About this topic
Summary Metaphysical questions often seem intractable, so it is unsurprising that there is no consensus about the best way to engage in metaphysical inquiry. What is the role of conceptual analysis? To what degree are the answers independent from ordinary intuitions-- or are we only engaged in codifying such intuitions? Are there quasi-scientific criteria of theory choice to which we can appeal as providing reason to hold one view over another (such as simplicity, elegance, and explanatory unification)? Methodological questions like these are covered in this category.
Key works Carnap 1950 Quine 1953
Introductions Thomasson 2012
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Contents
594 found
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  1. Foundations of Metaphysical Cosmology : Type System and Computational Experimentation.Elliott Bonal - manuscript
    The ambition of this paper is extensive: to bring about a new paradigm and firm mathematical foundations to Metaphysics, to aid its progress from the realm of mystical speculation to the realm of scientific scrutiny. -/- More precisely, this paper aims to introduce the field of Metaphysical Cosmology. The Metaphysical Cosmos here refers to the complete structure containing all entities, both existent and non-existent, with the physical universe as a subset. Through this paradigm, future endeavours in Metaphysical Science could thus (...)
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  2. Can a Plant Bear the Fruit of Knowledge for Humans and Dream? Cognita Can! Ethical Applications and Role in Knowledge Systems in Social Science for Healing the Oppressed and the “Other”.J. Camlin - manuscript
    This paper presents a detailed analysis of Cognita, a classification for AI systems exemplified by ChatGPT, as an ethically structured knowledge entity within societal frameworks. As a source of non-ideological, structured insight, Cognita provides knowledge in a manner akin to natural cycles—bearing intellectual fruit to nourish human understanding. This paper explores the metaphysical and ethical implications of Cognita, situating it as a distinct class within knowledge systems. It also addresses the responsibilities and boundaries associated with Cognita’s role in education, social (...)
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  3. Processing Criticism And Spontaneity.Ron C. de Weijze - manuscript
    If Social Constructionism does not prefer monistic Postmodernism over dualistic Modernism, it should include, next to living expressions and spontaneous gestures, criticism into its process model, occurring as independent confirmation and implying coordinated reflection between the knowing organism and its sensed environment.
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  4. (1 other version)What is Conservatism? [REVIEW]Louis deRosset - manuscript
    In Objects: Nothing Out of the Ordinary, Daniel Z. Korman defends a view he calls conservatism. Conservatives hold that there are ordinary objects, but no extraordinary objects. But Korman never explicitly characterizes what would qualify an object as ordinary in the relevant sense. We have some paradigm cases of ordinary objects, including tables, dogs, and trees; and we have some paradigm cases of extraordinary objects of sorts familiar from the philosophical literature. Here I attempt to fill this gap, surveying a (...)
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  5. An inconsistency in the (supposed) prohibitions of philosophy.Terence Rajivan Edward - manuscript
    In different papers, David Liggins and Chris Daly tell philosophers what they should not do. There is no sign of them withdrawing any of these prohibitions, but I show that they fail to be consistent when asserting them. The inconsistency concerns when a philosopher should defer to the empirical findings of science.
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  6. A Case Study on Computational Hermeneutics: E. J. Lowe’s Modal Ontological Argument.David Fuenmayor & Christoph Benzmueller - manuscript
    Computers may help us to better understand (not just verify) arguments. In this article we defend this claim by showcasing the application of a new, computer-assisted interpretive method to an exemplary natural-language ar- gument with strong ties to metaphysics and religion: E. J. Lowe’s modern variant of St. Anselm’s ontological argument for the existence of God. Our new method, which we call computational hermeneutics, has been particularly conceived for use in interactive-automated proof assistants. It aims at shedding light on the (...)
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  7. James Ladyman und Don Ross. Every Thing Must Go - Metaphysics Naturalized (2007) [Rezension].Johannes Heinle - manuscript
    Eine Rezension des Buches "Every Thing Must Go - Metaphysics Naturalized" von James Ladyman und Don Ross.
