2. Philosophy - Stefano Franchi

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P HILOSOPHY, NON-PHILOSOPHY, AND SCIENCE
By suggesting that the “narrower” (relatively speaking) meaning of the term “meta-
physics” may be more familiar than its dual relative, I by no means intend to suggest that
its use is uninteresting nor that its relationship with the broader and more classical sense of
metaphysics is trivial. Rather, I want to isolate and differentiate this particular effort, as pre-
sented by the philosophical literature, from the other abstractly possible endeavors that the
proposed classification seems to allow. Furthermore, the double classification seems to
gain a certain, initial plausibility and explanatory value by the fact that the categories it in-
dividuates, far from being empty, have instead a rich history behind them. Or so it seems
so far, since the last remaining slot is more difficult to fill: it would designate a theoretical
effort striving to provide an explanation of the “world as such”, without using the typical
“a-priori” procedure characteristic of philosophy. The program of such an “empirical meta-
physics” would seem particularly daunting in light of the strong connection between scope
and method outlined above. The crucial issue is about the method, which is necessarily de-
termined by the scope. Can there be a non a-priori absolute knowledge? A discipline can
be “empirical”, that is, can receive its ultimate directive from the empirical field because it
is limited to and by it, to express the point in a somehow Hegelian language. To put it slight-
ly differently: sciences can be “empirically grounded” because they (have to) disregard the
issue of the constitution of the objects they study. They start from within a horizon of rea-
sonableness that has been set in advance by “common sense”. They stick to the “facts.” And
they can do it because they do not have to worry about what makes a fact. They know where
to go to find an answer to a question, where to find the facts that will disprove or not a the-
ory they propose.
An “empirical philosophy,” on the other hand, would be in the uncomfortable position
of having to find empirical answers without having any pregiven domain to rely upon.
What would be the shape of such a discipline? Would it be just a sum-total of the various
disciplines in a grand unified scheme of things? Or would it come up with an original meth-
7. What Strawson calls, instead, “revisionary metaphysics.” See Peter Strawson, Individuals (London:
Methuen, 1959). A related use of metaphysics in this narrower sense is at work in such analysis of the
most general presuppositions at work in contemporary physics as provided, for example, by Lawrence
Sklar and Adolph Grünbaum.