The naturalized metaphysics promoted by Ladyman and Ross, among others, is often described as (neo)-Quinean metaphysics. This association with Quine's naturalism can, however, give a misleading impression of the aims and commitments of this kind of naturalized metaphysics. Contrary to Quine, these naturalized metaphysicians endorse metaphysical realism and offer wholesale arguments in favor of the epistemic standing of science-based metaphysics. Accordingly, this naturalized metaphysics comes closer to Roy Wood Sellars's evolutionary naturalism, especially since the theory (...) of evolution is central to the criticism that naturalized metaphysics levels at nonnaturalized metaphysics. The paper argues that Sellars's naturalism is furthermore helpful (1) for explicating the naturalism of naturalized metaphysics, (2) for theorizing a more general naturalist basis for naturalized metaphysics, and (3) for suggesting where naturalized metaphysics is perhaps not naturalist enough, especially when it comes to considering the implications of the theory of evolution for its positive program. (shrink)

It is often assumed that a commitment to scientific realism naturally, if not necessarily, accompanies a commitment to naturalizing metaphysics. If one denies that our scientific theories are approximately true, it would be unclear why one should index metaphysics to them. My aim is to show that the project of naturalizing metaphysics does not require realist assumptions. I will identify two success conditions for the project of disentangling naturalized metaphysics from realism: 1) the narrow success condition, (...) which requires the antirealist to explain why naturalized metaphysics is preferable to non-naturalized metaphysics, and 2) the broad success condition, which requires the antirealist to explain why naturalized metaphysics is preferable to metaphysical quietism. I believe that the antirealist can meet these conditions. Although I will not defend any definitive way of meeting them, I will explore argumentative avenues open to the antirealist. In particular, I will consider some conceptions of naturalized metaphysics, discuss their antirealist-compatible expected payoffs, and consider whether those payoffs enable the antirealist to meet the success conditions of the project. I will find that the antirealist has several argumentative avenues open to them. (shrink)

This chapter argues that empirical findings in cognitive science can play a significant evidential role in an optimal methodology for metaphysics. It does not propose any radical metaphysical methodology or any wholesale replacement of traditional methods. Rather, it offers a supplement to traditional methods. The chapter proposes a general template for metaphysical methodology under which cognitive scientific considerations might become routine or commonplace factors in realist metaphysics, not just isolated or occasional factors. This template is applied to four (...) problems in metaphysics: the passage of time, moral value, natural kinds, and theism. (shrink)

Naturalized metaphysics aims to establish justified metaphysical claims, where metaphysics is meant to carry its usual significance, while avoiding the traditional methods of metaphysics—a priori reasoning, conceptual analysis, intuitions, and common sense—which naturalized metaphysics argues are not epistemically probative. After offering an explication of what it means to do metaphysics, this paper argues that naturalized metaphysics, at the outset, is hospitable to doing metaphysics. The underdetermination of metaphysics by science, however, changes the (...) picture. Naturalized metaphysics has to break this underdetermination, but the criticism of the traditional methods of metaphysics leaves no resources with which to do so. Naturalized metaphysics must therefore be more restrictive than originally intended to ensure that some metaphysical features avoid underdetermination. In this restrictive naturalized metaphysics, however, metaphysicians are only left the task of surveying the opinions of scientists which, it is argued, does not qualify as doing metaphysics. Thus, to fulfill its promise to save metaphysics, naturalized metaphysics displaces the metaphysician. Furthermore, the attempt to re-employ them via the principle of naturalistic closure is argued to fail. Metaphysicians should therefore not be happier with naturalized metaphysics than they are with the more explicitly eliminative trends in contemporary metametaphysics, such as neo-Carnapian deflationism, despite the promise of naturalized metaphysics, likely to Carnap’s dismay, to deliver justified claims about ultimate reality. (shrink)

Radical naturalized metaphysics wants to argue (1) that metaphysics without sufficient epistemic warrant should not be pursued, (2) that the traditional methods of metaphysics cannot provide epistemic warrant, (3) that metaphysics using these methods must therefore be discontinued, and (4) that naturalized metaphysics should be pursued instead since (5) such science‐based metaphysics succeeds in establishing justified conclusions about ultimate reality. This paper argues that to defend (5), naturalized metaphysics must rely on methods similar (...) to those criticized in (2). If naturalized metaphysics instead opts for the weaker claim that science‐based metaphysics is only superior to other metaphysics, then this is insufficient to establish (4). In this case, (4) might therefore be defeated by (1). An alternative is to replace (1) with the view that we should just approach metaphysical questions with the best means available. While this would recommend a science‐based approach whenever possible, it would also allow for the continuation of science‐independent metaphysics in domains that science has no bearing on and thus reject (3). The paper concludes that none of these alternatives is entirely satisfactory for naturalized metaphysics. (shrink)

The relevance of analytic metaphysics has come under criticism: Ladyman & Ross, for instance, have suggested do discontinue the field. French & McKenzie have argued in defense of analytic metaphysics that it develops tools that could turn out to be useful for philosophy of physics. In this article, we show first that this heuristic defense of metaphysics can be extended to the scientific field of applied ontology, which uses constructs from analytic metaphysics. Second, we elaborate on (...) a parallel by French & McKenzie between mathematics and metaphysics to show that the whole field of analytic metaphysics, being useful not only for philosophy but also for science, should continue to exist as a largely autonomous field. (shrink)

This paper argues that the substance concept, as discussed by Aristotle in his Categories, aids us to improve our understanding of human nature. Aristotle distinguished the primary from the secondary substance, and substantial from accidental change. We explain these distinctions, their use for understanding phenomena, and discuss how we can integrate them with evolutionary explanations of human nature. For explaining of how the typical human characteristics evolved, we extend our investigations with a discussion of the concept of person. It is (...) argued that psychological attributes, used to characterize persons, are not attributes of a separate mental substance, as Cartesians believe. The concept of a person, though not a substance concept, qualifies a substance concept of a human being possessing rational powers. The latter evolved as the result of language evolution. (shrink)

Can metaphysics ever really be compatible with science? In this paper, I investigate the implications of the methodological approach to metaphysical theorizing known as naturalized metaphysics. In the past, metaphysics has been rejected entirely by empirically-minded philosophers as being too open to speculation and for relying on methods which are not conducive to truth. But naturalized metaphysics aims to be a less radical solution to these difficulties, treating metaphysical theorizing as being continuous with science and restricting (...) metaphysical methods to empirically respectable ones. I investigate a significant difficulty for naturalized metaphysics: that it lacks the methodological resources to comparatively evaluate competing ontological theories, or even to distinguish adequately between them. This objection is more acute when applied to robust realist versions of naturalized metaphysics, since the realist should be able to say which theory is true of the objective world. If this objection holds, then it seems that the commitment to naturalized metaphysics, or to robust realism about the categories and processes in metaphysics, will have to be relaxed. (shrink)

Naturalized metaphysics questions the epistemic legitimacy of the traditional methods of metaphysics and proposes that a metaphysics motivated by science will do better. The veracity of these two core commitments of naturalized metaphysics have been much debated over to last two decades. Instead of continuing this debate, this thesis investigates from a methodological perspective what follows if one takes these two claims for granted. The thesis argues (1) that, despite claims to the contrary, naturalized metaphysics (...) has no resources with which to answer the concerns that the logical positivists had about metaphysics; (2) that naturalized metaphysics – contrary to what might be expected – is hospitable to certain kinds of resistance to science from metaphysicians; (3) that naturalized metaphysics cannot both be a genuine exercise in metaphysics and inherit the epistemic legitimacy of science; and (4) that even the naturalized metaphysics of fundamental science could have consequences for social ontology. In addition to these concrete interventions, the thesis gives a comprehensive account of the foundational claims of naturalized metaphysics including how they relate to those of other naturalisms and other recent trends in metametaphysics such as neo-Carnapian metaphysics. (shrink)

Recent philosophy of science has been seized by what may appear a schizophrenic attitude towards analytic metaphysics. Some philosophers of science have embraced metaphysical theorizing as an important tool for interpreting and extending scientific theories, while others reject analytic metaphysics as misguided, futile, or epistemically impotent. The idea of naturalized metaphysics—metaphysics appropriately ‘grounded’ in the details of empirical science—offers one possibility of a rapprochement between these seemingly conflicting attitudes. In this chapter, however, it is argued that (...) the crucial notion of ‘grounding’, and hence the idea of naturalized metaphysics itself, have not yet been articulated in a compelling manner. The beginnings of an articulation are sketched. (shrink)

