Alan Saunders: Hello, and welcome to The Philosopher's Zone. I'm Alan Saunders.

This week, we're looking at something that Australia is surprisingly good at: metaphysics. Now, most people at most times in the history of the world, have had metaphysical views. They're views that go beyond what we can know about by means of our senses, so religious doctrines - reincarnation, say, or a belief in a monotheistic god - count as metaphysics. But so does a belief, say, that it's necessary to understand the nature of reality in order to get government right.

But then there's the metaphysics of professional, academic, philosophers and that's something we're really good at hereabouts. So what we're going to hear now is an edited version of a talk on metaphysics in Australia given at this year's Melbourne Writers' Festival by Professor John Bigelow from the Department of Philosophy at Monash University. It was recorded as part of the History of Philosophy in Australasia Project now under way at Monash, and it begins with a very famous metaphysician indeed.

John Bigelow: The great German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, said that the fundamental questions of metaphysics are three: God, freedom and immortality. Kant's list embodies a degree of Eurocentricity, but nevertheless, his list does also touch on concerns that resonate very widely throughout human history. People have a recurring propensity to ask why there is a world at all, and why there is a world like this one, rather than some other world very different from this one that might have existed instead.

In the 20th century, however, metaphysics came under sustained attack from professional philosophers. The attack was mounted on to several banners, including - I'll give you three - pragmatism, positivism, postmodernism. Instead of helping us to try to find answers to our metaphysical questions, 20th century philosophers systematically set out to persuade themselves and their students that the whole enterprise of metaphysics is entirely wrong-headed.

We should stop asking these questions and we should stop trying to answer them. Instead of asking about reality, we should content ourselves with articulating the textures of our own texts. We should publish books with titles like, 'The Social Construction of Reality'. At the end of the 20th century however, some professional philosophers have come to believe that there are signs of a possible rebirth of metaphysics. In this perceived process of rebirth, Australian philosophers are perceived by some to be playing a surprisingly prominent role. I'm going to focus on a handful of Australian philosophers who are perceived by some philosophers overseas as forming a distinctive family that can be grouped under some such heading as 'Australian Realists'.

A few years ago there was a conference on Australian philosophy held in France. Fares were paid for many Australians who came and gathered in Grenoble. Some papers at this conference were given by French speakers and were delivered in French, papers by the Australians were delivered in English, but simultaneous translation was available through headphones. I was very impressed. The papers in English were translated into French, then a couple of years after the conference, were published by one of the leading academic publishing houses in Paris. The title of this book is, in translation, The Structure of the World: Objects, Properties and States of Affairs; The Rebirth of Metaphysics in the Australian School of Philosophy. The title of this book, The Structure of the World and so on, pays special homage to the work of Professor David Armstrong at Sydney University.

Here in Australia it does not feel at all as though there's any such thing as the Australian school of philosophy; nonetheless, it's interesting to note that from the distant vantage point of France, certain broad similarities among several prominent Australian philosophers are more visible to them than the detailed disagreements that loom so large for those philosophers themselves in their local dealings with one another in Australia.

Consider a second example under the shadow of logical positivism, one of the metaphysical topics that lay furthest beyond the pale, was a doctrine known as essentialism. This is a theory tracing back to Aristotle, according to which things have what might be called essential natures. These natures include properties that determine what a thing is. Once these properties are determined what there is, other so-called accidental properties determine how that thing happens to be at a given time. The accidental properties may change, but the essential properties remain the same. Essentialism became extremely unfashionable in professional philosophical circles in the 20th century.

In recent years however, there have been several international conferences in Britain in which young professional philosophers have been debating about essentialism with gusto. Repeated references to several Australian philosophers have permeated these debates, especially to Brian Ellis, formerly of La Trobe University, but also to some younger Australian philosophers and some philosophers overseas who are drawing on the work of Ellis and others in Australia.

How did it come about that Australian philosophy should be playing so salient a part in this attempted rebirth of metaphysics after a century of sustained attack? Is it due to our climate? Maybe in London or Paris it's possible to think that there's nothing outside the text. Yet on the beach at Bondi or in the baking sun back of Burke, maybe it's more obvious that the world has a structure that is not of our making. Maybe it is more obvious in Australia that truths need truth-makers, these truth-makers being things in the world that exist independently of our theories about them.

Maybe in Australia it is more obvious that things have their own essential natures, which may be radically different from the ways we conceive them to be in our thoughts and in our texts. No, I'm not going to advance a climatic theory of the history of ideas. I will trace just a few sample trajectories that have contributed to some recent developments among professional philosophers in Australia. I'll begin with a philosopher called Samuel Alexander. He was born in Sydney and studied in Melbourne, and then went to Oxford, and then to Manchester. Samuel Alexander wrote a large book of metaphysics called Space, Time and Deity. This book contains one of the best chapter titles I have met: Time is the Mind of Space. I don't really know what that means, but whatever it means it's clearly metaphysics.

Samuel Alexander defended the metaphysics according to which everything there is exists in space and time. There is no supernatural world outside space and time. There is, for instance, no transcendent God outside space and time. There's no platonic realm of pure mathematical forms, there are only the things that exist either earlier or later than us at some particular location in this same world in which we live and move and have our being. Yet Alexander was not a crass reductionist like the Ancient Greeks, who said that all that exist are atoms in the void. And Alexander was what was called 'an emergence theorist'. He held that when atoms of hydrogen and oxygen come together in the right way, something new emerges that did not exist before, with properties that are very different from the properties of the ingredients from which it's made, namely of course, water. Likewise, when matter comes together in the right way, life emerges. When living things develop in the right ways, mind emerges. And when and if the whole universe attains the right kinds of harmonies, then what emerges is a new property of the world as a whole, the property of divinity, space, time, and deity. Sounds like pantheism to me. The world of space is God's body, and in this body a property of divinity can emerge in the same way that consciousness emerges from the tentacles in the human brain.

With this broadly pantheistic conception in mind, it might be possible to tease out some of the meaning in Alexander's statement that time is the mind of space. Under ancient conceptions, the mind or soul was thought of as the source of motion, and more generally of change. When a mop stands in the corner it doesn't move unless something pushes it, but when you see a mouse and you see it moving without anything pushing it, it's clear that there is within it, some source of movement. What makes motion possible, of course, is the passage of time. Space then, is a body and time is what makes it possible for there to be motions of smaller bodies within the all-encompassing body of space itself. So this thing is one respect in which space is like an all-encompassing counterpart of our body, only it's the world body, and time is like an all-pervading counterpart of our minds.

For Alexander, although there is no transcendent God, it is possible to wonder whether the world itself is worthy of religious attitudes, worship, or at least parts of it might be. For instance, at least some of the wildernesses that have not yet been despoiled by human stakes, and maybe some human domains might be, too; some gardens, some chapels, some poems and so on.

Now this is metaphysics.

In Britain, one of the young philosophers who was deeply impressed by Alexander's metaphysics was a young man called John Anderson, who went on to become Professor of Philosophy at Sydney University. Anderson brought with him a passionate love of metaphysics and a belief that everything that exists is in space and time. Anderson had an enormous impact on intellectual life in Sydney. Andersonians were rumoured to be believers in free love, for instance. And among the Andersonians was David Armstrong, who became Professor at Sydney University after Anderson. Armstrong, like Anderson and Alexander before him loved metaphysics and believed that everything that there is exists in space and time. Armstrong called this doctrine naturalism; it was a core doctrine that he held and it was shared by many others.

The image of Australian philosophy overseas among those professional philosophers for whom Australian philosophy has a high profile, is closely tied to a this-worldly metaphysics of this kind.

There's another trajectory that I'm going to describe, which helped to bring Australian philosophy to its current perceived role in an alleged rebirth of metaphysics. In Britain again, a young philosopher called J.J.C. Smart, Jack Smart, came to a Chair in Adelaide and brought with him a doctrine called scientific realism. This was a metaphysics that hrarmonised well with Armstrong's naturalistic metaphysics in Sydney. And then in Adelaide many people were influenced by Jack Smart. Brian Ellis and others who knew Jack Smart in Adelaide brought this doctrine to Melbourne's newly created Department of the History and Philosophy of Science, and to La Trobe University and other places.

In addition, Jack Smart was a friend of the leading American philosopher at the time, Willard van Orman Quine (what a wonderful name). At Harvard he also met a young philosopher called David Lewis who went on to be a Professor at Princeton, and to become the leading systematic metaphysician of his generation. Very early in Lewis' career Jack Smart organised for Lewis to come to Australia to give a prestigious series of lectures and following this visit, nearly every year throughout his career, as soon as it warmed up in America he would come down here to our winter.

