From the Inside of Science: Experimental Method and Metaphysics
It isjust this reflection about the ontological implications of logic and science, nowadays usually questioned, if not even explicitly denied, what has allowed Agazzi to overcome the contemporary antimetaphysical bias in his peculiar way, i.e.
by making the legitimacy and even the need of metaphysics emerge from the inside of logic and natural science.Nonetheless, in his first metaphysical works Agazzi is dealing only with the latter, while, at least for the moment, he thinks that «the case of mathematics is a little peculiar, so for the purposes of our discourse we can ignore it» (Agazzi 1975: 5). Indeed, as he says both in Scienza e metafisica oggi (1975)[156] and in Considerazioni epistemologiche su scienza e metafisica (1981), as well as in other writings of this period (see, e.g., Agazzi 1969b), in his opinion the main cause of the widespread antimetaphysical attitude in contemporary philosophy is to be identified, more than in internal causes, in the conviction that modern science «can be established under the condition, both necessary and sufficient, of the exclusion the mediation of experience» (Agazzi 1975: 5), i.e. of any attempt of pushing our knowledge beyond what is certified by our senses.
But the truth is that, on the contrary, the mediation of experience is needed also for science, which progresses thanks to the construction of theoretical hypotheses able to explain the empirical facts. Indeed, contrary to what has been generally maintained from Descartes on, «what satisfies the empiria is the requirement of the ascertainment» (Agazzi 1981: 318), while «the logos is not involved in the ascertainment process, but only to account for what is already sure: it is just this attitude that gives rise not only to philosophy, but also to science» (Agazzi 1981: 315-316), which, not for nothing, Agazzi has often defined as «the invention of the “why?”».
Now, since what can account for experience is, by definition, something that is not given in the experience itself (otherwise it would not be necessary searching for it, because experience would already possess their own reasons), it follows that «the zone where it happens such “giving the why” implies the mediation of experience. Thus, also in science is implemented what represents the basic method of metaphysics» (Agazzi 1981: 319).It is well known that for a long time neopositivism has attempted to demonstrate that the explanatory process is only apparent, because in reality, thanks to the analysis of language carried on basing on formal logic, theoretical propositions can always be reduced to a mere “abbreviated description” of a set of empirical propositions. But just the failure of such attempt has shown once and for all that this is impossible, as Agazzi explains in details, particularly in Considerazioni epistemologiche, where he develops arguments already partially developed in Temi e problemi, even though this, «in contemporary literature, is not well clarified in its reasons, because [...] it gives the impression that the problem depends only on the limitations of the logical techniques, so that it is only a matter of finding more powerful logical tools» (Agazzi 1981: 315-316), while in reality it is a genuine inprinciple impossibility (cf. Agazzi 1981: 316-317). Equally false is the idea, commonly accepted for a long time, that theoretical propositions can be derived from empirical facts thanks to a logical reasoning, inductive or deductive (cf. Agazzi 1981: 320-321). On the contrary, «a hypothesis is a fruit of the synthetic use of reason, [.] since the logos does “intention” a hypothetical abstract construct, which is not directly into our experience, even if then it has to be related to experi- ence» (Agazzi 1981: 322).
One could object that, although we may admit that up to this point science and metaphysics have used analogous methods, just this last feature distinguishes the kind of mediation of experience typical of the two, by showing that only the first one is legitimate, since it is the only one that remains faithful to experience.
In other words, science surely uses a metaempirical mediation of experience, but this is not yet, in itself, a metaphysical mediation in the strict sense: the first feature, indeed, is a necessary but not yet sufficient condition for the second (cf. Agazzi 1983: 142). But we can reply by repeating the same reasoning previously made about scientific method. Indeed,the determination of the operational predicates of a given science is equivalent to the determination of its investigation field or, as we prefer to say, of the whole of that science, in the sense that any statement incapable to be related, directly or indirectly, to this set of predicates, automatically falls out of it. [...] Pushing this reasoning to the limit, we can say that the set of all possible empirical operational criteria defines the whole of the experimental science tout court or, if we prefer to see the matter from the point of view of what is “pertinent”, we can say that science in a broad sense has as its field of objects the whole of experience. [...] The metaphysician [...] simply is one who wants to investigate the whole without any further qualification, not claiming to know a priori that it transcends the whole of experience, but also not accepting to exclude a priori that it actually does (Agazzi 1975: 11-12).[157]
In order to know if the whole as such actually transcends the whole of experience, first of all we need to establish
whether the analysis of experience can be carried on by using predicates which, although being applicable also to experience, do not have as their necessary denotation experience itself. Now, there are some cases in which some famous “starting points” of the metaphysical discourse does not seem to enjoy that privilege: among them there is, e.g., the Cogito, which cannot be intentioned out of the precise experiential situation of self-consciousness. In other cases, instead, we are allowed to think that such requirement is actually present (Agazzi 1975: 18).
