Philosophy as Metaphysics: The Torino Lectures

Motivated by the question of what it is that makes philosophy philosophical, Gunter Figal shows that philosophy as the search for truth leads to the question of Being. And that if devotion to truth and Being are at the heart of ‘metaphysics’, then this is philosophy’s metaphysical character. Figal embraces this concept and rejects ‘post-metaphysical’ philosophy’s assumption, and likewise Nietzsche and Heidegger’s claim, that metaphysics has come to an end. By refraining from simply affirming the metaphysical tradition founded by Parmenides, Plato and Aristotle, the author instead critically discusses the positions held by its three founding fathers. Paying special attention to Aristotle, Figal transforms his ontology phenomenologically. By doing so, he argues for a rehabilitation of appearing and perceptible things and thus for a revaluation of perceptive experience. Figal also prefers to regard metaphysics as one philosophical perspective among others - aesthetics, ethics and mysticism - and not the dominating ‘first philosophy’ it has long been regarded as. According to Gunter Figal, philosophy proves to be a de-centered, non-hierarchical and therefore liberal intellectual project.