Abstract

Most simply stated, the business of Metaphysics is to understand the world, that is to say, the given world which, as given, is one stupendous Fact. This is something more than describing the world. Description, accurate and adequate, is the business of science: understanding the world is making sense of it--a quite different matter. That there is such a task implies that the world does not wear its sense on its sleeve: it presents much that seems nonsense, much that seems anti-sense or what some of our French comrades call absurdity. It is precisely this refusal to make sense that is embodied in the concept of Fact.