1351. Metaphysical assertions, I've said . . .

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Metaphysical assertions, I've said, are "the fundamental assertions that must somehow be made by each of us and that none of us can meaningfully deny." Elsewhere I've explained what I mean by this, or why it's so, by saying, for example, that "[t]hose statements are true metaphysically which I could not avoid believing to be true, at least implicitly, if I were to believe or exist at all; or, alternatively, they are the statements which would necessarily apply through any of my experiences, even my merely conceivable experiences, provided only that such experience was sufficiently reflected on."

Other things I've said either state or imply that metaphysical assertions or statements:

"make fully explicit and understandable the most fundamental presuppositions of all our experience and thought, or the most universal principles that are the strictly necessary conditions of the possibility of anything whatever";

"make the necessary conditions of the possibility of anything whatever, and hence the first principles of all our thought and speech, fully explicit and understandable";

"[set forth] a theory of ultimate reality in its structure in itself [as distinct from its meaning for us]";

"[raise] to full self-consciousness . . . the basic beliefs that are the necessary conditions of the possibility of our existing or understanding at all";

"[set forth] the faith by which we live and in this way [an understanding] of the nature of reality as disclosed to this faith"; and

"[explicate] our at least implicit understanding as human beings of ultimate reality, in the sense of the necessary conditions of the possibility of our own existence and [of] all existence."

September 2004