This is the case, e.g., of the concept of being, since, although it is undoubtedly able to refer also to empirical objects, its intentionality «does not contain in itself the reference to experience. At the level of the semantic logos (i.e. of the pure meaning), when I state that something exists, I do not mean that I am perceiving it» (Agazzi 1981: 328). Therefore, as it uses concepts which, despite having been born within empirical experience, do not necessarily refer to it, to be faithful to experience the metaphysician is fully legitimated not to “come back” to it at every moment, just because it is experience itself that, so to speak, has “shown the way” which leads beyond itself.
At this point, in order to construct a cognitive metaphysics only one step more is needed, i.e. demonstrating that using such concepts to go beyond sensible experience is not only legitimate, but also necessary, what can be achieved only by demonstrating that avoiding to do this would be contradictory. It is precisely from this that follows
the intrinsic unavoidability of the apparent apodicticity and presumption of the metaphysical discourse, which just for this reason very often seems so disagreeable to those who are looking at it from the outside and is easily mistook for dogmaticity. [...] A scientific explanation, indeed, although it obeys to rather precise and rigorous criteria, is never a matter of consistency or inconsistency. The rigorous metaphysicians, instead, [...] are condemned to “wanting to be right” in an absolute way; they cannot be satisfied with saying: “things are so and so, but they may be also different”, because in this case they would not be in a condition under which refusing to transcend experience implies a contradiction, and so all their efforts would fail (Agazzi 1975: 19-20).
Agazzi has never fully committed himself to the enterprise of actually building a cognitive metaphysics in all its amplitude (for this he has always made reference to the work of his master Gustavo Bontadini).
Nonetheless, he has always pointed out that any attempt of denying the legitimacy of such operation would be in turn «a metaphysical demonstration; indeed, in order to demonstrate that the whole as such has a given nuance, a given property (that of coinciding with the whole of experience) it is necessary to assume “the point of view of the whole as such”» (Agazzi 1981: 327). So, we have demonstrated that at least the horizon of metaphysics can never be eliminated, although its specific content still remains to be determined: however, having some metaphysics, at least implicit and so to speak “negative”, is unavoidable, since, for the above reasons, even materialism turns out to be a form of metaphysics.[158] Anyway, at least one time, precisely in Scienza e fede (1983), Agazzi, after having repeated, without substantial novelties, the same arguments that we have just exposed, has gone so far as to sketch at least the general features that any cognitive metaphysics should possess. First of all,the “contents of knowledge” of such a metaphysics are few in number, but of immense value: we can say that they do not go much beyond the demonstration of the existence of an absolute being of non-sensible nature and maybe[159] also the existence of a spiritual dimension in the human being. But the quantitative poverty of these contents is counterbalanced by the exceptional acquisition of a “conceptual space for transcendence”» (Agazzi 1983: 152).
This means that
the world of transcendence may at least appear as inhabited by beings which we can “understand” (even if in a limited way) through “concepts” and about which we can develop a discourse, brief, poor, but testable (even if through a kind of test which is not purely empirical), whose existence can be “known” (thanks to the combined efforts of both experience and logos), and not merely “imagined” or “postulated”» (Agazzi 1983: 154).
Obviously, this does not mean that cognitive metaphysics may hope to exhaust or even approximate all the richness of such a world, since to go beyond the few certain outcomes sketched above
it necessarily uses “analogical” methods, which transcend the rigor of pure logical noncontradiction and get closer and closer to the methods of [.] “hermeneutics”.
[.] But what is important is that such further construction may rely on solid anchorage points [...], whose absence would risk to make swinging our whole construction in the field of the mere subjective opinion (Agazzi 1983: 155).Finally, Agazzi concludes his reflection by questioning the thesis, nowadays very common, that in metaphysics there is no progress as in science, but only a succession of theories based on so heterogeneous principles, that they are unable to communicate with each other. First of all, indeed, even rejecting its exaggerations, which have come to the point of completely denying the very existence of an accumulation of knowledge in the scientific field, speaking of a mere succession of “paradigms” or “conceptual schemes” incommensurable to each other (just as it is believed to happen in metaphysics), Agazzi points out that contemporary epistemology has undoubtedly demonstrated that the merely “cumulative” conception of scientific progress is too superficial, since during scientific revolutions also deep conceptual changes take place, depending on which also the previous knowledge, although preserved, is understood in a partially new way. Secondly, on the metaphysical side, from one hand, also here «it exists [...] this cumulative aspect inside each metaphysical discourse» (Agazzi 1981: 334), while, from the other, «without any doubt, nowadays we are analyzing reality from the point of view of the whole through richer and more penetrating tools [...] because in some way we take in account also the “outcomes” of the philosophies of the past» (Agazzi 1981: 334), although not in the same way of science, in which, instead, the old theories are taken in account only in the light of the new theories, which must incorporate all the true aspects of the former ones. Not even the fact that metaphysics is often in dialogue with a faith (usually but not necessarily religious) makes any essential difference: also in science, indeed, we always start from “believing” in a given hypothesis, which only later and step by step is submitted to a rational control. Thus, «the situation of the “knowledge inside a belief” or the “knowledge inside a faith” is absolutely general» (Agazzi 1981: 334) and the only difference between science and metaphysics consists in the different kind of questions they attempt to answer.
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