The Importance of Metaphysics

And now for something completely different.

Ilya Somin tells us that

... the enormous diversity of both originalist and living-constitutionalist legal thought is a sign that constitutional theory remains a relatively immature field of study. We have far less agreement among experts than in more developed academic disciplines - not just 'hard' sciences like physics, but even social sciences such as economics or political science.

I imagine you think that now I will get down into the weeds of constitutional theory. But I intend to cast my net a little wider than that, by asking: what is it about the 'hard' sciences that yields more agreement among the experts? I would venture that it is the core consensus about not just appropriate objects of study, but also standard approaches, methods, and procedures - and, I would insist, a common metaphysic. For behind or above or below a hard science is a fundamental theory, an abstract construct, that is for that science the ultimate criteria of what in its field of study is the really real objective reality, and what is mere myth, illusion, or wishful thinking.

This ultimate form, framework, parameter of a science is nothing more than an assumed - not proven - really Real reality (as in, "we mean it this time") above or behind its objects, which in turn provides a substrate of a construct or foundation to the phenomena. This is a metaphysics, pure and simple, the agreed upon encompassing sphere for all activity within any given science. Any experiment or theory that posits a 'reality' outside of the assumed metaphysic quite simply is excluded as being unscientific ab initio. An astrologer will never be permitted in the doors of astronomy because his premises are outside the parameters of honest astronomical discussion. A proponent of intelligent design will not be allowed to debate Darwinian or Neo-Darwinian evolution because he invokes a reality that is not … Darwinian.

But a metaphysics is not just an exclusionary principle, it is the criteria for a positive advance in rational thought. For without these unproven allegiances to a certain fundamental framework of the Real, there is no science possible in the modern sense.

J'Accuse!

In trying to unravel the roiling cauldron of charge and counter-charge that was the Kavanaugh confirmation 'process,' I came across this helpful advice on the difference between an accusation and calumny from none other than that famous amoralist, Machiavelli.

Machiavelli distinguishes between “accusation” and “calumny” in order to demonstrate that “as much as accusations are useful to republics, so much are calumnies pernicious.” The difference is that accusations are public, subject to critique and refutation, and a mendacious or even inaccurate accuser pays a price. Calumnies, by contrast, “have need neither of witnesses nor any other specific corroboration to prove them, so that everyone can be calumniated by everyone; but everyone cannot be accused, since accusations have need of true corroboration and of circumstances that show the truth of the accusation.”

From <http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/> 

Inasmuch as the Left has gone all in on the principle that 'every woman must be believed,' including, as in the case of Christine Blasey Ford, those that have neither witnesses nor any other specific corroborations to prove what they say, then they clearly are in favor of calumnies as an effective methodology going forward.

Which puts them, morally speaking, quite far downwind from Machiavelli.

Quite simply, I think if you cannot achieve the simple moral sensibility of a man like Machiavelli, then you might need to do some soul searching - that is, assuming you haven't already lost your soul altogether.