The classic, influential essay in 'descriptive metaphysics' by the distinguished English philosopher.

Strawson described ‘descriptive metaphysics’, Bach described ‘natural language metaphysics’, Sapir and Whorf describe, well, Sapir-Whorfianism. And there are other views concerning the relation between correct semantic analysis of linguistic phenomena and the “reality” that is supposed to be thereby described. I think some considerations from the analyses of the mass-count distinction can shed some light on that very dark topic.

Since its publication in 1959, Individuals has become a modern philosophical classic. Bold in scope and ambition, it continues to influence debates in metaphysics, philosophy of logic and language, and epistemology. Peter Strawson's most famous work, it sets out to describe nothing less than the basic subject matter of our thought. It contains Strawson's now famous argument for descriptive metaphysics and his repudiation of revisionary metaphysics, in which reality is something beyond the world of appearances. Throughout, (...) Individuals advances some highly influential and controversial ideas, such as 'non-solipsistic consciousness' and the concept of a person a 'primitive concept'. (shrink)

The article considers possibility of applying the concept of descriptive metaphysics to the project of Kant's transcendental philosophy. According to analytical philosophy, descriptive metaphysics is the description of structures of thinking about the world. The basis for describing acts of thinking about the world from Kant's point of view is the description of forms of intuition. Transcendental (descriptive) analysis of understanding must be preceded by transcendental (descriptive) aesthetics as an investigation of pure intuitions of (...) space and time. Phenomenon of time is considered as a condition for determining the concepts "judgment", "category of understanding", "pure understanding" and "object of knowledge". (shrink)

This paper observes that P. F. Strawson’s distinction between descriptive and revisionary metaphysics is a baffling one from the perspective of traditional metaphysics. If one thinks of metaphysics as the study of the fundamental nature of reality, it is bewildering to divide up metaphysics in this way. The paper then tries to show how the distinction is no longer bewildering if we deny that such study is possible.

P.F. Strawson is famous for his contribution to the Kant-scholarship (especially for his book The Bounds of Sense). On the other hand, Strawson is recognized as an independent and origional philosopher. This text presents an analysysis of the intersection of these two themes: I present an analysis of Strawson's conception of descriptive mataphysics and aplly its results to the Kant's critical philosophy and to Strawson's interpretation of it. It gives me an opportunity to show that some aspects of Kant's (...) view on method and subject matter of philosophy is genuenly Strowsonian. However, on the other hand, some other Kant's intentions show that even if it is posiible to consider Kantian approach as descriptive metaphysics, it would be another, un-Strawsonian approach. (shrink)

This paper examines some aspects of Strawson’s conception of descriptive metaphysics, as it is developed in Individuals. Descriptive metaphysics sets out to describe ”the actual structure of our thought about the world”. Three specific problems for this project are discussed. First, isn’t the description of our actual thought about the world mainly an empirical task? Second, how determinate and consistent is the stuff we find, how determinate and consistent is our conceptual scheme? Third, who are “we” (...) here? Answers to these sets of questions are mainly negative in spirit. But all this will probably not mean that there will be no place for metaphysics, descriptive or revisionary, as a subject. The whole enterprise is perhaps more fraught with difficulties than Strawson thought, however. (shrink)

The article discusses the features of Kant's project of descriptive metaphysics and its development in Husserl's transcendental phenomenology. Kant's project of descriptive metaphysics can be seen in three senses: as a transcendental philosophy in General, which deals with the study of cognition, as a metaphysics of experience, aimed at studying the first principles of world experience, and as revealing the structure of our thinking about the world. All these variants of descriptive metaphysics were (...) developed in Husserl's transcendental phenomenology. The author pays special attention to the analysis of the phenomenological doctrine of consciousness, since in Husserl's approach one can see the development of the project of descriptive metaphysics in all three senses Husserl understands consciousness as cognizing consciousness, that is, as cognition; the phenomenological understanding of consciousness also includes a mode of thinking about the world; consciousness is considered by Husserl as a real everyday experience. (shrink)

Strawson's descriptive metaphysics was the first explicit and elaborate rehabilitation of metaphysics within the analytic tradition. This chapter discusses Strawson's contributions to metaphysics with a particular view to his conception of the nature of metaphysics-cum-ontology. This chapter first dwells on the background of Strawson's metaphysics. Next it introduces Strawson's idea of descriptive metaphysics and of connective analysis. Sections 3–8 discuss Strawson's main claims: self-conscious experience presupposes a distinction between experience and its mind-independent (...) objects, objective particulars must be situated in a spatio-temporal framework, material bodies are ontologically prior because they sustain this framework, experience and discourse revolve around a fundamental distinction between reference and predication, both particulars and universals are among our objects of reference. This chapter tries to reconstruct the main lines of argument by combining ideas from Individuals and Bounds of Sense. Sections 9–11 defend Strawson's modest conception of metaphysics as a second-order description of our conceptual scheme. (shrink)