This trajectory, stemming from Smart and Lewis leads to a beehive of current work in this vein. A prominent example is furnished by that of Frank Jackson at the ANU, whose John Locke lectures at Oxford some years ago became a very influential book called From Metaphysics to Ethics . Notice the way the title privileges metaphysics. Incidentally, the metaphysics it starts from is very close to what I've described before, this view that all that there is is within space and time, there is no transcendent, supernatural realm.

Alan Saunders: On ABC Radio National, you're with The Philosopher's Zone and we're listening to a talk on metaphysics in Australia, given at this year's Melbourne Writers' Festival by Professor John Bigelow from the Department of Philosophy at Monash University, about metaphysics in Australia.

John Bigelow: What's impressive about all this metaphysics is the depth of argumentaiton and complexity of interconnections among different aspects of the theory, and it's hard to summarise these briefly. Philosophers in this family differ passionately among themselves, among many of those details, and of course they also frequently differ in many of these details from the sort of views that I described from Samuel Alexander. Smart, Lewis, Armstrong and others have defended a materialist view of the mind, a theory that breaks down the traditional dichotomy between the mind and the body. They've also defended a theory that breaks down the traditional dichotomy between time and space. They have broken down both Alexander's dichotomies between mind and body and his dichotomy between time and space. Australians characteristically defend the thesis that time is a fourth dimension that is much more like the spatial dimensions than commonsense would have had us believe.

When people we love are distant from us in space, it's consoling to know that although they are far from us, and we are far from them, at least we both exist. They do not exist here, at our spatial location, nevertheless it is true and it is true here, that they exist at their own spatial location. According to the four dimensionalists, temporal relations are just like spatial relations in this respect. Imagine that some people you love are distant from us in time rather than in space. Imagine that someone does not exist now, but existed long ago, then according to the four dimensionalists, you can take consolation in the fact that although these people are distant from us and we are distant from them, at least we both exist.

These people do not exist now, that is at our temporal location, nevertheless it is true and it is true now, that they exist at their own temporal location. For absolutely everything that ever did, does, or will exist, it is true now that these things exist. They are spatiotemporally related to us and we to them; there's no difference between time and space in this respect. If this were right, it might be thought that this four-dimensionist metaphysics could and should affect some of the ways we think and feel about the world.

One New Zealand philosopher who resisted this four-dimensionist metaphysics ironically had the name of Arthur Prior. Arthur Prior was a presentist. He thought that nothing exists except what is present. Prior said 'nothing prior exists'. He actually took consolation in this fact. He held a dim view of human history; he thought there was so much suffering in the past, he found it a mercy to think that the past doesn't exist any more. So Prior wrote an article with the title, 'Thank Goodness That's Over' We seem to find it consoling sometimes to think that certain examples of suffering lie mercifully in the past. Yet surely this way of thinking should be irrational. If it were still true, as the four-dimensionist says, that the suffering exists, it should not be thought consoling to think that the suffering is east of us, rather than west. If there's suffering over there and you think, 'Oh, thank God that suffering wasn't west', that would be irrational. Why should it be consoling to think that suffering lies in one direction rather than the opposite direction, along one of the other dimensions of the four-dimensional space-time metaphor.

Likewise, consider the fact that we do not think it a tragedy that there might be, as far as we know, no life in spatially distant parts of the universe. Yet compare space with time; it does seem to matter to us much more if we imagine that there might be no life in temporally distant parts of the universe, especially if those temporally distant parts lie in the future. Yet if time were just a fourth dimension, metaphysically on a par with the other three dimensions in the space-time manifold, then it's hard to see how it could be rational to feel differently about a lack of life in the future from the way we think about a lack of life in spatially remote regions. It's just another region in space-time.

Again, it would seem that the four-dimensionalist metaphysics seems to stand at odds with our ordinary ways of thinking and feeling about things. This could cut two ways. You might use this as a reason for rejecting the metaphysics, or conversely, you might use this as a reason for changing your life. The Buddhists, for instance, argue that if we cast away our commonsense and adopt a different metaphysics, a metaphysics of momentariness, this will help us to achieve inner tranquility. The Ancient Greek school of Epicurean philosophy used arguments very like the one I've just been sketching from four-dimensionalism, to support the conclusion that if we can find a correct metaphysics, it may help us to achieve release from anxiety and a state of lasting tranquility.

