I have a worry. My worry lies in that what is commonly held as the essence of contemporary philosophical discourse may be nothing other than a deceptive mask. Philosophy in the Contemporary Era, at least as self-described, has largely been about the business of pluralism and relativism. The Modern Era, the era which preceded the Contemporary Era, was the age of reason, all things centered on the rational quest for truth. During this age, the skeptics, those Like David Hume, Berkeley, and Locke ruled the day. Through their philosophies, a new notion entered the intellectual climate of that day, and that was the notion that we may not have as good a handle on Truth as was traditionally believed (I think it was more likely that people had blinded themselves, but that is not the focus of this paper). What followed in thought was a sequence of events that would radically shift the nature of thought in the Contemporary Period. Probably most notable of these effects was the work of Hegel.
Hegel occupied the thought space between the Modern and Contemporary Eras of philosophy, and many believe that it was his work that provided the impetus for the new focus of philosophy in the Contemporary Era. Hegel's work birthed the system of thesis and antithesis, which together create a synthesis. This synthesis then became a new thesis, which was met by another antithesis, and so on. This was a radical shift from the one-side absolutism of philosophical ages past. From here, the beginnings were in order for the shift to the Contemporary era. What followed in the Contemporary Era was in many ways, according to the philosophers of this age, the death of foundation or absolutism, and what followed, subsequently, was the instatement of relativism, pluralism, and perspectivalism. However, as I stated earlier, I worry that this new movement toward pluralism or perspectivalism is nothing more than an appearance. It is my contention that philosophers of the Contemporary Era are equally grounded in foundationalism or absolutism as the philosophers of ages previous, and that they base their systems on foundations, which are themselves fixed and absolute, often suggesting truth which lay beyond.
It is this occurrence that I wish to demonstrate, then, in the words to follow. I believe that the purported dissolution of absolutism in the Contemporary Era is an unnecessary and, indeed, unfounded claim. In the words to follow, then, it is precisely this that I wish to demonstrate.
In order to accomplish my aims, I will take a broad-strokes look at four philosophers of the Contemporary Era, and analyze the occurrence of foundations in their philosophy. I will look at the work of A.J. Ayer, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Martin Heidegger. All of these philosophers, in varying ways, make claims toward pluralism or perspectivalism. It is my goal to deconstruct these claims and show how, at root, these philosophers construct their philosophies on indispensable foundations.
Philosopher One: A.J. Ayer
A.J. Ayer is one of the most important philosophers of the contemporary philosophical movement of Logical Positivism. In his most well-known work, “Language, Truth, and Logic,” Ayer works with several different agendas. First and foremost, in the first chapter of his work, Ayer seeks to undermine the claims of the metaphysician and dispense with the discipline of Metaphysics. He says, “Our charge against the metaphysician is not that he attempts to employ the understanding in a field where it cannot profitably venture, but that he produces sentences which fail to conform to the conditions under which alone a sentence can be literally significant.” In other words, as Ayer states, the metaphysician fails the meet the “principle of verification,” and accordingly speaks only nonsense. Defining the “principle of verification” Ayer says, “We say that a sentence is factually significant to any given person, if, and only if, he knows how to verify the proposition which it purports to express--that is, if he knows what observations would lead him to accept the proposition as being true, or reject it as being false.”
It is here that I wish to interject my first critique. It is true that in this part of his work Ayer has the aim of breaking down the claims of the metaphysician, but it is in his attempt to do this that I believe he brings in the first traces of absolutism or foundationalism. It other words, Ayer adopts standards for discerning truth and falsity, and these standards take the form of the “principle of verification” and logic. The “principle of verification,” in essence, holds that empirical verification is the means by which one determines the sensibility of a sentence. If a sentence is stated that cannot be evaluated by the “principle of verification,” it is discounted as “nonsense.” This, of course, is very absolutist and indeed is a foundational element of Ayer's philosophy. Without this absolute foundation, Ayer would unable to discern, outside the bounds of the a priori, the truth or falsity of any statement. The a priori, is related to the other and most significant absolute of Ayer's philosophy, and it is logic. Logic for Ayer is the sole epistemic means for discerning truth (the verification principle is, in essence, a child of reason). This is, of course, is true of all philosophers of the Contemporary Era who adhere to the movement of Logical Positivism. As its name implies, Logical Positivism holds that through the process of reason, and only by reason, one is able to arrive a positive or certain surety. It seems as though, thus far, Ayer falls relatively easily into the model of foundationalism, but what of a more subjective area of his philosophy?
