms’. That is, they abide by the rules
stipulated in the Tractatus and by the later Wittgenstein.
Because such a philosophy
would only be descriptive or analytical, then the Wittgensteinian
philosopher was left with virtually nothing to do. There was,
however, still a basically peripheral role to play: the analysis and
criticism of all “metaphysical propositions”.
We're left with the
strange conclusion that otherwise Wittgensteinian philosophers must
become Strawsonian “revisionary metaphysicians” - if only when
modifying, correcting or rejecting the claims expressed by
metaphysical propositions. That is, they criticised, etc. the
metaphysical propositions deemed “grammatically correct”, though
“logically false”.
When it came to the
propositions of science, Wittgensteinians were simply pen-pushers.
When criticising metaphysical propositions, they too became
metaphysicians – revisionary metaphysicians who practised (if only
in these cases) revisionary metaphysics. That is, a metaphysics that
actually wants to change the way we talk and think about the world.
However, this metaphysical revision couldn't be applied to Strawson’s
“structure of commonplace thinking” (or the “commonplace
idioms” of the ordinary language philosopher). It certainly
couldn't be revisionary (according to Wittgenstein) when it came to
the analysis and description of scientific propositions.
In the early days,
Wittgenstein wasn't concerned with leaving commonplace thinking or
idioms well alone. However, Wittgensteinian descriptive philosophy
indeed left “everything as it is” when it came to the
propositions of science. Wittgenstein did come to leave ordinary
language (or commonplace thinking) well alone. Indeed, at this later
stage, Wittgenstein did believe that all philosophy
(not just the descriptive kind) must in the end be a philosophy which
leaves everything as it is.
If such a philosophy
(along with the other versions of descriptive philosophy) literally
leaves everything as it is, then the obvious question soon arises:
What is the point of
descriptive and deflationary philosophy? What would one actually do
(as philosopher) in the Wittgensteinian scheme?
Not only does this extremely radical stance leave philosophy with almost nothing to do; what it does do can be done equally well by logicians, mathematicians and scientists; along with linguists or even empirical lexicographers, etc.
Such a radical and
deflationary attitude towards philosophy may itself be
philosophically suspect, flawed or even illogical in some way/s.
It's therefore perhaps
relevant to say here that few analytic philosophers have
accepted the work of the later Wittgenstein in all its radical
fullness. Some philosophers (e.g., Thomas Nagel, Colin McGinn and
Michael Dummett) have even claimed that the conclusions of the late
Wittgenstein are so radical and extreme that any attempts to act on
- or apply - them would result in destructive and negative
consequences. This was seen to be the case to such an extreme that
philosophers saw the later Wittgenstein as they saw the ‘usual
suspects’ of Continental philosophy (i.e., with their equally
radical notions of relativism, historicism, radical contingency,
anti-rationalism, anti-science and so on). The consequences of such
views were seen as equally destructive and negative. Indeed such
destructive consequences and negative beliefs would and have filtered
out into the larger communities outside (sometimes well outside) the
tiny communities of analytic and Continental philosophers.
In a sense, and to
finish, it seems strange that a philosophy which argued that all
correct philosophy should leave everything as it is should also be one that could have had (at least in principle) a destructive and
negative impact on philosophy and the wider world. Surely you'd have
thought that a revisionary philosopher (e.g., A.N. Whitehead and his
radical restructuring of the entire history of Western metaphysics)
would have had a radical impact on philosophy and the wider world.
References
Haack, Susan. (1979)
'Descriptive
and Revisionary Metaphysics'
Strawson, P.F. (1959)
IndividualsWittgenstein, L. (1922) Tractatus
-- (1951/53) Philosophical Investigations
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