Abstract
Most practitioners of the metaphysics of science agree that it should be a naturalized metaphysics. But, just as in other areas of philosophy, there is no consensus on what constitutes naturalism. Here I will focus on just one aspect, viz., the idea that the metaphysics of science should be epistemically naturalized. In the first section I will characterize the kind of epistemic naturalism relevant to the metaphysics of science. The main idea, drawing on the work of Penelope Maddy, is that metaphysical inquiry is to be conducted and metaphysical claims justified in the very same way that scientific inquiry is conducted and scientific claims are justified. I then examine two prominent examples of metaphysicians of science proposing to “naturalize” the metaphysics of science, and argue that they fail to be epistemically natural. These are approaches due to James Ladyman and Don Ross, and to Anjan Chakravartty. Considering their failures shows us a way forward for naturalized metaphysics of science that is both more metaphysical and more scientific.
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Notes
Note that I speak of the “epistemic naturalist” or “epistemic naturalism” rather than “naturalized epistemology.” This is in order to distinguish epistemic naturalism from Quine’s own naturalized epistemology as advocated in the emponymous article. I concur with Maddy’s (2001, 2007) argument that Quine himself proves to be a proto-naturalist in the present sense, his own view not fully realizing the “fundamental naturalistic impulse.”
The formulation continues: “…where this is interpreted by reference to the following terminological stipulations:
Stipulation: A ‘scientific hypothesis’ is understood as an hypothesis that is taken seriously by institutionally bona fide science at t.
Stipulation: A ‘specific scientific hypothesis’ is one that has been directly investigated and confirmed by institutionally bona fide scientific activity prior to t or is one that might be investigated at or after t, in the absence of constraints resulting from engineering, physiological, or economic restrictions or their combination, as the primary object of attempted verification, falsification, or quantitative refinement, where this activity is part of an objective research project fundable by a bona fide scientific research funding body.
Stipulation: An ‘objective research project’ has the primary purpose of establishing objective facts about nature that would, if accepted on the basis of the project, be expected to continue to be accepted by inquirers aiming to maximize their stock of true beliefs, notwithstanding shifts in the inquirers’ practical, commercial, or ideological preferences” (2007: 37–38).
Like Ladyman and Ross, Reichenbach goes on to say that the philosopher must follow the scientist’s path: “The path of the philosopher is indicated by that of the scientist.” Here Maddy faults Reichenbach just as I do Ladyman and Ross. As will be discussed, the primacy of science is not justified by epistemic naturalism.
I find Gillian Russell’s (2008) analogy of multiplying by zero instructive. When multiply by zero, there is another factor but the result is the same no matter what that factor is. So too, there may be kinds of inquiry or questions for which the contribution of empirical observation makes no difference to the outcome, but that is not to say that these kinds of inquiry do not involve empirical considerations at all. They are about the world, after all.
The distinction between metaphysical presuppositions and metaphysical inferences is a technical one for Chakravartty (2016: 71–76).
Chakravartty seems to also posit a purely empirical kind of inquiry, something like brute observation; but that is not yet science, which requires inferences that are a priori or presuppose some a priori content.
Regarding the fundamentality of metaphysics and physics, see Ney (2019).
For discussion, see Soames (2003).
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Polger, T.W. Naturalizing the Metaphysics of Science. Philosophia 50, 659–670 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-021-00395-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-021-00395-7