Scientific Metaphysics and the Problem of Scientific Progress
Majid Beni, Middle East Technical University, Ankara
According to Kerry McKenzie (2019), the failure of ontic structural realism (OSR) to deal with radical metaphysical changes may undermine the plausibility (or even the point) of OSR’s scientific metaphysics. Metaphysics and science are continuous from OSR’s perspective. But unlike science, scientific metaphysics of SR cannot fall back on the notion of approximate truth to deal with metaphysical changes. Hence the failure to account for scientific progress. In response, we first challenge the efficiency of “approximate truth” even in dealing with scientific progress from a scientific realist point of view. Second, we argue that OSR’s alleged failure to deal with metaphysical progress could be a good thing because it demonstrates that OSR is a refutable thesis that emulates the epistemic status of sciences successfully (precisely because it is falsifiable). What McKenzie says is a curse on the head of OSR is in fact a blessing in disguise.
Realistic Realisms: Blending the Noumena and Phenomena
Anjan Chakravartty, University of Miami
Scientific realism is a view of scientific knowledge that arguably incorporates at least some metaphysics: it commits to interpretations of theories and models that entail the mind-independent existence of unobservable things, explicit descriptions of which are ostensibly given by theories and models themselves, and further descriptions of which are offered in more speculative elaborations of their natures. Described this way, scientific realism aspires to a knowledge of noumenal facts, but this, as many philosophers have noted in different ways, is misleadingly simplistic. Using two case studies – one from biological taxonomy and another from high energy physics – I argue that some form(s) of deflationism regarding traditional metaphysics (e.g., Pragmatism, neo-Kantianism) are unavoidable in plausible interpretations of scientific knowledge. Pace the antirealist skepticism of many deflationists, however, this nevertheless allows for sophisticated forms of scientific realism: ones that combine noumenal and phenomenal knowledge, and know how to tell the difference.
Metaphysics and the problem of progress
Nicholas Emmerson, University of Birmingham
In this paper, I present a novel, unifying account of progress across science and metaphysics in terms of deepening explanation. In so doing, I supplement an understanding-based conception of scientific progress with interventionist analyses of both explanatory depth and metaphysical explanation. On the resulting view, progress is made when scientists and metaphysicians grasp explanations of increasing depth, where the depth of an explanation is measured with respect to the range of interventions under which it is invariant. Further, I argue that “correspondence” occurs where this range contains a subset of those interventions under which a prior explanation is invariant. I then apply this notion of progress to a case study concerning two rival metaphysical explanations of the identity and distinctness of concrete objects. I demonstrate that the weak discernibility proposal is progressive with respect to the earlier qualitative properties proposal, precisely because the former remains invariant under a wider range of interventions than the latter. What’s more, since this wider range contains the range of interventions under which the qualitative properties proposal is invariant, these metaphysical theories can meaningfully be said to correspond.
Super Humeanism: Minimalist Ontology and Scientific Realism
Michael Esfeld, Université de Lausanne
The paper defends a minimalist ontology dubbed “Super-Humeanism” against the objection that this ontology is too parsimonious to meet the standards of scientific realism. I argue that this objection rests on a confusion: scientific realism claims that science gives us access to reality. But it is not committed to one particular view as to how science does so, that is, the view according to which the variables that figure in scientific theories directly represent elements of reality. It is sufficient to show that these variables refer to something real and that the statements in which they figure are made true by something real. I show how Super-Humeanism meets these criteria
Scientific realism, neo-Kantianism, and truth
Tobias Henschen, University of Konstanz
The paper is concerned with a certain commonality of Ladyman’s position of ontic structural realism, Ney’s position of wave function realism, Esfeld’s position of Super-Humeanism, and Hüttemann’s position of minimal metaphysics. The commonality is that all four positions are characterized as fallible or probably false and at the same time as positions of scientific realism or metaphysics of science. The paper will argue that all four positions can be characterized as true, but that when characterized as true, they should also be characterized as positions of neo-Kantianism.
A role for inference to the best explanation in metaphysics of science
Andreas Hüttemann, University of Cologne
Inference to the best explanation is confronted with a number of significant problems when it is applied in metaphysics of science (van Fraassen, Ladyman): What are the criteria that tell us whether an explanation in metaphysics is the best explanation? How are these criteria to be spelled out? What is the role of experience/prediction with respect to these criteria and to inference to the best explanation in metaphysics? Do we have reasons to believe that inference to the best explanation is truth-conducive in metaphysics?
While an account that answers these worries in full generality may be difficult to provide, I will discuss a particular case, namely the case of reductive practices in physics. There are several metaphysical accounts that try to make sense of these practices. I will argue that the above questions can be answered with respect to this case if what counts as the best explanation is spelled out in terms of a minimal metaphysics for scientific practice, i.e. a metaphysics that refrains from postulating any structure that is explanatorily irrelevant for understanding scientific practice.
Scientific Empiricism and the Metaphysics of Modality
James Ladyman, University of Bristol
Empiricism is associated with the epistemic privileging of sensory experience. Modern science is based on experiment and observation, but it is highly revisionary of the manifest image, and does not epistemically privilege the human senses. Yet many scientists characterise themselves as empiricists, and empiricists in philosophy claim science as the ultimate form of rational enquiry. This paradox is resolved by a reformulation of empiricism, according to which it privileges data, not sense-data. This scientific way of making sense of empiricism maintains its most important positive and negative components, and does not conflict with scientific realism, but it requires a minimal metaphysics of modality.
Perspectivism, a Primer
Michela Massimi, University of Edinburgh
In this paper, I review some of the main motivations behind perspectival realism and lay out the broad contours of the phenomena-first ontology associated with it. I argue that as a project in the epistemology of science, perspectival realism does not fall prey of the usual dichotomy between the empiricist's phenomena and the 'hidden goings on' of the scientific realist (to use Gilbert Ryle's expression). Indeed, perspectival realism shows the very reasons why this two-world dichotomy is not forced upon us.
Physicalism and Metaphysics
Alyssa Ney, University of California at Davis
What is physicalism? In particular, how should a physicalist understand her position if she is interested in formulating and defending metaphysics informed by physics? I develop and defend the (much maligned) view articulated earlier in Van Fraassen (2002) and Ney (2008) that physicalism is best understood not as a thesis about the nature of fundamental reality, but rather as a kind of attitude.