This project investigates naturalized metaphysics as a recent trend in analytic metaphysics originating in the naturalist attitude of James Ladyman and Don Ross in their seminal work Everything must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized (2007). The primary focus, however, will be the more recent article “Neo-Positivist Metaphysics” (2012) by Alyssa Ney that originates in this tradition. The project will conclude that naturalized metaphysics is an unsuccessful attempt at an answer to the question ’how is metaphysics possible’. (...) More precisely, the project will establish that any answer to this question must instruct how to succeed at attempts at assertions about the Kantian thing in itself. This requirement is the result of an argument that no other conception of ’reality’ is robust enough to accommodate an ambitious metaphysics. Subsequently, it will be argued that naturalized metaphysics is conceived by its proponents as an attempt at such an answer, but that naturalized metaphysics does not provide the required instruction. This problem occurs because of Carnap’s challenge to metaphysics. Carnap observes that no assertion can be made outside a linguistic framework which has the consequence that metaphysical assertions must be about the conceptual conventions of the linguistic framework rather than the thing in itself. It is the view of Ney and the other proponents of naturalized metaphysics that metaphysics is possible as a naturalized metaphysics; a metaphysics that appropriately defers or yields to the findings of science. The project argues that this requirement does nothing to ensure that Carnap’s challenge is avoided. The challenge is equally significant to naturalized and non-naturalized metaphysics, so long as both require that successful attempts at metaphysics must be assertions about the thing in itself. -/- The project concludes that until or unless Carnap’s challenge is refuted, naturalized metaphysics remain impossible, just like the metaphysics it is supposed to replace. (shrink)

This volume combines two of Kant's key works on the metaphysics of nature--the _Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Come Forward as Science and Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science_--in the preeminent translations of James W. Ellington. Each work is preceded by an expert Introduction by Ellington and is followed by a German-English List of Terms and an Index.

Will the ecological crises of our time be resolved using the same form of thought that has brought them about? Are technological prowess and political power the proper tools to address them? Is there not a deeper connection between our ecological crises and our human, social, political, economic, and ethical crises? This book argues that the popular approaches to ecological, bioethical, and other human crises are not working because they fail to examine the problem in its full depth. This depth (...) escapes us because we have abandoned true metaphysical reflection on the whole and substituted it unknowingly for a series of inadequate alternatives. Both the technocratic paradigm that views all of nature mechanistically and its antagonists--the eco-philosophies that argue for the realities of intrinsic value, relationality, and beauty--carry partial truths but are insufficient. This book presents a more radical alternative, rooted in the classical tradition yet fresh and vibrant. The metaphysics of gift, based in the giftedness of existence shared by all, offers a deeper and more satisfying vision of all things that can transform our relationship with nature and touches every aspect of human life: social, political, economic, technical, and ethical"-- Back cover. (shrink)

The problem of measurement is usually thought of as a problem of physics. Certainly the straightforward solutions modify or supplement the basic equations. One might instead conclude that theories are only instruments for coördinating observable phenomena, and perhaps that is what Bohr’s Copenhagen interpretation really comes down to. For most of us this sort of “philosophical” resolution of the problem of measurement is not acceptable.

This chapter outlines a metaphysics of science in the sense of a naturalized metaphysics. It considers in the first place the interplay of physics and metaphysics in Newtonian mechanics, then goes into the issues for the metaphysics of time that relativity physics raises, shows that what one considers as the referent of quantum theory depends on metaphysical considerations and finally explains how the stance that one takes with respect to objective modality and laws of nature shapes (...) the options that are available for an ontology of quantum physics. In that way, this chapter seeks to make a case for a natural philosophy that treats physics and metaphysics as inseparable in the enquiry into the constitution of the world, there being neither a neo-positivist way of deducing metaphysics from the formalisms of physical theories, nor a neo-rationalist realm of investigation for metaphysics that is independent of physics. (shrink)

Though science and philosophy take different approaches to ontology, metaphysical inferences are relevant to interpreting scientific work, and empirical investigations are relevant to philosophy. This book argues that there is no uniquely rational way to determine which domains of ontology are appropriate for belief, making room for choice in a transformative account of scientific ontology.