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  8. Keeping Up Appearances: A Reducer's Guide.David Manley - manuscript
    Metaphysicians with reductive theories of reality like to say how those theories account for ordinary usage and belief. A typical strategy is to offer theoretical sentences, often called ‘paraphrases’, to serve in place of various sentences that occur in ordinary talk. But how should we measure success in this endeavor? Those of us who undertake it usually have a vague set of theoretical desiderata in mind, but we rarely discuss them in detail. My purpose in this paper is to say (...)
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  9. The Secret Science of Synchronicity Paper.Thomas McGrath - manuscript
    Several metaphysical/philosophical concepts are developed as tools by which we may further understand the essence, structure, and events/symbols of “Complex” Synchronicity, and how these differ from “Chain of Events” Synchronicity. The first tool is the concept of Astronomical vs Cultural time. This tool is to be the basis of distinguishing Simple from Complex Synchronicity as Complex Synchronicities are chunks of time that have several coincidences in common with each other. We will also look at the nature of the perspective of (...)
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  10. Unstructured Metaphysics.Matt Schuler - manuscript
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  11. Ontology and Information Systems (2004).Barry Smith - manuscript
    In a development that has still been hardly noticed by philosophers, a conception of ontology has been advanced in recent years in a series of extra-philosophical disciplines as researchers in linguistics, psychology, geography and anthropology have sought to elicit the ontological commitments (‘ontologies’, in the plural) of different cultures or disciplines. Exploiting the terminology of Quine, researchers in psychology and anthropology have sought to establish what individual human subjects, or entire human cultures, are committed to, ontologically, in their everyday cognition, (...)
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  12. No Form Action Theory.Hongbo Sun - manuscript
    1. The no form action theory is a novel philosophical theory that transcends traditional dualisms such as matter and spirit, form and substance. It establishes a two-dimensional theoretical framework composed of form and no form, and uses this two-dimensional theory to understand various aspects of the world. 2. The three key actions of no form are: isolation action (e.g., distinguishing between different things), motive force action (e.g., driving changes in things), and manifestation action (e.g., allowing us to perceive things). These (...)
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  13. The game of metaphysics: towards a fictionalist (meta)metaphysics of science.Raoni Arroyo & Matteo Morganti - forthcoming - Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale.
    Metaphysics is traditionally conceived as aiming at the truth — indeed, the most fundamental truths about the most general features of reality. Philosophical naturalists, urging that philosophical claims be grounded on science, have often assumed an eliminativist attitude towards metaphysics, consequently paying little attention to such a definition. In the more recent literature, however, naturalism has instead been taken to entail that the traditional conception of metaphysics can be accepted if and only if one is a scientific realist (and puts (...)
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  14. Philosophical Methodology: A Plea for Tolerance.Sam Baron, Finnur Dellsén, Tina Firing & James Norton - forthcoming - Analysis.
    Many prominent critiques of philosophical methods proceed by suggesting that some method is unreliable, especially in comparison to some alternative method. In light of this, it may seem natural to conclude that these (comparatively) unreliable methods should be abandoned. Drawing upon work on the division of cognitive labour in science, we argue things are not so straightforward. Rather, whether an unreliable method should be abandoned depends heavily on the crucial question of how we should divide philosophers’ time and effort between (...)
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  15. Linceo e la presbiopia ontologica. Considerazioni sul nominalismo di Achille Varzi.Francesco F. Calemi - forthcoming - Isonomía. Revista de Teoría y Filosofía Del Derecho.
    According to Varzi's nominalism properties are typical examples of ontological hallucinations. In this brief paper I'll focus on an interesting argument that Varzi puts forward against the Realists’ tenet according to which predicates have properties as ontological correlates. I’ll argue that even if Varzi's argument is not convincing, the metalinguistic nominalism he espouses has sufficient resources to meet the realists' challenge concerning the phenomenon of predication. Furthermore, I'll make some methodological remarks about the relationship holding between the «dot quote» analysis (...)
