ABSTRACT
Philosophy would be foundational for culture. If metaphysics and/or epistemology could achieve that, or even hold out a reasonable hope that it could be achieved or even approximated, it would be worth devoting a life to. But nothing like this is involved or claimed in the metaphysics or epistemology of present day systematic analytic philosophy. Systematic analytical philosophy, in search of a positive philosophical theory, has had, as perhaps its most fundamental component, what has been called descriptive metaphysics and revisionist metaphysics as a handmaiden to science a la Quine or Smart. Philosophy in so transforming itself frees itself both from general skepticism and from the construction of arcane a priori philosophical theories, theories that can come to obsess philosophers, and, with these obsessions, block the road to inquiry. The Deweyian thesis that philosophers should set aside the traditional problems of philosophy and concern themselves with the problems of life is certainly not new.
