Abstract

Begins the second part of the book, in which the author argues that commitment to the naturalistic research programme precludes one from accepting realism about material objects and materialism. The argument turns on the prospects that naturalists have for solving what the author calls the Discovery Problem. Roughly, the Discovery Problem is just the fact that intrinsic modal properties seem not to be discoverable by the methods of science. Describes this problem in Ch. 4, and argues that if there is good reason to think that the problem cannot be solved, then naturalists cannot be justified in accepting realism about material objects.