On the Fragmentation of Metaphysics

Phyllis McKay IllariUniversity of Kent

The Problem

Fields making metaphysical claims

1) Traditional analytic metaphysics Each debate tends to have its usual examples.

2) Philosophy of science: Some persistently deny they are doing

metaphysics. Further fragments according to scientific domain,

each working on different paradigm examples, or well-known problems.

Theorizing about causality

Counter-factual

industry

Mental causation

Agency

Biochem

Medical

Physics

Social science

...

Powers

Laws

Relata

Processes andmechanisms

Probabilities

Analytic Naturalistic

Theorizing about causality

Counter-factual

industry

Mental causation

Agency

Biochem

Medical

Physics

Social science

...

Powers

Laws

Relata

Processes andmechanisms

Probabilities

Analytic Naturalistic

Billy and Suzy

Dead plants

Squirrel's kick

Newton! Or'Water is H2O'

Biochem

Pearl's sprinkler

Physics

Physics

Martin'selectrofink

Division is deepeningAnalytic Naturalistic

Often say something about

science, but not much.

'Armchair philosophy' or 'baby

science'

Serious engagement, with

increasingly current science.

'Not philosophy' or 'scientism'

Serious attention to the history

of metaphysical theorizing.

Suspicious of metaphysical

novelty.

'Same old, same old'

Will play fast and loose with the

history of metaphysical

theorizing.

'Sloppy'

Argue:Can seriously criticise both approaches, and not just by

slinging mud from the other side. Serious problem.

Metaphysicians need to articulate:

1) Aim

2) Method appropriate to that aim

• May be more than one aim

• Might still be given on a project-by-project basis

I will try to investigate this, which I suspect is the only sensible way for metaphysicians to defend themselves against other kinds of attacks, as well.

Ladyman-Ross critique of analytic metaphysics

Ladyman-Ross on a priori conceptual analysis

Where do we get our concepts from?

Evolution.

Cultural and social history – including language.

Personal developmental history – including of course cultural and social learning, baby science as taught at school, and the warping of philosophy!

Each of these contains systematic errors.

If you buy this, you cannot treat our concepts as a privileged guide to the objective truth about the world.

Note: this is an empirical claim.

A common response to this view

‘You have to do the conceptual work first’: You have to decide the ontology before you can start science (or possibly anything).

1 Ontology of scientific domain

2 Basic concepts we use (Lowe) identity, necessity, causation, etc. and things, events, properties.

Relationship between concepts and science actually iterative – neither comes first (Stanford).

Philosophers seem to agree that we form our concepts in engagement with the world (and other language users).

Science is just the most rigorous form of this engagement.

Objection

Is naturalized metaphysics distinct from eg Manley’s ‘mainstream metaphysics’:

‘Competing positions are treated as tentative hypotheses about the world, and are assessed by a loose battery of criteria for theory choice. Match with ordinary usage and belief sometimes plays a role in this assessment, but typically not a dominant one. Theoretical insight, considerations of simplicity, integration with other domains (for instance science, logic, and philosophy of language), and so on, play important roles. (Sider p. 385)’ Approvingly quoted by Manley p3-4.

YES: Naturalized metaphysics has no principled objection to the other elements here, but wishes to organize them differently.

YES they are distinct

1. Naturalized metaphysics elevates science: if the project is to make claims about the world, science is not just one domain we might seek to integrate with, along with other such domains. And out of date science won’t do unless we can establish case-by-case that it’s ok.

2. Naturalized metaphysics wishes to understand the virtues of theoretical insight, considerations of simplicity, integration with other domains, unity and so on in the context of science where they are most stressed and their weaknesses and advantages show up.

The difference is a matter of degree, but amounts to an important difference in method.

What can analytic metaphysics do?

• Ladyman and Ross miss ‘what is best and most distinctive about the tradition they set themselves against: its gradual raising of the standards of clarity and explicitness in the statement of metaphysical claims. It is this, rather than any supposed consensus about the appropriate methods of argument, that constitutes analytic metaphysics's strongest claim to be part of the story of the advance of human knowledge.’ Cian Dorr

• There is something to be said for the often-frustrating rigour of certain kinds of analytic metaphysics.