The focus of this article is the examination of potential applications of linguistic philosophy, particularly the philosophy of natural language, to elucidate certain aspects of cosmology. Using the foundational principles of Strawson’s descriptive metaphysics as a guide, the article suggests plausible strategies for employing the tools of linguistic philosophers in analyzing key concepts within, for example, Chinese cosmology. The vast majority of researchers of Chinese cosmology used one of the two most common approaches – historical or philosophical. The (...) historical approach involved the analysis of the cosmological concept of crises through the prism of the history of the development of socio-cultural and political factors, as well as through the analysis of the historical development of the main ideas and texts. The philosophical approach considered the cosmological concept as a “philosophical school”, tending to consider cosmology in the context of comparison with the Western tradition of philosophy and science. Both approaches have significant limitations. Strawson is not a classic representative of linguistic philosophy, because his approach to using the methodology of the school of everyday language is original and allows returning metaphysics to the field of view of analytical philosophy. His metaphysical essay on the model of the relationship between language and the world does not raise questions about the criteria of existence. This is important because Chinese cosmology is closely related to cultural factors and rituals. It is the analysis of cosmology as a complete system that should become the main task of the researcher. The methodology of the school of everyday language in Strawson’s interpretation is seen as promising for providing an original interpretation and clarification of some main points of non-European cosmology. The goal is to assess whether the methodology of Ordinary Language Philosophy remains relevant for advancing cosmological and metaphysical accounts. (shrink)

The goal of formal ontological inquiry is to reveal the categorial structure of the mind-independent reality. In the first part of this article, I criticize two popular ways to study the categorial structure, Strong and Weak Modelling. In the second part of the article, I present my positive account. The systematic description of the different kinds of entities assumed by our commonsense conceptions forms a starting-point of the study of the categorial structure of the world. However, it is the task (...) of Revisionary Metaphysics to seek for the best conception of the categorial structure. Revisionary Metaphysics proceeds as testing alternative conceptions of the categorial structure. The main new contribution of the article is to propose certain general principles for the comparison of such alternative conceptions. (shrink)

The main aim of this paper is to characterize Maurizio Ferraris’ New Realism as a metaphilosophical account that develops Peter Strawson’s project of a descriptive metaphysics. The paper consists of two sections. The former outlines Strawson’s descriptive metaphysics by highlighting its realist commitments. The latter characterizes New Realism as a way of turning Strawson’s metaphysics into a metaphilosophy. New Realism moves from Strawson’s metaphysical description of the world we share through our experience to the metaphilosophical (...) claim that philosophy should primarily consist in this kind of description. (shrink)

The paper discusses the Strawsonian concept of descriptive metaphysics and its various implementations in conceptions of I. Kant, R.G. Collingwood and P.F. Strawson, their similarities and differences. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of Kant's transcendental philosophy (resp. transcendental idealism), or its metaphysics of appearance as a pioneer version of descriptive metaphysics and its comparison with the version of descriptive metaphysics of P. Strawson himself.

How should one respond to scepticism? Should one seek to refute it? Or should scepticism be ignored? This paper argues that descriptive metaphysics occupies an intermediate logical space between truth-directed transcendental arguments aimed at refuting the sceptic and the quietist stance of the Humean naturalist who declines to take up the sceptical challenge. Descriptive metaphysics is neither quietist nor confrontational. It seeks to show, rather, that the sceptic is not a genuine partner in conversation.

There is a widespread view according to which descriptive metaphysics is not ‘real’ metaphysics. This paper argues that first-order philosophical disagreements cannot be settled without re-opening the debate about the nature of philosophical enquiry and that failure to scrutinize and justify one’s own metaphilosophical stance leads to arguments which are circular or question begging.

A critique of Strawson's distinction between descriptive and revisionary metaphysics.

A discussion of the concept of Descriptive v Revisionary Metaphysics as it applies to the work of P.F. Strawson amongst others.

Individuals is divided into two parts. In Part I, Strawson tries to show that there is an important sense in which material objects and persons are basic particulars. In Part II "the aim is to establish and explain the connexion between the idea of a particular in general and that of an object of reference or logical subject". Part II contains a wealth of interesting material and ingenious argumentation. Most important here, perhaps, is Strawson's attempt to provide criteria for distinguishing (...) subjects from predicates and particulars from universals, and to show a philosophically important link between the subject-predicate distinction and the particulars-universals distinction. What he says on this head is of considerable interest indeed. Nevertheless, I shall deal only with Part I. First I shall recount and comment upon the argument for the view that material objects are basic; then I shall state and examine what Strawson has to say about persons in more detail. (shrink)

