Ontology Revisited: Metaphysics in Social and Political Philosophy (Ontological Explorations)

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There's a problem loading this menu right now. Get fast, free shipping with Amazon Prime. Seung, Intuition and Construction: Yale University Press, ; Peter J. Steinberger, The Idea of the State Cambridge: Hence, one finds a pattern of metaphysical contradictions at something close to a foundational level — not only in Hume e. Second, this denial of powers as manifested in a metaphysically robust conception of free will means that these thinkers are inconsistent insofar as they seek to protect and promote freedom as a fundamental political principle.

This is an original and important insight. And if she is right, it means nothing less than reconsidering the very foundational assumptions of the liberal tradition.

I think Groff is right. But I want to push the bounds of her analysis a bit further. While she has made a persuasive case that the metaphysics of this tradition have been muddled — sometimes after careful efforts, more recently perhaps by inattention to these matters — the metaphysics in this tradition extends beyond the questions she treats in this thoughtful book. In this regard, I want to draw attention to the first principles of normative judgment. In this regard, some of the figures she treats fair a little better. The first of these is Kant, who figures in her narrative as a somewhat confused Humean.

I do not contest her claim that Kant was, in fact, confused.

This story is involved and has been demonstrated persuasively in T. Kant was fascinated by Platonic ideas from the very earliest stages of his career. Johns Hopkins University Press, , and Kant: A Guide for the Perplexed London: Continuum, , especially pp.

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Cambridge University Press, [] , p. Norman Kemp Smith New York: And if we accordingly think of the commonwealth in terms of the concepts of pure reason, it may be called a Platonic ideal respublica noumenon , which is not an empty figment of the imagination, but the eternal norm for all civil constitutions whatsoever, and a means of ending all wars.

Outlining these metaphysical commitments here is important, I think, not only insofar as it reveals a different metaphysics operating from the one Groff identifies. Along these lines, I also want to draw attention to elements of Marcuse not treated in Ontology Revised, but could have been equally fruitful.

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But I would suggest that Marcuse very much offers a fruitful and powerful metaphysics — only it is located in his One-Dimensional Man. The very notion of the two-dimensional world Marcuse advocates is a first world in which material positive norms12 are subjected to critique by virtue of a second dimension extending beyond that realm. Kant is likely to have inherited his Platonism from a combination of Leibniz and Rousseau, both of whom embrace Platonic ideas as core elements of their normative theories see Seung , p.

Beacon Press, , pp. This is a very different metaphysics from the one Groff identifies, but I also potentially more central to his most important normative claims. Finally, Groff offers a thoughtful critique of the recent turn by some to Spinoza as a welcome resource in political theory.

In this respect, Spinoza seems to be the least likely hero for those who want to celebrate and protect agency. There is another respect in which Spinoza, however, might offer a fruitful path for the 21st century. Unlike many of the figures Groff treats in Ontology Revisited, Spinoza is admirably clear and consistent in outlining the fundamental metaphysics underlying his politics. He is a naturalist, who outlines parallel intellectual and material accounts of all phenomena.