An Inquiry into Analytic-Continental Metaphysics: Truth, Relevance and Metaphysics(Intersections in Continental and Analytic Philosophy)

Jeffrey Bell offers a novel approach to thinking about a number of longstanding problems in metaphysics, issues that have persisted throughout the history of philosophy. By developing a metaphysics of problems, he shows how the history of both the analytic and continental traditions of philosophy can be seen to be an ongoing response to the problem of regresses. By highlighting this shared history, Bell brings these two traditions back together to address problems that have been essential to their projects all along and central to much of the history of philosophy.

Table of Contents:
Introduction §1 Problem of the New §2 Problem of Relations §3 Problem of Emergence §4 Problem of One and Many §5 Plato and the Third Man Argument (TMA) Plato’s Theory of Forms Vlastos on Third Man Argument Gail Fine and the Imperfection Argument The New and the Third Man Argument The Imperfection Argument and Degrees of Being/Novelty Problem of Becoming in Plato Philebus and the Method of Mixture Relative and Absolute Relations §6 Bradley and the Problem of Relations TMA and Regress Bradley on Relations Bradley Regress and TMA Imperfection Argument and Bradley Regress Relative and Absolute Relations (again) §7 Moore, Russell, and the Birth of Analytic Philosophy Birth of Analytic Philosophy Moore on Bradley Moorean Brute Facts and End to Regress Russell on Bradley Moore/Russell on Brute Facts Defending Bradley Michael Della Rocca on the Method of Intuition Della Rocca’s Spinozist Solution to the Problem of Relations Method of Intuition and Analytic Philosophy of Time Monism or Pluralism? §8 Russell and Deleuze on Leibniz Russell on the Task of Analysis (and on the taste of coffee) Russell on Leibniz Deleuze on Leibniz Clear and Distinct/Confused and Obscure; or, on Differential Unconscious §9 On Problematic Fields Plato, Leibniz, and Problematic Fields Problematic Fields and Field Theory Bourdieu on Fields Russell on Externality of Relations to Terms Problematic Fields and Bourdieu’s Fields contrasted Austin and Performatives Weimar Republic and November 20, 1923 Problematic Fields and External Circumstances On Learning Problematic Fields and Platonic Ideas §10 Kant and Problematic Ideas Kant and Plato Infinity and Antinomies Returning to Kant and Hume Unity of Consciousness Kant, Russell, and the Otherness of the Given Kant, Infinite Regresses, and Infinite Tasks Possible Experience and Real Experience Kant’s Left-Hand Paradox Kant, Plato, and Frege Kant and the Problematic Idea §11 D.M. Armstrong and David Lewis on Problem of One and Many Kant’s Transcendental Illusion Frege and the Third Man Argument Armstrong on Universals Lewis on Universals and Natural Properties Classes and Individuals The Trouble with Singletons Lewis and Regresses Natural Properties and Humean Supervenience Primacy of the Determinate Philebus and Lewis Problematic Ideas as Non-Mereological Part of Determinate §12 Determinables and Determinates Problem of Emergence Jessica Wilson and Fundamental Determinables Wilson and Deleuze Uexküll’s ticks Metaphysical Indeterminacy and the Primacy of the Determinate Determinables and Problematic Ideas §13 The Limits of Representational Thought Predicates as Determinates or Determinables? Mark Wilson on Predicates Hasok Chang on Inventing Temperature Mark Wilson on Theory Façades Husserl and the ‘constitutive becoming of the world’ Husserl and American neo-realism; or, Hook and Nagel invent Analytic Philosophy Heidegger, Carnap, and the Purification of Everyday Language Husserl’s Humean Phenomenology Husserl and Regress of Consciousness Husserl and Problem of Singletons Husserl and Lebensphilosophie Problematic Ideas and Singletons Deleuze’s Transcendental Empiricism §14 Learning from a Cup of Coffee Mark Wilson, Temperature, and Theory Façades Transcendental Empiricism and Real Experience Adorno’s Negative Dialectics Adorno’s non-conceptual objectivity Ethnomethodology and the Taste of Coffee Objectivity and Problematic Ideas §15 Carnap and the Fate of Metaphysics Carnap’s "Elimination of Metaphysics" Regresses and Logical Analysis Wilfrid Sellars and the Myth of the Given McDowell and World-Disclosing Experience Dreyfus on McDowell; or, on non-conceptual experience McDowell replies, and Jason Stanley on Skill MacFarlane on McDowell; or, the Problem of Mathematical Experience Lewis and Singletons, again Meillassoux, Contingency, and Mathematics Huw Price, Pragmatic Relevance, and the Fate of Metaphysics Monism or Pluralism? §16 Truth and Relevance Arbitrary Accounts and Infinite Regresses Brute Facts or Spinozist Bullet? Davidson’s Coherence Theory of Truth Davidson on Language Problematic Ideas; or, Pluralism = Monism Problematic Ideas and the Relevance of the Determinate Living the Problem; or, the inescapable social field Meillassoux and the primacy of the determinate Towards a Humean Political Theory Conclusion Bibliography

About the Author :
Jeffrey A. Bell is Professor of Philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University. He has recently been a Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor in Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London, during which time much of this book was written. He is the author of numerous books and articles on Deleuze and Deleuze and Guattari, including Deleuze and Guattari's What is Philosophy?: A Critical Introduction and Guide (Edinburgh University Press, 2016), Deleuze’s Hume (Edinburgh University Press, 2008), Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos (University of Toronto Press, 2006) and The Problem of Difference: Phenomenology and Poststructuralism (University of Toronto Press, 1998). Bell is co-editor with Paul Livingston and Andrew Cutrofello of Beyond the Analytic–Continental Divide: Pluralist Philosophy in the Twenty-First Century (Routledge, 2015) and with Claire Colebrook of Deleuze and History (Edinburgh University Press, 2009).

Review :
With stunning erudition, interdisciplinary insight, and characteristic boldness, Bell highlights the vicissitudes of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Equally at home in the history of philosophy and in contemporary philosophy, as well as in both analytical and continental traditions, this　pluralist manifesto powerfully challenges the one-sided alliance with science that has led to an unfortunate scaling back of philosophy's traditional pursuit　of the questions of relevance and meaning.