Abstract

What is metaphysics? And what do we need it for? In this paper I argue that if we answer the first question appropriately, the second question becomes pointless. To understand what metaphysics is means to understand what it is for. I shall propose that metaphysics, as a philosophical discipline, is the addressing of reality with respect to the intelligibility of reality as a whole and, i.e., the addressing of reality's being-addressed in various contexts (everyday and scientific). Insofar as reason is that which performs this ubiquitous addressing of reality, metaphysics – the addressing of the addressing of reality – turns out to be a self-addressal of reason. I shall rebut sceptical objections to this proposal, which are nourished by realist convictions, by emphasising an interesting and constructive metaphysical thesis entailed in the proposed understanding of metaphysics. At the same time, I shall oppose to idealist simplifications of the proposal by means of some reflections on the only legitimate source of a general (as opposed to special) critique of metaphysics: the questionability of the belief in a perfect intelligibility of reality.