Hostname: page-component-cc8bf7c57-j4qg9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-10T12:02:42.590Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Does Science License Metaphysics?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Olin M. Robus
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Naturalized metaphysicians defend the thesis that science licenses metaphysics, such that only metaphysical results based on the best science are legitimate. This view is problematic, due to the fact that the reasons they identify for such license are apparently self-defeating. Anjan Chakravartty defends a revised approach to understanding the licensing relation. I argue that the proposed response is a step forward on behalf of naturalizing metaphysics but still does not take seriously the contention that science involves, inextricably, a contribution from the a priori. I conclude by considering what options the naturalized metaphysician is left with.

Type
Metaphysics
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 82 , Issue 5 , December 2015 , pp. 845 - 855
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

I would like to thank Andrea Woody, Jon Rosenberg, Matthew Sample, and the University of Washington Philosophy of Science Reading Group for invaluable commentary and feedback.

References

Bohm, David. 1980. Wholeness and the Implicate Order. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Chakravartty, Anjan. 2007. A Metaphysics for Scientific Realism: Knowing the Unobservable. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chakravartty, Anjan 2013. “Naturalized Metaphysics.” In Scientific Metaphysics, ed. Ross, Don, Ladyman, James, and Kincaid, Harold. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chang, Hasok. 2004. Inventing Temperature: Measurement and Scientific Progress. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chang, Hasok 2008. “Contingent Transcendental Arguments for Metaphysical Principles.” Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 83 (63): 113–33.Google Scholar
Dewey, John. 1910. The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Eddington, Arthur Stanley. 1955. The Nature of the Physical World. London: Dent.Google Scholar
Friedman, Michael. 2001. Dynamics of Reason: The 1999 Kant Lectures at Stanford University. Stanford, CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
Hanson, Norwood Russell. 1958. Patterns of Discovery. Vol. 11. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ladyman, James. 2007. “Does Physics Answer Metaphysical Questions?” Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 82 (61): 179–201.10.1017/S1358246107000197CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ladyman, James, and Ross, Don. 2007. Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199276196.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maudlin, Tim. 2007. The Metaphysics within Physics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ney, Alyssa. 2012. “Neo-Positivist Metaphysics.” Philosophical Studies 160 (1): 53–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paul, L. A. 2012. “Metaphysics as Modeling: The Handmaiden’s Tale.” Philosophical Studies 160 (1): 1–29.10.1007/s11098-012-9906-7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, Hilary. 1967. “Time and Physical Geometry.” Journal of Philosophy 64 (8): 240–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quine, Willard V. O. 1951. “Two Dogmas of Empiricism.” Philosophical Review 60 (1): 20–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, Don, Ladyman, James, and Kincaid, Harold. 2013. Scientific Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar