Abstract

Roger Kimball is managing editor of The New Criterion, an art critic for the London Spectator, and a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal. Not the sort of credentials we might expect from a metaphysician. Still, since many modern and contemporary “metaphysicians” are actually poets masquerading as philosophers, Kimball’s metaphysical analysis is an instance of the delicious irony that philosophy’s history often plays on hubristic intellectuals: the nonprofessional must enter the scene to show the so-called experts how to do their job.