Metaphysical insideoutness: An interpretation of overcoming metaphysics in the history of Western philosophy, with special emphasis on Jacques Derrida, and its application to the thought of Friedrich Schleiermacher

I approach the issue of overcoming metaphysics from the double perspective called “metaphysical insideoutness.” On the one hand, acknowledging the impossibility of complete overcoming of metaphysics, it opts for constant overcoming of one metaphysics with another. On the other hand, it acknowledges some ways of stepping outside metaphysics from inside. I start with the development of metaphysics from Aristotle until the 18th century and, then, interpret modern instances of overcoming metaphysics from the viewpoint of my perspective. I consider Descartes, British empiricism, Kant, Husserl, Heidegger, and others, but give special emphasis to Jacques Derrida, who exemplifies this position paradigmatically by means of his grammatological metaphysics, which, yet, is so fashioned that also reaches outside metaphysics. The overcoming occurs when metaphysical contrasts create quasi-concepts (différance , trace, khora, et al.), which do not belong either to inside, or outside of metaphysics, but inhabit some oscillating non-space in-between. The remaining and largest part of the dissertation applies my interpretative scheme to the thought of Friedrich Schleiermacher, who also addressed metaphysical questions in the lectures on dialectics and worked to overcome metaphysics in theology. Schleiermacher completes metaphysics in several ways: overcoming rationalist speculation with his theory of empirical speculation; overcoming Kant's metaphysics and its “gap” between theoretical and practical realms; overcoming traditional metaphysics of the opposites with his metaphysics of complementary contrasts, reaching an oscillating identity in difference in self-consciousness. Schleiermacher also overcomes metaphysics in the sense of leaving it behind, e.g., understanding dialectics as heuristic, non-metaphysical logic. But from Schleiermacher's metaphysics of contrasts, much like to Derrida, emerge elements (Gefühl, the Übergang, oscillation, the point zero) which reach outside metaphysics. I also deal with Schleiermacher's ambiguous overcoming of metaphysics in the Glaubenslehre, where he wants to eliminate metaphysics from dogmatics—an experiential, discipline based on the datum of religious consciousness of the concrete historical community. Yet, he acknowledges the impossibility to leave metaphysics behind and allows a formal, instrumental, dialectical role to it. Schleiermacher's suspension of contrasts also applies to philosophy and dogmatics, in-between whom the other of metaphysics may emerge.