This article starts with an examination of Saul Kripke’s views of the semantics of modal logic and concludes by pointing to some epistemological and ontological consequences of those views that seem to be incompatible with the way empirical science in fact works and progresses. In dealing with the problem of identifying the same objects in different possible worlds, Kripke is led to develop his original positions on topics such as the theses of the fixation of the reference independent of meaning (...) (where he disagrees with Frege) and the noncoincidence between necessary and a priori truths (where he disagrees with Kant). In Kripke’s view, it is a particular type of knowledge – scientific knowledge – that determines what should be considered as essential or necessary. And the statements that represent these a posteriori scientific discoveries “are not,” in his words, “contingent truths, but truths that are necessary in the strictest possible sense.” Thus, in Kripke’s view, our (scientific) knowledge determines without distortion the essential properties of what is real, which turns his ontology into a direct function of the discoveries of empirical science. This “naturalization of ontology”, as shown in the conclusion of this article, is not compatible with recognition of the defeasibility of our semantic or scientific criteria and overloads scientific the endeavor with a metaphysical burden which science itself does not claim and is not capable of carrying. Key words: fixation of reference, a posteriori necessity, naturalized ontology. (shrink)

According to naturalized metaphysics, metaphysics should be informed by our current best science and not rely on a priori reasoning. Consequently, naturalized metaphysics tends to dismiss metaphysicians’ attempts to quarrel with science. This paper argues that naturalized metaphysics should instead welcome such conflicts between metaphysics and science. Naturalized metaphysics is not eliminative of metaphysics. So, if such conflicts are driven by the immediate absence in science of an answer to a metaphysical question, then (...) the conflict should not be dismissed, but instead be received as an occasion to do naturalized metaphysics. That conflicts between metaphysics and science might be beneficial for naturalized metaphysics is exemplified by the case of non-spatial theories of quantum gravity. These theories are criticized by metaphysicians who, often following David Lewis, argue that spatial distance is an indispensable fundamental element in any coherent metaphysics due to its role as the world-making relation. The resulting conflict, however, is found to be well-motivated since the non-spatial theories of quantum gravity offer no alternative world-making relation to spatial distance. Rather than dismissing this conflict, naturalized metaphysics should therefore receive the Lewisians’ resistance as a call to search for one. How this plays out as a negotiation between the scientific theory and the metaphysical question is exemplified in the last part of the paper where entanglement is proposed as an alternative world-making relation in loop quantum gravity. (shrink)

The main intent of this thesis is to defend that the laws of nature are better thought as transcendent universals, such as platonic governism suggests, and that they are metaphysically necessary in a strong way, such as the heterodox version of such platonism defends. With this intention, we sustain that physical symmetries are essential consequences of the laws of nature – what solves the challenge of symmetries – thus being metaphysically necessary, without being governist's necessitation laws. First, we will show (...) what laws of nature are and the reasons to reject other metaphysical theories and to accept platonic governism. Soon after, we will present the challenge of symmetries and the reasons to prefer the platonic governist answer over dispositionalist, regularist, aristotelic (governism), counterfatualist and primitivist ones. At last, we will define what is the metaphysical necessity, argue for the strong metaphysical necessity of laws and their consequences, and show why the reasons for the contingency or weak necessity of laws are bad theoretical paths. (shrink)

In her paper “Neo-positivist metaphysics” (Philosophical Studies, 160(1), 53–78, 2012), Alyssa Ney promises a naturalized metaphysics that is acceptable even by positivists’ – and specifically Carnap’s – standards. This neo-positivist metaphysics takes its outset in the findings of our best science and relies on them to inform a metaphysics that can avoid the dependence on linguistic frameworks that is inherent to Carnapian deflationism. Neo-positivist metaphysics attempts to sidestep these problems by inheriting its semantic credentials directly (...) from science itself. This paper argues that such attempts are unsuccessful since science contains no resources with which to answer Carnap’s challenge either, and a science-based metaphysics is therefore just as vulnerable to Carnapian deflationism as traditional metaphysics. Consequently, neo-positivist metaphysics does not provide the promised metaphysics that can avoid Carnapian deflationism. While this conclusion focuses on Ney’s neo-positivist metaphysics, its scope includes any attempt to avoid Carnapian deflationism by a naturalized metaphysics that relies on strict deference to the findings of science. Substantial metaphysics – naturalized or not – is impossible unless or until Carnapian deflationism is refuted, and the resources for such a refutation cannot be found in naturalized metaphysics. (shrink)

Volume 97, Issue 3, September 2019, Page 618-621.