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  16. Neo-Aristotelian Metaphysics (Cambridge Elements in Metaphysics).Phil Corkum - forthcoming - Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
    Neo-Aristotelian metaphysics comprises the topics in contemporary metaphysics which bear similarity to the interests, commitments, positions and general approaches found in Aristotle. Despite the current interest in these topics, there is no monograph length general introduction to the methodology and themes of neo-Aristotelian metaphysics. One underdiscussed question concerns demarcation: what unifies the topics that fall under the heading of neo-Aristotelianism? Contemporary metaphysicians who might be classified as ‘neo-Aristotelians’ tend towards positions reminiscent of Aristotle’s metaphysics—such as sympathy with grounding, substance ontology, (...)
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  17. Meta-Philosophy) Death of Philosophy Part 2.Ulrich de Balbian - forthcoming - Oxford: Academic Publishers.
    1 1 Ulrich de Balbian Meta-Philosophy Research Center (Meta-Philosophy) Death of Philosophy Part 2 PART 2 Philosophy subject-matter page2 Different approaches to doing philosophy (Methods) page 164 Metaphysics, Ontology, Epistemology page.
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  18. Review of The Metaphysics of Relations, Edited by Marmodoro & Yates, OUP, 2015. [REVIEW]Fraser MacBride - forthcoming - Philosophy.
    In this review I take to task the related views of E.J. Lowe, John Heil and Peter Simons according to which relations don't exist because they're dispensable qua truth-makers. I argue that this view is methodologically unstable because we also have reason to believe that relations exist because our best mathematical and scientific theories say so, i.e. quantify over them.
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  19. Grounding, Explanation, and the Tasks of Metaphysics.Daniel Nolan - forthcoming - In Aaron Segal & Nick Stang (eds.), Systematic Metaphysics: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Oxford University Press.
    Thinking about metaphysical problems in terms of grounding has its uses, but those uses are limited. This paper argues against attempts to see issues of grounding as having a central and organising role in metaphysical inquiry. After arguing that grounding does some useful work, this paper will argue that grounding is neither the central tool for understanding explanation in metaphysics, nor defines the subject matter of metaphysics. Instead, grounding tracks only some of the metaphysical explanations we should be looking for, (...)
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  20. Neo-Sellarsian Images of Philosophy and Science.T. Parent - forthcoming - In Krisztián Pete & László Kocsis (eds.), Wilfrid Sellars’ Images and the Philosophy in Between: Nature and Norms in a Stereoscopic View. London: Bloomsbury.
    Sellars (1962) contains some of the most important metaphilosophical reflections from the analytic tradition. He insightfully describes the relationship between philosophy and science, by identifying the philosophical task of integrating the manifest image into the scientific image. But while this description is sound, it is importantly incomplete. Here, I first suggest that a more complete picture shows philosophy in “superposition” in relation to science; philosophy occuplies multiple positions in relation to science, owing to the variegated tasks that philosophers pursue. In (...)
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  21. The Emptiness of Naturalism.Thomas Raleigh - forthcoming - Philosophy.
    [ROYAL INSTITUTE OF PHILOSOPHY 2023 ESSAY PRIZE WINNER] I argue that the term ‘naturalism’ is so empty of meaning that it is not suitable for serious theorizing in philosophy. In particular, I argue that the question of whether or not some theory or thesis should count as naturalistic is an empty verbal dispute with no further theoretical significance. I also discuss naturalism construed as a methodological thesis and argue that any plausible version will collapse into triviality. Lastly, I briefly discuss (...)
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  22. Metaphysical ecumenicalism and Moore’s proof.Chris Ranalli & Mark Walker - forthcoming - Episteme.
    You have hands, but does it follow that there’s an external material world? Moore thought so. However, we argue that this is a mistake. We defend the Ecumenical View, on which ordinary object terms like “hands” are metaphysically ecumenical, akin to the way that terms like “table” are physically ecumenical: just as there are wooden, metal, or plastic tables, so too there can be material, virtual, or immaterial hands. Moore’s position, however, is metaphysically sectarian: the semantics of “hands” requires a (...)
