Critical Metaphysics in the Views of Otto Liebmann and Johannes Volkelt

Abstract

The article addresses the problem of critical metaphysics in the views of Otto Liebmann and Johannes Volkelt. Their view of metaphysics results from a compromise between science and philosophy. On the one hand, this compromise keeps metaphysics closely in touch with contemporary scientific theory, which means it can participate in the modern civilisation of science and technology, on the other though, it leads to the narrowing down of the universalist philosophical perspective to science, which means abandonment of non-scientific aspects of life. Although in principle open to metaphysical needs of humans, critical metaphysics, on this view, embodies scientific aspirations of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Metaphysical criticism entails self-imposed limits on metaphysical aspirations, but these limitations themselves must stay within reasonable limits; otherwise, it transforms into destructive scepticism.