I wish to advance a certain program for doing metaphysics, a program in which cognitive science would play an important role.1 This proposed ingredient is absent from most contemporary metaphysics. There are one or two local parts of metaphysics where a role for cognitive science is commonly accepted, but I advocate a wider range of application. I begin by laying out the general program and its rationale, with selected illustrations. Then I explore in some detail a single (...) application: the ontology of events. I do not push hard for any particular ontological conclusion, about either events or any other topic. The focus is methodology, not a particular output of the methodology. Here is a recently published characterization of the metaphysical enterprise, one that probably captures orthodox practice pretty well and to which I take no exception. (shrink)

This volume contains eighteen papers, three with new postscripts, that were written over the past 35 years. Five of the papers have not been previously published. Together they provide a comprehensive account of modal reality—the realm of possible worlds—from a Humean perspective, with excursions into neighboring topics in metaphysics. Part 1 sketches an account of reality as a whole, both the mathematical and the modal, defending a form of plenitudinous realism: every consistent proposition is true of some portion of (...) reality. Part 2 presents and defends a realist theory of concrete possible worlds with an absolute ontological distinction between the actual and the merely possible. Part 3 presents and defends a Humean account of modal plenitude, formulating and endorsing principles of recombination, of plenitude of possible structures, and of plenitude of alien contents. Part 4 applies the Humean account to truthmaking, mereology, spacetime, and quantities. I argue that holding fast to Humean strictures leads to views that differ in radical ways from those put forth by contemporary metaphysicians. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a unified causal account of natural kinds. Using as a starting point the widely held view that natural kind terms or predicates are projectible, I argue that the ontological bases of their projectibility are the causal properties and relations associated with the natural kinds themselves. Natural kinds are not just concatenations of properties but ordered hierarchies of properties, whose instances are related to one another as causes and effects in recurrent causal (...) processes. The resulting account of natural kinds as clusters of core causal properties that give rise to clusters of derivative properties enables us to distinguish genuine natural kinds from non-natural kinds. For instance, it enables us to say why some of the purely conventional categories derived from the social domain do not correspond to natural kinds, though other social categories may. (shrink)

In Natural Minds Thomas Polger advocates, and defends, the philosophical theory that mind equals brain -- that sensations are brain processes -- and in doing so brings the mind-brain identity theory back into the philosophical debate about consciousness. The version of identity theory that Polger advocates holds that conscious processes, events, states, or properties are type- identical to biological processes, events, states, or properties -- a "tough-minded" account that maintains that minds are necessarily indentical to brains, a position held (...) by few current identity theorists. Polger's approach to what William James called the "great blooming buzzing confusion" of consciousness begins with the idea that we need to know more about brains in order to understand consciousness fully, but recognizes that biology alone cannot provide the entire explanation. Natural Minds takes on issues from philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and metaphysics, moving freely among them in its discussion.Polger begins by answering two major objections to identity theory -- Hilary Putnam's argument from multiple realizability and Saul Kripke's modal argument against mind-brain identity. He then offers a detailed account of functionalism and functional realization, which offer the most serious obstacle to consideration of identity theory. Polger argues that identity theory can itself satisfy the kind of explanatory demands that are often believed to favor functionalism. (shrink)

The aim of natural language ontology is to uncover the ontological categories and structures that are implicit in the use of natural language, that is, that a speaker accepts when using a language. This article aims to clarify what exactly the subject matter of natural language ontology is, what sorts of linguistic data it should take into account, how natural language ontology relates to other branches of metaphysics, in what ways natural language ontology is (...) important, and what may be distinctive of the ontological categories and structures reflected in natural language. (shrink)