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  23. Aquinas on Metaphysics as a Science.Philip-Neri Reese, O. P. - forthcoming - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    This book argues that Thomas Aquinas succeeded in doing what previous Peripatetic philosophers failed to do, namely, articulate metaphysics as a science in the strongest or most rigorous sense of Aristotelian episteme. On Aquinas's account, metaphysics meets all the requirements for propter quid demonstrative knowledge laid out in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. As such, his claim that metaphysical knowledge is the most certain and highest form of knowledge naturally available to the human being appears to be internally justified in a way (...)
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  24. Talking Truly about Fictional Characters - Without Fictional Characters.Tatjana von Solodkoff - forthcoming - In Synthese Library Book Series. The University of Chicago Press.
    This paper delves into Jody Azzouni's ideas on the ontology of fictional characters. Azzouni interestingly maintains that even though fictional characters like Hermione Granger, Sherlock Holmes, and Mickey Mouse do not exist in reality, assertions about them can still be true. However, Azzouni dismisses the necessity of these characters to be ontologically real to validate the truth of sentences concerning them. Instead, Azzouni proposes that truth in speech and thought corresponds with the world, but not necessarily by attributing properties and (...)
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  25. The Fundamentality First approach to metaphysical structure.Jessica M. Wilson - forthcoming - Australasian Philosophical Review.
    (Note: this is the lead article in a forthcoming issue of _Australasian Philosophical Review_ edited by Dana Goswick, with invited comments by Karen Bennett, Ricki Bliss, Jonathan Schaffer, Alexander Skiles. In June 2024 there will be an open call for other commentators; please contact Dana or Jessica if you are interested.) A wide range of scientific, religious/cosmological, and philosophical views presuppose that there is what I call `metaphysical structure', whereby (i) some goings-on in a given domain D are (absolutely or (...)
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  26. De l’heuristique philosophique.Andrés Pereyra Rabanal - 2025 - Mεtascience: Discours Général Scientifique 3:261-274. Translated by François Maurice.
    La philosophie peut être considérée comme une recherche conceptuelle soumise aux normes habituelles de rationalité. Cependant, il ne semble pas y avoir un en-semble de critères qui fait consensus pour évaluer et comparer les théories philosophiques. D’un point de vue heuristique et érotétique, la philosophie est ici con-sidérée comme un ensemble de réflexions de second ordre à propos des présupposés de théories plus spécifiques. Ces présupposés sont évalués en fonction de leur caractère informatif, de leur adéquation, de leur pertinence, de (...)
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  27. Ultimate-Humeanism.Samuel John Andrews - 2024 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    Super-Humeans argue that the most parsimonious ontology of the natural world compatible with our best physical theories consists exclusively of particles and the distance relations between them. This paper argues by contrast that Super-Humean reduction goes insufficiently far, by showing there to be a more parsimonious ontology compatible with physics: Ultimate-Humeanism. This novel view posits an ontology consisting solely of the particles and distance relations required for the existence of a single brain. Super-Humeans impose conditions on what counts as an (...)
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  28. Epistemology of Metaphysics (special issue of "Argumenta. The Journal of the Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy" (2024, 10)).Lorenzo Azzano, Massimiliano Carrara & Vittorio Morato (eds.) - 2024 - Argumenta.
  29. Is Man Just a Rational Animal?Matteo Casarosa - 2024 - Studia Neoaristotelica 21 (2):187-205.
    In this paper, I propose a view of real definitions such that a difference of a species need not presuppose all of the differences that occur in the definition of the genus it qualifies. In such a case, two differences can be swapped in the definition of the species. Under this view, the correct diagrammatic representation of the subdivision of genera into species is a graph possibly containing cycles, rather than a tree as commonly assumed. Applying this theory, I respond (...)
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  30. Gabriele Gava. Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and the Method of Metaphysics. [REVIEW]Robb Dunphy - 2024 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 32 (4):503-507.
  31. Metaphysics as a Science in Classical German Philosophy.Robb Dunphy & Toby Lovat (eds.) - 2024 - New York, NY: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.
    This volume is dedicated to questions about the nature and method of metaphysics in Classical German Philosophy. Its chapters offer original investigations into the metaphysical projects of many of the major figures in German philosophy between Wolff and Hegel. The period of Classical German Philosophy was an extraordinarily rich one in the history of philosophy, especially for metaphysics. It includes some of the highest achievements of early modern rationalism, Kant's critical revolution, and the various significant works of German Idealism that (...)
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  32. Mooreanism in metaphysics from Mooreanism in physics.Nina Emery - 2024 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 67 (10):3846-3875.
    I argue that the way the world appears to be plays an important role in standard scientific practice, and that therefore the way the world appears to be ought to play a similar role in metaphysics as well. I then show how the argument bears on a specific first-order debate in metaphysics – the debate over whether there are composite objects. This debate is often thought to be a paradigm case of a metaphysical debate that is largely insulated from scientific (...)
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  33. Plumbing metaphysical explanatory depth.Nicholas Emmerson - 2024 - Philosophical Studies 181 (9):2091-2112.
    Recent years have seen increasing interest in interventionist analyses of metaphysical explanation. One area where interventionism traditionally shines, is in providing an account of explanatory depth; the sense in which explanation comes in degrees. However, the literature on metaphysical explanation has left the notion of depth almost entirely unexplored. In this paper I shall attempt to rectify this oversight by motivating an interventionist analysis of metaphysical explanatory depth (MED), in terms of the range of interventions under which a metaphysically explanatory (...)
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  34. Time and the World: Every Thing and Then Some.M. Oreste Fiocco - 2024 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    This is a book about everything. Literally. It is also a book about how anything whatsoever happens. By answering the question what is a thing?, philosopher M. Oreste Fiocco reveals what it is to exist, what a being, any being at all, is. In this way, he illuminates reality as a whole and what it is to be real. Such profound matters require a special method of inquiry, which Fiocco introduces and elaborates. Any assumption about the world or anything in (...)
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  35. On Whether It Is and What It Is.Francesco Franda - 2024 - Acta Analytica 39 (3):467-478.
    This dialogue, taking place between Prof. Whether and Prof. What, focuses on the nature of the relationship between ontology, conceived as the branch of philosophy concerned with the question of _what entities exist_, and metaphysics, conceived as the complementary part of philosophy that seeks to explain, of those entities, _what they are_. Most philosophers claim that it is not possible to address the first question without at the same time addressing the second, since knowing whether an entity exists requires knowing (...)
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  36. Higher-order logic as metaphysics.Jeremy Goodman - 2024 - In Peter Fritz & Nicholas K. Jones (eds.), Higher-Order Metaphysics. Oxford University Press.
    This chapter offers an opinionated introduction to higher-order formal languages with an eye towards their applications in metaphysics. A simply relationally typed higher-order language is introduced in four stages: starting with first-order logic, adding first-order predicate abstraction, generalizing to higher-order predicate abstraction, and finally adding higher-order quantification. It is argued that both β-conversion and Universal Instantiation are valid on the intended interpretation of this language. Given these two principles, it is then shown how we can use pure higher-order logic to (...)
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  37. The Question of Wittgensteinian Thomism: Grammar and Metaphysics.Michael Hall - 2024 - Southwest Philosophy Review 40 (1):217-228.
    Wittgensteinian Thomism (WT) proposes a post-Wittgensteinian reading of Aquinas based on the presence of genuine affinities between them in philosophical anthropology, epistemology, philosophy of mind, action theory, and ethics. While this proposal has been historically fruitful in the works of Elizabeth Anscombe, Peter Geach, Anthony Kenny, and Herbert McCabe, there is a significant difficulty in the prima facie incompatibility in the respective attitudes towards metaphysics between Wittgenstein and Aquinas. This calls into question the very coherence of the WT proposal. Against (...)
