Abstract

Classical metaphysics, or the effort to arrive at justified true knowledge of ‘the metaphysical’, the ultimate causes or first principles of reality, has been subjected to a developing critique over the past three centuries. Discussions of scholars concerning the possibility of metaphysics has continued to grow in recent decades, with many proclaiming the end of metaphysics.

This talk will endeavour to articulate an alternative approach to metaphysical philosophizing, issuing from a comparison of two 20th century thinkers, Emmanuel Levinas and Karl Jaspers. This alternative approach to engaging with the metaphysical is distinguished by an acceptance of the inability to arrive at final knowledge of such matters, but holds that thinking about the ‘deepest’ aspects of reality, in which we have our ideations regularly surpassed in a process of unending learning, can offer an alternative, personally and spiritually transformative value, in which we can come to playful, ‘just communion’ with the mystery of being, manifesting as the desire for wonderment.