Abstract

THIS ESSAY was originally prepared for the 1988 Metaphysical Society Meeting, where I had been asked to speak out of what has been called "the great tradition," concerning the rumored "end of metaphysics." It is important, however, to notice what followed the colon in the chosen theme: "the question of foundations." For metaphysics has been pronounced dead several times already, according to different autopsies: by scepticism, nominalism, empiricism, and by at least two versions of positivism, the one prescribed by Auguste Comte and the other more recently mandated by the Vienna Circle. Indeed, death notices of metaphysics have become traditional in "the great tradition" itself; so that these recurrent obituaries disclose something of the very nature of metaphysics. While several of these morbid diagnoses continue to play a role-since in these matters nothing ever seems to quite wholly die once it gets itself born--there is a new angel of death on the scene. It is Nietzsche, purged of the metaphysics that had allegedly infected him, a revisionist or at least a revised Nietzsche, a neo-Nietzsche who has rallied an impressive number of lively mourners to the wake. Should the notices prove premature, however, the question will then resolve itself into: "Who will bury whom?"