MacIntyre’s reply to the failure of the Enlightenment project has been labeled itself as a form of relativism by a good part of his critics, according to which, if the MacIntyre’s aim was to find a solution to the failure of the Enlightenment project, he would have failed. He would not reply carefully to relativism and perspectivism. He would not be able to build a convincing theory that escapes relativism and perspectivism, “the protagonist of post–Enlightenment”, but he would be a relativist thinker. How can this mistake be avoided? MacIntyre deals with this issue in different writings and he develops a new method of enquiry that gives an appropriate answer to the problems of postmod- ernism, that is, relativism and perspectivism. Answering to this challenge, in his later writings, MacIntyre does appeal to Thomism’s synthesis and improves a concept of tradition as a intellectual in- quiry, that is a background within which it is possible to explain the authentic meaning of the correspondence theory of truth where the first principles that lead the intellectual inquiry have a capital role. The MacIntyre’s effort is thereby to connect his historical inquiry with the Thomism’s metaphysics. It would seems then that MacIntyre’s philosophy can place within the real- ism position that it has developed as reaction to post–modernity.
Is MacIntyre's Philosophy a kind of Realism?
CONCU, NICOLETTA
2014-01-01
Abstract
MacIntyre’s reply to the failure of the Enlightenment project has been labeled itself as a form of relativism by a good part of his critics, according to which, if the MacIntyre’s aim was to find a solution to the failure of the Enlightenment project, he would have failed. He would not reply carefully to relativism and perspectivism. He would not be able to build a convincing theory that escapes relativism and perspectivism, “the protagonist of post–Enlightenment”, but he would be a relativist thinker. How can this mistake be avoided? MacIntyre deals with this issue in different writings and he develops a new method of enquiry that gives an appropriate answer to the problems of postmod- ernism, that is, relativism and perspectivism. Answering to this challenge, in his later writings, MacIntyre does appeal to Thomism’s synthesis and improves a concept of tradition as a intellectual in- quiry, that is a background within which it is possible to explain the authentic meaning of the correspondence theory of truth where the first principles that lead the intellectual inquiry have a capital role. The MacIntyre’s effort is thereby to connect his historical inquiry with the Thomism’s metaphysics. It would seems then that MacIntyre’s philosophy can place within the real- ism position that it has developed as reaction to post–modernity.
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