Philosophers have long been interested in a series of interrelated questions about natural kinds. What are they? What role do they play in science and metaphysics? How do they contribute to our epistemic projects? What categories count as natural kinds? And so on. Owing, perhaps, to different starting points and emphases, we now have at hand a variety of conceptions of natural kinds—some apparently better suited than others to accommodate a particular sort of inquiry. Even if (...) coherent, this situation isn’t ideal. My goal in this article is to begin to articulate a more general account of ‘natural kind phenomena’. While I do not claim that this account should satisfy everyone—it is built around a certain conception of the epistemic role of kinds and has an obvious pragmatic flavour—I believe that it has the resources to go further than extant alternatives, in particular the homeostatic property cluster view of kinds. (shrink)

In this paper, I aim to discuss E. J. Lowe's view of the synergy between metaphysics and natural science. In doing so, I will extend Lowe’s synergistic model to develop a realist account of theological claims thereby responding to Byrne’s strong form of eliminativism and agnosticism about theological claims. The paper is divided up as follows. In section 1, I will discuss Lowe’s view of metaphysics. In section 2, I will explain how Lowe thinks metaphysics and (...) natural science are related. In section 3, I will respond to objections against Lowe’s conception of metaphysics. In section 4, I will discuss the implications of Lowe’s conception of metaphysics for a realist account of theological claims. In section 5, I will conclude this paper by claiming that there are excellent reasons to extend the synergy between metaphysics and natural science to that of theology as well. (shrink)

AN entity is a natural sign if by its very nature it represents some other entity or would-be entity. Many different kinds of things are said to represent other things, and in many cases it is recognized that the connection is purely conventional, in others that it is partly conventional being based in some sense on natural relations, and perhaps in yet others purely natural. My thesis is that a thought and a thought alone is, or contains (...) as a constituent, an entity that is a natural sign. This could be denied by rejecting either the existential claim or the uniqueness claim: most who deny it, which appears to be the overwhelming majority of contemporary philosophers who worry about such matters, say that there are no natural signs. As for the uniqueness claim, I shall for the moment merely register my conviction that an entity that is or contains a natural sign is necessarily a state of consciousness, and indeed the common feature of states of consciousness. (shrink)

The notion of 'natural kinds' has been central to contemporary discussions of metaphysics and philosophy of science. Although explicitly articulated by nineteenth-century philosophers like Mill, Whewell and Venn, it has a much older history dating back to Plato and Aristotle. In recent years, essentialism has been the dominant account of natural kinds among philosophers, but the essentialist view has encountered resistance, especially among naturalist metaphysicians and philosophers of science. Informed by detailed examination of classification in the (...) class='Hi'>natural and social sciences, this book argues against essentialism and for a naturalist account of natural kinds. By looking at case studies drawn from diverse scientific disciplines, from fluid mechanics to virology and polymer science to psychiatry, the author argues that natural kinds are nodes in causal networks. On the basis of this account, he maintains that there can be natural kinds in the social sciences as well as the natural sciences. (shrink)

This book contains the first English translation of Abūl-Walīd Ibn Rushd's (Averroes') so-called Epitome of Aristotle's Metaphysics. The original Arabic text was composed around 1160 as a sort of appendix to a series of compendia of Aristotle's works on natural philosophy by the famous Andalusian philosopher. The two most interesting things about this work are the fact that Averroes restructures here the Aristotelian text according to his own conception of metaphysics, as opposed to his great literal commentary (...) which follows the order of the Metaphysics section by section, and that he constantly revised this work over more than three decades. The present translation is based on a wide range of documents including, apart from the available Arabic editions, a number of medieval Arabic manuscripts not taken into consideration in these editions as well as the Renaissance translation into Latin prepared by Jacob Mantinus. It is accompanied by a commentary dealing with the major philosophical topics, Averroes' sources and problems of the transmission and constitution of the text. In addition, the most important variant readings of the manuscripts are noted in footnotes underneath the translation. (shrink)

In a recent book, Anjan Chakravartty builds a case for a particular conception of the relationship of science to metaphysics. The main novel feature in his account of scientific ontology is his construction of a metaphysical distance measure. Some ontological claims are close to the science that informs those claims, and some are further away. The distance is a measure of the epistemic risk one takes in asserting the claim: the further from the empirical base, the greater the risk. (...) But conversely, claims far from the empirical base can serve explanatory and unificatory purposes regarding claims closer in. Since different philosophers have different attitudes towards epistemic risk, Chakravartty endorses a pluralism about scientific ontology. Chakravartty illustrates his arguments concerning scientific ontology by considering what we can infer from the Standard Model of particle physics concerning the ontological status of the structures and entities it describes. I argue that, while this case study initially appears to support Chakravartty’s arguments, on closer inspection it suggests a more deflationary approach to scientific ontology. (shrink)