• Example: Hall’s ‘Two concepts of causation’

Critique of Ladyman-Ross naturalized metaphysics

Core of the Ladyman-Ross view

Principle of Naturalistic Closure (PNC): p37-8 ‘Any new metaphysical claim that is to be taken

seriously at time t should be motivated by, and only by, the service it would perform, if true, in showing how two or more specific scientific hypotheses, at least one of which is drawn from fundamental physics, jointly explain more than the sum of what is explained by the two hypotheses taken separately...’

So you must a) work from specific scientific hypotheses, b) your aim is explanatory unity, and c) you must include work from physics.

The position of physics

Primacy of Physics Constraint (PPC) p44:

‘Special science hypotheses that conflict with fundamental physics, or such consensus as there is in fundamental physics, should be rejected for that reason alone. Fundamental physical hypotheses are not symmetrically hostage to the conclusions of the special sciences.’

They take two steps they probably shouldn't:

– 1) From physics generally doesn't yield to physics has never yielded.

– 2) From physics has never yielded to physics could never yield.

What is physics?

Two ways of defining physics:

1. Institutionally

2. ‘Fundamental physics’: that science for which any measurement anywhere in the universe is a potential falsifier.

It seems to me that 2, their official definition, implies that the measurement of any science – institutionally defined – is potentially relevant to fundamental physics, and so could find the anomaly that leads to the next big breakthrough in physics – institutionally defined.

Remove questionable stuff from PNC

Completely Useless Principle of Naturalistic Closure (CUPNC):

‘Any new metaphysical claim that is to be taken seriously at time t should be motivated by, and only by, the service it would perform, if true, in showing how two or more specific scientific hypotheses ...’

So you a) must work from specific scientific hypotheses … and then … er …

Marvellous.

What can naturalized metaphysics do?

Naturalized metaphysicians know a lot about science – more every day.

Philosophers of science now know a vast amount about scientific method, in all its messy glory.

Both have an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the kinds of metaphysical problems scientists run into – very interesting.

What to do?

Take both critiques seriously

And:Worry about what's missing from the rest of the picture.

NaturalizedAddress what we are

supposed to do with naturalized premises when we get them.

AnalyticTreat conceptual

premises with a great deal of care.

What is a philosophical method?

Philosophers do argument:Premises

Constraints on kinds of argumentative move

How do we measure success of conclusion?

Can we find any positive prod in the right direction?

We need an aim.

Can we take the best of each?

And:Consideration of what this might achieve, and what we

want to achieve, might generate the rest of the picture.

NaturalizedDeep knowledge of

science, its method, and understanding of the metaphysical problems so generated.

AnalyticHistory of metaphysical

theorizing and its associated rigour.

What can metaphysics do?

Fairly traditional approach to take the aim of metaphysics to be laying out the space of possibilities for metaphysical claims.

From the naturalized metaphysician we learn that this needs care: The space of metaphysical possibility is not the space of logical possibility, and we have unreliable pre-scientific access to it.

Science can give us:

Positive help with problem selection

Correlative indication of positive progress

Theorizing about causality

Counter-factual

industry

Mental causation

Agency

Biochem

Medical

Physics

Social science

...

Powers

Laws

Relata

Processes andmechanisms

Probabilities

Analytic Naturalistic

Methodological upshots

Methodological virtues

Many methodological or intellectual virtues are spoken of:

– Thoroughness

– Precision

– Rigour

– Absence of bias

– Clarity

To help illustrate what I mean: these can only be understood in the context of a particular problem.

Precision a virtue?

Precision: only so far as is a) possible and b) useful.

– Aristotle NE I.3 ‘Our discussion will be adequate if it has as much clearness as the subject-matter admits of, for precision is not to be sought for alike in all discussions, any more than in all the products of the crafts.’

– Extra distinctions are only useful in so far as they matter.

Scientific example vs toy example?

Simple examples:Good if they genuinely clarify a muddied situation

Bad if they oversimplify – warp a far more complex issue

OR if you get stuck with a single example and never make progress.

