Denying Metaphysics, Questioning Knowledge

For the purpose of this argument into the reality of morality, it is imperative that I leave no assumptions and no stone unturned, so to speak. This piece depends heavily on my previously established premise that a move towards moral experiences grounded in reason, as is the case in moral rationalism or objective morality in general, and then it requires too much to be assumed and posited without probable cause. The case I will now address is why such problems of metaphysics are neither necessary nor helpful in moral inquiries, and why they should be dropped altogether. My goal here then is to clarify the uselessness of metaphysics, and then transition from empiricism (as a counter to moral rationalism), and move more directly into skepticism. This work is merely an outline, not an argument, as clarification.

Antimetaphysical positions have been somewhat of a tradition amongst linguistic analytic philosophers for many decades. In his work, Language, Truth, and Logic, A.J. Ayer set out to understand philosophy as an activity concerned with the analysis and clarification of language. His thesis strips philosophy of metaphysics in general; he summarizes his thesis as follows:

"We may accordingly define a metaphysical sentence as a sentence which purports to express a genuine proposition, but does, in fact, express neither a tautology nor an empirical hypothesis. And as tautologies and empirical hypotheses form the entire class of significant propositions; we are justified in concluding that all metaphysical assertions are nonsensical" (Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic, p.41).

Ayer has taken the stance that I have tried to enumerate previously, in that only statements that can reference our experiences are meaningful. Statements of a metaphysical nature, by their definition, cannot be verified as true or false.

The problem lies in our meaningful application of deductive logic in order to make these statements meaningful. In other words, there is no way we can definitively deduce the existence of something that by its nature is metaphysical. This can be employed with examples of God. Hence, the statement "God exists" is meaningless in that it is unverifiable. Contrary, the statement, "God does not exist" is equally meaningless in that it requires the denial of the existence for a class of beings for which we cannot know through experience. The metaphysician would have to prove then, without deduction, that such statements can in fact have meaning - a task in which I encourage anybody to try and take on.

Questions of metaphysics are henceforth meaningless, or as Ayer calls them, "fictitious." While Ayer's argument continues to develop into a conclusion that metaphysics can ultimately be eliminated through clarification of language that is a separate issue altogether and I need not go down that route now. This is a denial not to the existence of the metaphysical, but rather the refutation of the usefulness of such questions in general. The problem of metaphysical philosophy is a distraction, and one in which we cannot claim any knowledge of, so it only follows that as far as any practical philosophy is to address the problems of real life, and not exist solely as an abstraction from the material, then we must recognize its futility. Only then can we move philosophy from a mere discipline to a methodology for accessible philosophy.

II. Introducing Skepticism
My argument thus far has been highly empirical, but only insofar as I have argued against a rationalist grounding of morality and epistemology in general. I shall now take my argument down a more dilemma for what we may obtain as knowledge in general, which will play a significant role in any inquiry into morality that may follow.

From here I will introduce a transition into a question of knowledge, or rather, the possibility of attaining it. This is not to deny that human beings may make certain use of beliefs, actions, feelings, and inquiries into the metaphysical, but these in themselves are fundamentally inaccessible to our understanding as objects of knowledge.

Skepticism in general can be described as holding that knowledge is beyond reasonable proof, highly uncertain, and/or totally impossible. Varying schools of skepticism vary on the continuum for the possibility of knowledge, from the agnostic approach that ignorance must be professed until claims of knowledge can be proved - but not an outright denial that such knowledge exists. A second variety of skepticism focuses on the view that knowledge deals only with experience/phenomena. This is the sort of skepticism found in Kant's phenomenalism, where he maintained that the best we can do is deal with the surface appearances of things as appearances, never things in themselves (noumena); the latter being inaccessible to human reason.

The third type of skepticism is the most radical on the continuum, and makes the claim that human beings can never attain certain or reliable knowledge about anything. This is the variety of skepticism as expressed by Gorgias. Basically, nothing exists; there is no such thing as true knowledge and even if there were, a person could never recognize it, and even if we could accept that such knowledge was recognizable to a human being, he could never communicate it with others. Moreover, this variety of skepticism serves as an outright denial of epistemology, much in the same way Ayer made an outright denial of metaphysics.

However, in general, Skeptics tend to emphasize the general mistakes and excesses present in our attempts (as humans) to attain knowledge. The basic arguments rests on four major points.

A)Knowledge is a human achievement

B)Human faculties are weak and limited

C)Human senses and human reason are both equally unreliable

D)Human reflection about the possibility of knowledge is divided and subjective.

Here I must be careful not to self-contradict, and it is not plausible to go down the route that all claims of knowledge must be false, for making certain claims about knowledge and its impossibility implies a certain degree is known about the nature of knowledge in general. Thus, I will proceed for all practical purposes down the road of the agnostic, or pragmatic skeptic. When I turn this skepticism towards my inquiry of morality, this will become increasingly useful when paired with the denial of metaphysics and the relevant issues at hand.

What I am trying to argue is moral skepticism, taking the aforementioned skeptical approach and applying it to the possibilities of real moral experiences. I seek to apply the questioning method of skepticism in general, to the possibility of morality. Thus far this argument has not been presented, but the task of this essay was merely to introduce the concepts and clarify the uselessness of metaphysics for our everyday lives, and regarding any practical philosophy.

This development in my argument is essential; I've moved from empiricism and now indicated the next direction for my argument: moral skepticism. The purpose of this essay is to outline this transition in argument, and posit a brief introduction into the skeptical approach to morality in general.