Philip Goodchild
Project leader:
Philip Goodchild (Philosophy Department, University of Nottingham)
Title:
Transvaluation and the Practice of Metaphysics
Description:
This project explored a transvaluation of the practice of metaphysics as preparation for rethinking the existence, presence, and power of God. Metaphysical transvaluation involves a change in the everyday presuppositions by which people notice reality, pay attention, count as real, record, represent, and give themselves orientation. Posing a fresh problem changes the sense, value, and binding force of the concepts we use, such that some lose their pertinence while others become indispensable.
For renewing the practice of metaphysics, the project creatively rethought the legacy of Immanuel Kant’s critical turn, Friedrich Nietzsche’s transvaluative philosophy, and later French spiritualism (primarily Henri Bergson, Louis Lavelle, Raymond Ruyer, and Gilbert Simondon).
For rethinking the existence, presence, and power of God, the project transvalued the metaphysics of Anselm, Spinoza, and Simone Weil.
Progress:
A full manuscript (115,000 words) of the main output of the project, Rethinking the Existence of God: Renewing Metaphysics after Continental Philosophy was submitted, via the Project Leader, for consideration in the Oxford University Press book series associated with Widening Horizons: Oxford Series in Philosophical Theology. (November 2023)
An article, ‘Transvaluation and the Practice of Metaphysics’, was published in the Heythrop Journal (online February 2023): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/heyj.14191
An article, ‘Christian Platonism, Transvalued: Rethinking Anselm’s Formula’ was published in the Heythrop Journal (online November 2024): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/heyj.14384
A pathway to scientific engagement was submitted prior to the September final workshop (2023).
These are the promised deliverables specified in the sub-grant.
The book manuscript proved too large to incorporate research on truth and sin, as promised in the original application. Research on these was conducted and will be incorporated into a future work, a Philosophy of Spirituality.
Outputs:
Published:
‘Transvaluation and the Practice of Metaphysics’, Heythrop Journal February 2023: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/heyj.14191
‘Christian Platonism, Transvalued: Rethinking Anselm’s Formula’, Heythrop Journal forthcoming: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/heyj.14384
Manuscripts under review:
Rethinking the Existence of God: Renewing Metaphysics after Continental Philosophy book manuscript under consideration at Oxford University Press.
Outcomes:
Results from the research were presented in the following papers at academic conferences:
‘Weil’s Dialectic’, keynote paper at Weil and Politics workshop, AHRC Simone Weil Network, Manchester Metropolitan University, 22 April 2022.
‘Jesus the Metaphysician of Problems’, paper presented to the MA Philosophical Theology Distance Learning Residential conference, University of Nottingham, April 2022 (longer version of a section of Chapter One of the book manuscript, Rethinking the Existence of God).
‘A Meditation on Divine Existence’, paper presented at Global Philosophy of Religions workshop, 9th March 2023, University of Nottingham (a presentation of Chapter Four of the book).
‘A Weillian Essay on Time’, AHRC Simone Weil Network final conference, ‘Weil For Our Times’, 21-23 September 2023, Senate House, University of London (a section of Chapter Seven of the book manuscript, Rethinking the Existence of God).
‘Paradigm Shifts for Metaphysics’, Creatio Continua Conference VI, Major Seminary of the Archdiocese of Krakow, Poland, 1-2 December 2024 (loosely covers material from Chapter One of the book).
Unanticipated results:
This research focused on the practice of metaphysics: how it might be undertaken via an approach substantially different from hitherto. Intricately tied to this research is the development of a new metaphysical system in this spirit. While the book manuscript lays the foundations for this later stage, further work before, during, and subsequent to the project has been undertaken. A book manuscript is in preparation provisionally entitled A Philosophy of Spirituality.