I have appropriated the terms ‘descriptive’ and ‘revisionary’ metaphysics from P.F. Strawson's Individuals . In the Introduction to that work he draws a broad general distinction between two types of metaphysics. Descriptive metaphysics is concerned to ‘describe the actual structure of our thought about the world’ while revisionary metaphysics is ‘concerned to produce a better structure’. They also differ in that revisionary metaphysics requires justification of some sort whereas descriptive metaphysics does (...) not. Strawson makes this point when he says, ‘Revisionary metaphysics is at the service of descriptive metaphysics’. Thus, the descriptivist has the sober, scientific task of elucidating our extant conceptual schema while the revisionist has the speculative, slightly literary job of inventing a new conceptual schema. (shrink)

I have appropriated the terms ‘descriptive’ and ‘revisionary’ metaphysics from P.F. Strawson's Individuals. In the Introduction to that work he draws a broad general distinction between two types of metaphysics. Descriptive metaphysics is concerned to ‘describe the actual structure of our thought about the world’ while revisionary metaphysics is ‘concerned to produce a better structure’. They also differ in that revisionary metaphysics requires justification of some sort whereas descriptive metaphysics does not. (...) Strawson makes this point when he says, ‘Revisionary metaphysics is at the service of descriptive metaphysics’. Thus, the descriptivist has the sober, scientific task of elucidating our extant conceptual schema while the revisionist has the speculative, slightly literary job of inventing a new conceptual schema. (shrink)

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. ;A form of metaphysical inquiry is in this thesis both illustrated in detail and defended against the charge of issuing in statements which lack cognitive content. 'Categorial description' concerns the fundamental features of our conceptual scheme: the categories described are those of substance, accident, cause, space and time. ;Following Aristotle's distinction between primary and secondary substances, these two notions are addressed as equivalent to those individual or particular things and their kinds. (...) A particular thing is characterised as not being capable of occuring in the predicate position in a proposition; and as having criteria or principles of individuation and reidentification. Accidents or properties can appear in the predicate position and do not have criteria of identity. ;Secondary substances, or natural kinds, being a species of property, also fail to have criteria for individuation and reidentification. It follows that the recently revived Aristotelian essentialism, as exhibited in particular in the work of Kripke, fails to correctly characterise the category of natural kinds: in that theory, natural kinds have essential properties which enable individuation and reidentification across possible worlds. ;Efficient causation is described, against the background of the Locke-Hume dispute, as involving the concept of necessary connection between cause and effect. Rejecting the theory of Harre and Madden on causal powers, an approach by Mackie is defended whereby this connection is a reflection of our counterfactual thinking. The possible worlds essentialist approach of Lewis to counterfactuals is rejected too, as inadequate. ;Space and time, spatial and temporal relations, and places and moments in time are approached in terms of the other categories of particular and property. The obscurity of fit between these categories is identified as responsible for many philosophical puzzles concerning space and time: for example, McTaggart's 'proof' of the unreality of time; and the recent debate on the possibility of multiple times and multiple spaces. ;In the final chapter, the logical commitments of categorial description concerning conceptual relativism and the nature of reality in itself are explored. It is argued that, since categories are in large part responsible for the kinds of acts there are, a description of our categories is a description of reality itself. Since our categories do not involve the machinery of possible worlds offered by contemporary essentialist theories, those theories fail to describe reality. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é o de explorar as relações entre psicologia, metafísica e literatura, a partir do exame do Ensaio sobre os dados imediatos da consciência; mais exatamente, a partir da compreensão dos "sentimentos profundos", que representa, no Ensaio, o momento privilegiado para apreender a estrutura temporal da consciência. Porém, o presente estudo não abordará unicamente o texto de Bergson, suas descrições dos sentimentos profundos (como as emoções estéticas e morais), o que muito provavelmente seria repetitivo. O uso de (...) um exemplo extraído da própria literatura (no caso, o romance Grande sertão: veredas, de Guimarães Rosa) será imprescindível aqui para compreender a possibilidade de uma descrição qualitativa do "fluxo da consciência", revelando sua estrutura temporal. A partir disso, espera-se determinar com um pouco mais de clareza as interações entre psicologia, metafísica e literatura, na filosofia de Bergson. This paper aims to explore the relation between psychology, metaphysics and literature, through an examination of Bergon's Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness, or, more precisely, through the description of "deep feelings", which represent in the Essay a privileged moment for understanding the temporal structure of consciousness. However, this study will not be restricted only to Bergson's text and its descriptions of deep feelings (such as aesthetic and moral emotions), which would probably be repetitive. Instead, we shall use a work of literature (Guimarães Rosa's novel, Grande sertão: veredas) to exemplify the possibility of a qualitative description of "stream of consciousness", revealing its temporal structure. We hope in this way to clarify the interaction between psychology, metaphysics and literature in the philosophy of Bergson. (shrink)

The classical arguments against metaphysics provided by Immanuel Kant, neopositivists and recently by analytical philosophers focus on the problem of meaning. In my paper I would like to shed a little bit of light on different dimensions of this problem in the metaphysical discourse and make a proposition how to overcome the difficulties that arise from this kind of discourse.