So What's up with the Metaphilosophy Book?

I was happy to find the following item in the mailbag the other morning:

Hi Bill,

I recall (however, I can't find exactly where) that you mentioned in an old blog post your intention to publish a work on metaphilosophy at some point in the future. I am curious, is this still a goal of yours? If so, is it in progress? I would be delighted to read it, but I understand if you've chosen not to pursue that project.

 

Your grateful reader,

Chandler

Thank you for your inquiry, Chandler. Yes, the metaphilosophy book is in progress, and has been for longer than I care to reveal.  Why am I taking so long with it?

 

I gave the following dissertation advice a few posts ago:

. . . finish the bloody thing now while you are young and cocky and energetic.  Finish it before your standards become too exacting. Give yourself a year, say, do your absolute best and crank it out. Think of it as a union card. It might not get you a job but then it just might. Don't think of it as a magnum opus or you will never finish. 

My current predicament is the opposite. I am now old and my standards have become as exacting as they ever will be.  I'm under time pressure but it's of a different sort than the young person's. The young philosopher needs to 'make it' and secure a space within which he can pursue his vocation.  He has to solve 'the problem of the belly.' He may also be driven by worldly ambition. I have secured the space, solved the problem of livelihood, and I have renounced all worldly ambition in line with Wittgenstein's 1948 observation, "Ambition is the death of thought." (Ehrgeiz ist der Tod des Denkens, Culture and Value, p. 77)

 

So now I can afford to set high standards. Trouble is, they slow you down.  That's good in one way.  I take to heart the advice of  Wittgenstein and Brentano. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value (University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 80: Der Gruss der Philosophen unter einander sollte sein: "Lass Dir Zeit!" "This is how philosophers should greet each other: 'Take your time!'"

A similar thought is to be found in Franz Brentano, though I have forgotten where he says this: Wer eilt, bewegt sich nicht auf dem Boden der Wissenschaft. "One who hurries is not proceeding on a scientific basis."

 

On the other hand,  the clock is running, the flag will fall, and the time control is sudden death. There is no secondary or tertiary control; nor can one  take an 'incomplete' when the Grim Reaper comes knocking, his scythe glistening in the rays of the setting sun.