Neuron diagrams?No good if it looks like they are the sole basis of

argument, and too simple for some situations.

Are handy unified representational system.

RecommendationsAnalytic Naturalistic

Often say something about

science, but not much.

EITHER: Defend truth-

conduciveness of a priori

intuitions

OR: Really look at science

Serious engagement, with

increasingly current science.

Link work with existing debates,

so making it more accessible

AND: Not deny metaphysics

Serious attention to the history

of metaphysical theorizing.

Suspicious of metaphysical

novelty.

Scrutinise novelty with respect

to the problem being addressed.

Will play fast and loose with the

history of metaphysical

theorizing.

Take more care when useful

AND Explain why when existing

metaphysical distinctions

irrelevant

Is this philosophy or science?

Making sense of the world, and what science tells us, is a collaborative project between scientists in different disciplines and philosophers in different fields – and mathematicians and logicians too if they want.

Philosophy comes out as a legitimate – indeed, important – strand in the academic project of finding out about and understanding our world.

What do we think of these debates?

Counter-factual

industry

Mental causation

Agency

Biochem

Medical

Physics

Social science

...

Powers

Laws

Relata

Processes andmechanisms

Probabilities

Analytic Naturalistic

Billy and Suzy

Dead plants

Squirrel's kick

Newton! Or'Water is H2O'

Biochem

Pearl's sprinkler

Physics

Physics

Martin'selectrofink

Philosophy has been doing this all along

We loop out to the world:

Selective history of species

Social and cultural history

Personal developmental history and learning

There is no non-worldly starting-point for philosophy.

Then science is just our most rigorous world-loop.

Language

World

Mind

Before the premises

Might take a heck of a lot of metaphysics even to confidently extract just one premise from any science!

The mechanism of protein synthesis does x, y, z etc.

You have to understand how we get to these conclusions

This means that:

Naturalized metaphysics cannot be successfully divorced from methodology of science.

This is why this is not scientism in the sense of engaging with science uncritically.

This understanding of method hopefully informs you about what to do with the premises next.

Analogy with underdetermination problem

Quine says: The web of belief is underdetermined by the empirical constraints that impinge on it directly only at the border. Indefinitely many webs of belief are logically consistent with the evidence.

Reply I: Logical consistency not all that we seek. There are other ways of conceiving of the constraints the evidence imposes on the web of belief. ‘Inductive support.’

Reply II: The evidence-web relationship not static but dynamic. You need a web that deals with current evidence, and is in constant interaction with incoming evidence.

Of course, some underdetermination problem remains.

The role of unity in Ladyman-Ross

The role of unity in Ladyman-Ross:

‘jointly explain more than the sum of what is explained by the two hypotheses taken separately...’ has an important role.

If we have a purpose in mind when developing a positive metaphysical view…

…that performs the role of giving us an ongoing constraint on the kinds of arguments and reasons we can put forward.

What to put back in

Either we have to examine the unity constraint more carefully

Or we have to find some other positive aim of metaphysical theorizing that usefully constrains styles of argument.

Ladyman-Ross fix on unity because unity is valued by science.

I am of course happy to think we should try to extract virtues from science.

There could be more than one such legitimate constraint.

Possibility 1: Unity

Ladyman-Ross take the aim of metaphysics to be to make the most general defensible claims about the world they can.

Deep reason for PPC: Fundamental physics the most general science, so physics gets a special position for this purpose.

This is their unity. Not reduction. ‘Try to make the most general claims you can’ is much less objectionable.

Add proviso that aim for claims only as general as science warrants, and we have an aim many can share. A particular metaphysician could work one discipline.

Constraint: point of metaphysical distinctions.

Possibility 2: Simplicity?

An alternative aim of scientific theorizing that I think relevant to metaphysical theorizing is to provide a forward-looking structure for thinking about the world.

Unity in LR sense will feed into this.

But simplicity explicitly allows a role for psychological (and virtual?) manipulability of metaphysics.

Constraint: esoteric theorizing, unless scientifically motivated.

Hall's 'two concepts'

Do a thing about why useful

Psychological results

Address problemsInference

Blah

Other stuff.