Addressing “man's relation to reality”

In his book, Trying to Make Sense , Peter Winch was ostensibly addressing very diverse topics. However, this chapter argues that Winch was continuing a task outlined in The Idea of a Social Science : that of clarifying “man’s relation to reality”. The philosophically interesting task is to discern the various forms that establishing contact with reality may take. The authority of direct observation of facts or events is dependent on its position in a “stream of life”, that is, how it connects with the various ways of making sense of the world embedded in human life. The chapter “Ceasing to Exist” and its sequel, “Asking Too Many Questions”, address the question of what it implies to discern intelligible order in the natural world. What we expect of things depends on our understanding of what kinds of things they are – which, in turn, depends on the kinds of engagement we have with them in our practices. The Kantian idea of a world governed by laws of nature is a culturally specific development of this idea of a common world. At the same time, our sense-making practices testify to the existence of metaphysics in everyday life, in the Kantian sense, as a natural disposition.