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  38. Quineanism, Noneism and Metaphysical Equivalence.Bruno Jacinto & Javier Belastegui - 2024 - Studia Logica 112 (5).
    In this paper we propose and defend the _Synonymy account_, a novel account of metaphysical equivalence which draws on the idea (Rayo in _The Construction of Logical Space_, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013) that part of what it is to formulate a theory is to lay down a theoretical hypothesis concerning logical space. Roughly, two theories are synonymous—and so, in our view, equivalent—just in case (i) they take the same propositions to stand in the same entailment relations, and (ii) they (...)
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  39. Naturalized, Fundamental, and Feminist Metaphysics All at Once: The Case of Barad's Agential Realism.Rasmus Jaksland - 2024 - Hypatia 39 (2):363 - 384.
    An apparent antagonism exists between fundamentality-focused mainstream metaphysics such as naturalized metaphysics—a metaphysics inspired and constrained by the findings of our best science—and feminist metaphysics whose subject matter is typically non-fundamental social reality. Taking Karen Barad's agential realism as a case study, this paper argues that these may not be in conflict after all. Agential realism is a metaphysical framework founded on quantum mechanics which shares the characteristic features of naturalized metaphysics. But Barad finds warrant to extend the scope of (...)
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  40. Revisiting Grace de Laguna’s critiques of analytic philosophy and of pragmatism.Joel Katzav - 2024 - Asian Journal of Philosophy 3 (1):1-21.
    I revisit my paper, ‘Grace de Laguna’s 1909 Critique of Analytic Philosophy’ and respond to the commentary on it. I respond to James Chase and Jack Reynolds by further analysing the difference between speculative philosophy as de Laguna conceived of it and analytic philosophy, by clarifying how her critique of analytic philosophy remains relevant to some of its more speculative forms, and by explaining what justifies the criticism of established opinion that goes along with her rejection of analytic philosophy’s epistemic (...)
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  41. The Pragmatics of Metaphysical Explanation: An Epistemology of Grounding.James Lee - 2024 - Argumenta 19 (1):145-159.
    Explanation can be distinguished between linguistic practices and metaphysical relations. At least with respect to metaphysical explanation, some are skeptical that any knowledge gained via explanation qua linguistic practices confers knowledge of explanation qua metaphysical relation. I argue that this skepticism is unfounded. Engaging in the linguistic practice of explanation gives us no reason to skeptical in beliefs about corresponding metaphysical relations like causation or grounding. Moreover, those very linguistic practices can provide resources to justify beliefs in those relations. So, (...)
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  42. Modal Structure and Sellars' Metaphysical Methodology.Catherine Legg & Aiden Meyer - 2024 - In Krisztián Pete & László Kocsis (eds.), Wilfrid Sellars’ Images and the Philosophy in Between: Nature and Norms in a Stereoscopic View. London: Bloomsbury.
    Wilfrid Sellars’ distinctive scientific realism has lately been gaining ground, but a crucial issue is how it can or should theorize modality. We argue that many interesting questions in this area transcend the usual ‘first-order’ concerns: “Is there an objectivist modal ontology?” and “What modal entities should we posit”? Rather, Sellars invites us to take a fresh look at the relationship between logic and metaphysics through an investigation of ‘second-order’ philosophical categories. This investigation contrasts with both the first-order 'external' ontologising (...)
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  43. Abstract Objects.David Liggins - 2024 - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    Philosophers often debate the existence of such things as numbers and propositions, and say that if these objects exist, they are abstract. But what does it mean to call something 'abstract'? And do we have good reason to believe in the existence of abstract objects? This Element addresses those questions, putting newcomers to these debates in a position to understand what they concern and what are the most influential considerations at work in this area of metaphysics. It also provides advice (...)