The new externalist picture of natural kind terms due to Kripke, Putnam, and others has become quite popular in philosophy. Many philosophers of science have remained sceptical. Häggqvist and Wikforss have recently criticised this view severely. They contend it depends essentially on a micro-essentialist view of natural kinds that is widely rejected among philosophers of science, and that a scientifically reasonable metaphysics entails the resurrection of some version of descriptivism. It is argued in this paper that the (...) situation is not quite as dark for the new theory of reference as many critics suggest. There are several distinct questions here which should not be conflated and ought to be dealt with one by one. Descriptivism remains arguably problematic. (shrink)

"This book is an important study in the philosophy of the mind; drawing on the work of philosopher Wilfrid Sellars and the theory of critical realism to develop a novel argument for understanding perception and metaphysics."--Publisher's website.

Classical natural law theory derives moral conclusions from the essentialist and teleological understanding of nature enshrined in classical metaphysics. The paper argues that this understanding of nature is as defensible today as it was in the days of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas. It then shows how a natural law theory of the grounds and content of our moral obligations follows from this understanding of nature, and how a doctrine of natural rights follows in turn from (...) the theory of natural law. With this background in place, the implications of the theory for questions about property rights and taxation are explored. It is argued that classical natural law theory entails the existence of a natural right of private property, and that this right is neither so strong as to support laissez faire libertarianism, nor so weak as to allow for socialism. Though the theory leaves much of the middle ground between these extremes open to empirical rather than moral evaluation, it is argued that there is a strong natural law presumption against social democratic policies and in favor of free enterprise. (shrink)

This is a critical, but sympathetic, examination of the manifesto for naturalized metaphysics that forms the first chapter of James Ladyman and Don Ross's 2006 book, Every Thing Must Go, but it has wider implications than this description suggests.

THE THEME, "The Intelligibility of Nature," is exceedingly broad. It stretches like a vast domain in which one can only hope to leave a few footprints, some fragile impressions that are all but lost in the expanse. In attempting to understand the natural world, the enterprise that is most familiar to many of us is inherited from the Greeks and their Latin heirs, both classical and mediaeval, and this enterprise continues in our own day in the form of the (...) modern sciences of nature. Nowadays, we are more informed about the knowledge acquired by the Egyptians, Babylonians, and others prior to the Greeks. We are more conscious of the achievements of the Chinese in physics and the Indians in mathematics. And we are more aware of the medical and zoological lore present in oral traditions, such as those of Africa. Moreover, we are only now beginning to appreciate their contributions and their potential for new forms of enquiry, including other ways of approaching nature. The terms in which the topic is here designated, however, are conceived in Greek and expressed in Latin. Nevertheless, even within this cultural tradition of natural enquiry, the topic is quite broad enough. Like a grammarian of old parsing a sentence, I am forced to begin by distinguishing parts of the theme. (shrink)

The article examines the role of natural kinds in semantic theorizing, which has largely been conducted in isolation from relevant work in science, metaphysics, and philosophy of science. We argue that the Kripke–Putnam account of natural kind terms, despite recent claims to the contrary, depends on a certain metaphysics of natural kinds; that the metaphysics usually assumed—micro-essentialism—is untenable even in a ‘placeholder’ version; and that the currently popular homeostatic property cluster theory of natural (...) kinds is correct only to an extent that fails to vindicate the Kripke–Putnam account. This undermines the metasemantics required for anti-descriptivist semantics. _1_ Introduction _2_ From Semantics to Metaphysics _3_ Metaphysics, Part I: The Demise of Micro-essentialism _3.1_ Original micro-essentialism _3.2_ Placeholder essentialism _4_ Metaphysics, Part II: Homeostatic Property Cluster Theory _5_ Prospects for Natural Kind Term Semantics. (shrink)