Australian metaphysicians characteristically make much more modest claims for their metaphysics: they don't seem to standardly tell you that it will help you to achieve tranquility. Nevertheless, I submit that their metaphysics, just like the metaphysics of the past, is not wholly disconnected from the ways we think and feel about the world. Australian realists are addressing the very same questions that lie behind many of the great religions of the world, and it is disingenuous to pretend that there is no potential for friction between academic philosophy and religious belief. Australian realists assume that any rational person's metaphysics at any given point in history, should include as a very large chunk, both commonsense and the contemporary sciences. Anything else in your metaphysics should fit in consistently with commonsense and the sciences.

As a result of this approach, many Australian metaphysicians arrive at the metaphysics that lies perilously close to the reductionism of Ancient Greek philosophy who said that nothing exists but atoms in the void. So, the method used in this kind of current Australian realist metaphysics is roughly speaking, something that might be called inference to the best explanation. Philosophers like Smart and Armstrong characteristically argue that a naturalistic metaphysics and scientific realism furnishes us with a good explanation of many of the things we hunger to explain in this world of ours. They argue that this is an economical explanation, a simpler explanation than those offered in many of the rival metaphysics that draw wide adherence around the globe, the doctrine of reincarnation, for instance.

Because their explanation is arguably simpler than its rivals, they argue that it is reasonable to believe that it is likely to be closer to the truth. So this leaves us with a question, but is it true, and if it were, would it do? Many 20th century philosophers were hostile to metaphysics, and one may suspect not entirely without reason. Metaphysics has been pursued for centuries and philosophers have never come to any consensus on the answers to the questions they ask. The same old debates go on and on and show no signs of reaching any resolution.

Isn't it possible that Australian realist philosophers have just failed to understand the devastating critiques of 20th century critics that have come from 20th century critics like Heidegger and Wittgenstein; Heidegger in Germany, Wittgenstein in England. It's easy to believe they haven't understood those critiques, because most of them haven't read them, and if you do try to read them you still won't understand. No, I don't think that's right, I don't think the new Australian metaphysics neither ignores nor misunderstands the critiques that have been mounted against metaphysics. In particular, Australian metaphysicians are under no illusion that they will be able to furnish proofs that will compel rational agreement and lead to universal consensus. It's fairly obvious that belief in a transcendent God, reincarnation or the immortality of the soul, the doctrine of momentariness, and many other metaphysical doctrines, will continue to attract believers all over the globe. Live and let live, I say. Recognition that no-one can prove finally and absolutely that we are wrong, should not lead to the complacent conclusion that we could not be wrong, or that there's no longer any need to keep striving after truth as a regulative ideal.

In George Eliot's great novel Middlemarch there is a young man called Ladislaw, who is in Rome, studying the paintings and he and his friend are trying to paint original works of their own; his beloved, Dorothea, has been impressed by the number of paintings that already to be found in Rome. She has also been impressed by some of the poverty that was to be found in Rome at that time. She thinks that the last thing the world needs is yet another picture. What are we to say to that? The reason for studying metaphysical systems of the past is the same as the reason for studying the paintings in Rome or for performing Bach's Mass in B Minor yet again, people have already done it, but it's a good idea for us to do it again.

The reason for continuing in the attempt to find our own answers to metaphysical questions, as well as studying the answers of others in the past, is just like the reason for painting yet another picture or composing new music, even though you know that what you create is unlikely to be the last word, or even to be any better than many of the creations that have come before you. It's a worthy thing to do, and I think we should say 'Good on you' to Australian philosophers for continuing to do it.

So the Australian realist hopes that a broadly naturalistic metaphysics is roughly right, but is mindful of the possibility that it could be wrong. It's better, I say, to travel hopefully than to arrive. When he reached India it is said, Alexander of Macedon fell to his knees and wept because there were no more lands to conquer. Few of us should be so lucky.

Thank you.

Alan Saunders: John Bigelow, and that talk was recorded as part of the History of Philosophy in Australasia Project, now under way at Monash University.

The show is produced by Polly Rickard with technical production this week by Michelle Goldsworthy. I'm Alan Saunders and I'll be back next week with another Philosopher's Zone.