humanizing the world 95
However, such a metaphysical system risks being no more than a
fairy tale, easy to devise and easy to reject. Persuasively to inform the
project of humanizing the world, it will need to be much more specifi c
in its claims about the structure and evolution of nature and society
than the philosophies that inform the overcoming of the world. For
these philosophies, it may be enough to propose a radical simplifi cation
that either denies phenomenal distinction and temporal change or re-
interprets them against the backdrop of the supposed archetypes of
manifest reality. A metaphysic operating under such constraints cannot
appeal to a dramatic historical narrative of dealings between God and
humanity like the stories central to the Semitic mono the isms. Such nar-
ratives invite a shaking up of the social order, a rebellion against con-
ventional morality and its role- encoded standards of conduct.
It is an outcome that confl icts with the humanizing program; it brings
struggle instead of humanization. Although a metaphysic intended to
support the humanization of the world may speculate about the rea-
sons for which nature and society take one form rather than another, it
remains bereft of the experimental practices, the empirical disciplines,
and the technological tools of modern natural science. It is condemned
to be a waking dream: an argument in which the conclusion is already
set and only the premises remain open to exploration.
Moreover, the special pleading required to provide the humanization
of the world with a metaphysical prop faces the speculative humanizer
with a dilemma. If he leaves loose the connection between metaphysics
and morals, he makes the prop seem a transparent attempt to conceal
the failure of the humanizing eff ort to be grounded in any feature of
natural reality outside society and humanity. If, however, he insists on
the tightness of the link between morals and metaphysics, he not only
draws attention to the fl imsiness and arbitrariness of the metaphysical
conception but also risks imposing on the moral view a direction alien
to the motivations inspiring it. Th e invocation of a privileged, suprahu-
man or extrasocial perspective on humanity and society threatens to
blunt our claims on one another. It dims the signifi cance of our rela-
tions to our fellows by making these attachments and commitments
seem secondary to our citizenship in a cosmic order.
So it is that in the rerouting of the humanization of the world into
metaphysics, a doctrine of human connection, translated into a role- based