All the above views are statements of or from the so-called emotive theory of value, or are closely related to that theory. Where causal primacy lies or whether all these theories and views are effects of a more deep-laid cause is difficult to determine. Nevertheless, the common bonds between the various views are evident; the views themselves are prevalent. Any work which challenges the current subjective intuitionism in matters of "right," "good," and the like stands out in illuminated relief. Such (...) a work is Natural Right and History by Leo Strauss. (shrink)

Aristotle and Natural Law lays out a new theoretical approach which distinguishes between the notions of 'interpretation,' 'appropriation,' 'negotiation' and 'reconstruction' of the meaning of texts and their component concepts. These categories are then deployed in an examination of the role which the concept of natural law is used by Aristotle in a number of key texts. The book argues that Aristotle appropriated the concept of natural law, first formulated by the defenders of naturalism in the 'nature (...) versus convention debate' in classical Athens. Thereby he contributed to the emergence and historical evolution of the meaning of one of the most important concept in the lexicon of Western political thought. Aristotle and Natural Law argues that Aristotle's ethics is best seen as a certain type of natural law theory which does not allow for the possibility that individuals might appeal to natural law in order to criticize existing laws and institutions. Rather its function is to provide them with a philosophical justification from the standpoint of Aristotle's metaphysics. (shrink)

This book examines the metaphysical issues regarding the powerful qualities view in all its various forms. The author also develops and defends his own version of the powerful qualities view, which he calls powerful categoricalism. In recent years, the powerful qualities view about the nature of properties has received considerable attention in the philosophical literature. The core tenet of the powerful qualities view is that properties are both dispositional and categorical/qualitative. Despite the increased popularity of the powerful qualities view, there (...) is no book-length presentation of the view in its distinct versions. The first part of this book analyzes the advantages and drawbacks of each version of the theory paying special attention to those difficulties that make it unstable and perhaps incomprehensible. In the second part, the author shows how a developed version of a dualist model for the origin of natural modality-according to which the specific behaviour of things in the world is the outcome of both the thin power properties have to be nomically relatable and certain nomic relations that determine properties' nomological role-can support an alternative understanding of the main tenet of the powerful qualities view. This part, in combination with the discussion of the difficulties of the other versions, not only defends the tenability of powerful categoricalism but also its superiority over the other extant versions. The Metaphysics of Powerful Qualities makes an original contribution to an ongoing debate in contemporary metaphysics. (shrink)

In Scientific Ontology, I attempt to describe the nature of our investigations into what there is and associated theorizing in a way that respects the massive contributions of the sciences to this endeavor, and yet does not shy away from the fact that the endeavor itself is inescapably permeated by philosophical commitments. While my interest is first and foremost in what we can learn from the sciences about ontology, it quickly extends to issues that go well beyond scientific practices themselves, (...) for two reasons. For one thing, it is not merely the case that philosophical considerations are relevant to ontological judgments even in the sciences; additionally, there are good philosophical reasons to believe that different assessments of these considerations are rationally permissible, which entails that rational agents may well come to different conclusions about scientific ontology in ways that admit of no ultimate resolution, in principle. Secondly, given this defensible variability of assessment, we have good reason to regard some disputes about whether particular patches of ontological theorizing deserve the label ‘‘scientific,’’ as opposed to ‘‘non-’’ or ‘‘un-scientific,’’ as ultimately irresolvable as well. All of this may be controversial, but I take it to be a true description of our precariously human epistemic condition in the realm of ontology. (shrink)

Modern science began as natural philosophy, an admixture of philosophy and science. It was then killed off by Newton, as a result of his claim to have derived his law of gravitation from the phenomena by induction. But this post-Newtonian conception of science, which holds that theories are accepted on the basis of evidence, is untenable, as the long-standing insolubility of the problem of induction indicates. Persistent acceptance of unified theories only in physics, when endless equally empirically successful disunified (...) rivals are available, means that physics makes a persistent, problematic metaphysical assumption about the universe: that all disunified theories are false. This assumption, precisely because it is problematic, needs to be explicitly articulated within physics, so that it can be critically assessed and, we may hope, improved. The outcome is a new conception of science—aim-oriented empiricism—that puts science and philosophy together again, and amounts to a modern version of natural philosophy. Furthermore, aim-oriented empiricism leads to the solution to the problem of induction. Natural philosophy pursued within the methodological framework of aim-oriented empiricism is shown to meet standards of intellectual rigour that science without metaphysics cannot meet. (shrink)