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Elena Gordon, "Claude Buffier: Metaphysics within the bounds of Common
Sense"
Wednesday 31 Aug 2022 ⋅ 15:30 – 17:00
Eastern Australia Time - Sydney
Philosophy Seminar RoomSimulcast via
Zoom :https://uni-sydney.zoom.us/j/87937027507Claude Buffier is an almost
entirely forgotten figure in the history of philosophy. However, during the
time at which he lived (1661-1737) he was a well-known Jesuit
philosopher, and educationist, whose work received considerable attention
and held considerable influence. Indeed, scholars interested in the revival
of Buffier’s work have noted that aspects of his work had considerable
influence on figures such as Hume, Voltaire, Kant, and Reid. In this paper,
I focus on unpacking Buffier’s metaphysics and the relationship it has with
his common sense philosophy. In La Traite, Buffier argues that
there are several first truths of common sense for which we should easily
discern collective agreement. He includes, for example, the fact that there
are other beings in the world besides me as an obvious and undeniable first
truth of common sense. However, he points out that some human beings
routinely abandon common sense and fail to see (or claim to fail to see)
that the first truths are in fact true. Buffier includes madmen, fools,
children and philosophers among those who do so. We can pardon
the mad since they cannot make proper use of reason; we can pardon
children, because they have not reached the age and use of reason and
therefore have not accrued the experience necessary to discerning even the
most basic information delivered by the senses. But neither of these
excuses are available to philosophers since they are neither mad nor
juvenile. So, one might ask, why is it so difficult for philosophers to
cultivate common sense? And relatedly, what exactly is it about philosophy
that encourages scepticism about things that only the mad or the very young
would question? In answering these questions, I show that for Buffier, the
principal reason philosophers have struggled to accept the first truths of
common sense is because they operate with a false (but common) conception
of metaphysics. For Buffier, true metaphysics is not a science concerned
with identifying the fundamental nature of reality beyond that which we can
observe, nor should it be. In fact, for him, the pursuit of certainty about
what lies beyond the reach of human perception is what leads philosophers
to reject the first truths of common sense. To rectify this situation,
Buffier argues that we must renew our understanding of metaphysics and
reclaim it from those philosophers who have abused it. By sharpening our
conception of metaphysics, for Buffier, we can see clearly both why
philosophers have struggled to heed the dictates of common sense, and why
there is a need to make common sense the basis of our philosophy.
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