Big Picture Metaphysics
Thinking about Hofweber’s book about idealism got me excited because it is the closest thing I have read recently to Big Picture Metaphysics: the kind of metaphysics that has major implications for all aspects of reality, or metaphysics that has major implications for epistemology, language, and other subject matters.
Contemporary metaphysics, like other areas of contemporary philosophy, tends to be divided into small corners. It is standard to publish a book about the metaphysics of modality, causation, numbers, logic, etc. It is not often that you see sweeping metaphysical treatises anymore.
To be clear: Hofweber’s book is still relatively restricted in scope. But it is ambitious in a way that much of contemporary metaphysics is not. (This is ironic because most metaphysicians would probably class Hofweber as a deflationist and therefore not metaphysically ambitious.)
The standard approach in metaphysics is to argue for a specific thesis in some specific corner of metaphysics. One typically does not weave claims across different areas of metaphysics.
This is the standard approach in other areas, of course. Philosophers of language often publish books about specific linguistic phenomena — conditionals, modals, tense, context — and not language as a whole. Overall, the profession has become more specialized.
I think it’s unfortunate that contemporary philosophers are less likely to make bold, sweeping gestures. I recognize that these gestures can be done badly, leading to a lot of philosophy that seems to never land anywhere substantial. Still, it’s nice to read philosophy that challenges the whole landscape, as it were.