The Restitution of Metaphysics

The twentieth century has been marked by widespread attacks upon if not the complete repudiation of metaphysics. This has been due largely to the influence of empiricism, inspired by the presuppositions of Newtonian science. Some scientists refuse to admit that there is a metaphysic imbedded in science. Their self-defeating attacks on metaphysics ignore the contemporary revolution in physics, which introduced a new scientific paradigm inspired by quantum physics and relativity theory, and which requires a new metaphysic.

No other contemporary philosopher has stressed more than Errol E. Harris the consequences of the twentieth-century scientific revolution for philosophy; nor have the bankruptcy and barrenness of current attacks on metaphysics been so cogently and effectively revealed. In this book, Harris examines the errors of empiricism, showing that the predominantly holistic character of contemporary science has been largely overlooked by current schools of philosophy, which have spawned the skepticism and relativism of postmodernism. He then develops the basis in physics for the restoration of metaphysics with its main features being holism, dialectical (and therefore teleological) progression, anthropomorphism, and theism.