Bringing Metaphysics Back In?

Ian Hunter has made a name for himself as a critic of German university metaphysics, finding its progeny at work in places where many of us would not even think of looking, for example in the late twentieth-century celebration of theory in the humanities. Some of his recent work has focused on a rather different issue: the methodological task of making intellectual history empirical. Here he builds on Quentin Skinner's rationale for the Cambridge School's efforts to make the history of political thought more properly historical. Skinner's argument draws on the work of R. G. Collingwood, at least in its earlier versions, and on neo-Kantian tendencies in mid-twentieth century Oxford philosophy. Thus, in aligning his methodological programme with Skinner's argument, Hunter may risk bringing elements of university metaphysics back in another form.