Metaphysics is often seen as a discipline of the past. Immanuel Kant, who can well be thought of as a principal architect of modern thought, was highly sceptical of classical metaphysics which he considered purely speculative. Although he saw the necessity of a firmly-grounded metaphysics, it is no surprise that a few years ago a German Philosophical Society inquired whether “Metaphysics after Kant?” was still possible.

Many of Kant‘s successors were even more critical. Schopenhauer once furiously declared that all (classical) metaphysics could only be found in a “fool‘s paradise” because metaphysics was nothing but dogmatism in disguise. Nietzsche eventually scolded metaphysical inquiry for being “egypticism” and therefore decisively not up to date.
Indeed, if metaphysics is the quest for eternal, independent, and absolute truth, it seems anti-modern in many ways. Not only would such a quest transgress the boundaries of modern subjectivism (which – at least according to Heidegger – is an essential part of modern thought) but it would also be incompatible with all forms of relativism – epistemological, moral, or otherwise – relativisms which many have embraced after the 20th century was tarnished by the conflicts of ideology and “absolute truths”.

Moreover, in an era marked by the advance of science, reductionism (with its commonsense no-nonsense attitude) seems a powerful antagonist of metaphysical exploration; and, with the analytical focus on language as creating “boundaries of my world” (Wittgenstein), metaphysics might seem finally to have become redundant. Therefore, the notion that metaphysics is essentially “moonstruck” (as Hans Georg Gadamer once joked) has been widely accepted, as has the claim that modernity is a “post- metaphysical” age. But is there such a clear distinction between metaphysics and modernity? Is metaphysics still possible in modern times? Or do we have to return to classical metaphysics? The International Summer School 2012 “Metaphysics or Modernity?” invites students and scholars from all over the world to discuss these questions, and to engage in a rigorous and energetic dialogue as to whether Metaphysics or Modernity is in fact the dichotomy it appears to be.