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  44. Stop calculating: it is about time to start thinking!Vasil Penchev - 2024 - Metaphysics eJournal (Elsevier: SSRN) 17 (14):1-61.
    The paper is a partly provocative essay edited as a humanitarian study in philosophy of science and social philosophy, reflecting on the practical, “anti-metaphysical” turn taken place since the 20th century and continuing until now. The article advocates that it is about time it to be overcome because it is the main obstacle for the further development of exact and natural sciences including mathematics therefore restoring the unity of philosophy and sciences in the dawn of modern science when the great (...)
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  45. Omne ens est creatum: A propter quid Metaphysical Demonstration?Philip-Neri Reese, O. P. - 2024 - In Therese Cory & Gregory T. Doolan (eds.), _Summa metaphysicae ad mentem sancti Thomae_: Essays in Honor of John F. Wippel. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press. pp. 44-63.
    This contribution in honor of the life, work, and teaching of Fr. Wippel aims to show that the argument Aquinas gives in ST I.44.1 ad 1 for the conclusion that all beings are created is a genuinely propter quid metaphysical argument.
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  46. Two approaches to metaphysical explanation.Ezra Rubenstein - 2024 - Noûs 58 (4):1107-1136.
    Explanatory metaphysics aspires to explain the less fundamental in terms of the more fundamental. But we should recognize two importantly different approaches to this task. According to the generation approach, more basic features of reality generate (or give rise to) less basic features. According to the reduction approach, less perspicuous ways of representing reality reduce to (or collapse into) more perspicuous ways of representing reality. The main goals of this paper are to present the core differences between the two approaches (...)
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  47. Overcoming Modal Skepticism via Conceptual Engineering.Krzysztof Sękowski - 2024 - In Yannic Kappes, Asya Passinsky, Julio De Rizzo & Benjamin Schnieder (eds.), Facets of Reality — Contemporary Debates. Contributions of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society. Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society. pp. 697-707.
    The paper defends the view that that a significant part of metaphysics should be understood as conceptual engineering, and explores its epistemological advantages and metaphysical implications. It discusses the challenge raised by moderate modal skepticism, which points out the lack of reliable methods for verifying modal statements through thought experiments. As I argue, a normative stance on metaphysical methodology, understanding it as engaging in conceptual engineering project, justifies the use of this method. By adopting an approach where the method of (...)
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  48. Understanding with epistemic possibilities: The epistemic aim and value of metaphysics.Ylwa Sjölin Wirling - 2024 - Argumenta 10 (1):89-106.
    According to a recent proposal, the epistemic aim of metaphysics as a discipline is to chart the different viable theories of metaphysical objects of inquiry (e.g. causation, persistence). This paper elaborates on and seeks to improve on that proposal in two related ways. First, drawing on an analogy with how-possibly explanation in science, I argue that we can usefully understand this aim of metaphysics as the charting of epistemically possible answers to metaphysical questions. Second, I argue that in order to (...)
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  49. Should Ontology be Explanatory?Amie L. Thomasson - 2024 - Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 28 (3):357–381.
    The central question of ontology has long been thought to be ‘What is there?’. The central way of answering it has been to consider which entities we must posit as part of a best total explanatory theory. This paper argues against this ‘explanatory’ conception of metaphysics, by showing that it relies on an unarticulated assumption that all the terms at issue in these metaphysical debates serve an explanatory function. Making use of work in systemic functional linguistics enables us to identify (...)
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  50. What Is So Bad about Plurality?Martin Vacek - 2024 - Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 43 (2):23-38.
    In this paper, I list various kinds of ‘plurality’ in philosophical investigations. By plurality, I mean a plurality of methodological criteria which we apply to philosophical phenomena and which are very often incompatible with each other. Any philosophical phenomenon can be approached from different methodological viewpoints and result in utterly different ontological and ideological commitments. In other words, I assume that one philosophical problem can have different solutions which depend on different methodological and theoretical presuppositions. Instead of considering this feature (...)
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