The spectrum of metametaphysics

Scientific realism is typically associated with metaphysics. One current incarnation of such an association concerns the requirement of a metaphysical characterization of the entities one is being a realist about. This is sometimes called “Chakravartty’s Challenge”, and codifies the claim that without a metaphysical characterization, one does not have a clear picture of the realistic commitments one is engaged with. The required connection between metaphysics and science naturally raises the question of whether such a demand is appropriately fulfilled, and how metaphysics engages with science in order to produce what is called “scientific metaphysics”. Here, we map some of the options available in the literature, generating a conceptual spectrum according to how each view approximates science and metaphysics. This is done with the purpose of enlightening the current debate on the possibility of epistemic warrant that science could grant to such a metaphysics, and how different positions differently address the thorny issue concerning such a warrant.

Critical Remarks on the Question of a “Moscow School of Metaphysics”

The article analyzes the concept of the “Moscow School of Metaphysics,” an expression proposed by S.L. Frank in 1932 referring to the institutionalization of the initial advancement of Russian thought in the form of a “scientific metaphysics.” S.L. Frank held the rationalism of L.M. Lopatin and the transcendentalism of S.N. Trubetskoy to be the chief methodologies of this movement. S.L. Frank’s institutional identification is judged to be one episode in the search for a general developmental pattern within Russian thought – a movement toward a scientific and systematic philosophy. In his book Russian Philosophy around S.L. Frank. Selected articles (2020) the contemporary investigator of Russian philosophy, G.E. Alyaev turned his attention to the “Moscow School of Metaphysics” as a historical and philosophical concept. Agreeing with Frank, G.E. Alyaev names the alleged participants in the school, excluding V.S. Solovyov considering him a “religious thinker.” Referring to the material in the journal Problems of Philosophy and Psychology and to the speeches of N.Ya. Grot and V.S. Solovyov, the author shows that the philosophical education of Russian society, and in particular of professional philosophers, was not at a level that allowed for the emergence of the school as a scientometric unit. With the final two decades of the nineteenth century in mind, the author prefers to speak not about the school, but about the direction of the philosophical sympathies of Russian educated society toward either positivism or metaphysics. Within the bounds of the latter, there took place a selection of methodological techniques that allowed Russian thought to move toward a scientific metaphysics. The author mentions V.S. Solovyov, with his final articles, as among those who persistently sought the principles of theoretical philosophy. The author also shows that S.L. Frank, who proposed the concept of the “Moscow Metaphysical School,” is far from precise in its application

The Long and Winding Road

Following its welcome revival in the late twentieth century, metaphysics in the analytic tradition has succumbed to decadence, with an astonishing variety of outlandish and extreme positions or “metaphysical follies” being taken seriously. This has caused an inevitable backlash among more scientifically-minded philosophers and incurred the scorn of scientists. Much of the reason for this is the blithe ignoring of empirical science by armchair metaphysicians. The roles of empirical knowledge in good, scientific metaphysics are however unclear. In virtue of its maximal generality, metaphysics is remote from straightforward empirical checks. This article explores, with historical and contemporary examples, the ways in which empirical information may inform and be fed back into metaphysics, the disputed role of common sense, and the delicate balance to be maintained, within a fallibilist, scientific metaphysics, between speculative, categorial and empirical elements.

DISPOSITIONAL ONTOLOGY AS A BASIS FOR STRUCTURAL REALISM

M. Esfeld has proposed to use the ontology of external causal properties, or dispositions, of objects as a basis for ontic structural realism. It is this approach that makes possible realism towards objects as they are understood by S. French and J. Ladyman –objects are mere nodes in the structure. In our paper dispositional ontology is con-trasted withD. Lewis’ metaphysics of categorical properties, and through this juxtaposition the last is rendered inappropriate and the first appears promising as a foundation for structural realism and scientific metaphysics.

Quine’s Deflationary Structuralism

W. V. Quine undermined and rejected Rudolf Carnap’s metaphysical deflationism, reinstating scientific metaphysics. Despite this, Quine eventually develops his own brand of structuralist metaphysics that is equally though differently deflationary. This chapter traces the development of Quine’s deflationary attitude from the 1950s through to the 1990s. Quine’s early deflationary attitude gains focus with the emergence and prominence of the proxy function argument—objects are merely neutral nodes in theory structures—and deflationary structuralism is the result. The chapter concludes that Quine has been an interesting kind of ontological deflationist from early on, and that the deflationary structuralism that develops during the second half of the twentieth century is an integral and co-evolving part of his overall naturalism.

Who am I? MY name is U_Def: Holistic Reason(s) And Semantics

This article-testimony can be seen as an example of a maybe new discipline that could be called “scientific metaphysics” made of thought experiments, definitions, some proofs, some explanations, some conjectures. Of course, to be called science, the discipline needs some possibility of “verification” too. We will see if it can be considered.

Epistemic Infrastructure for a Scientific Metaphysics

A naturalistic impulse has taken speculative analytic metaphysics in its critical sights. Importantly, the claim that it is desirable or requisite to give metaphysics scientific moorings rests on underlying epistemological assumptions or principles. If the naturalistic impulse toward metaphysics is to be well-founded and its prescriptions to have normative force, those assumptions or principles should be spelled out and justified. In short, advocates of naturalized or scientific metaphysics require epistemic infrastructure. This paper begins to supply it. The author first sketches her conception of suitably naturalized or scientific metaphysics. She then lays out a number of candidate epistemic principles centring around the notion of theoretical constraint. The author offers several arguments for the principles, based on statistical likeliness, agreement, falsity avoidance, and methodological efficiency and inefficiency. Finally, she shows how scientific metaphysics satisfies the epistemic principles and is therefore preferable to its traditional rivals.

Metaphysics as a Fiction

Realists about metaphysics hold that the aim of the enterprise is to state the truth about the fundamental structure of reality and the principles by means of which reality as a whole is built up from that fundamental structure. Fictionalists hold, by contrast, that metaphysics aims to produce theories (or models) of the fundamental structure that satisfy certain self-imposed constraints: consistency with evolving science, coherence, plausibility by the standards of one or another philosophical subculture, and so on. This chapter distinguishes scientific metaphysics (the sort of metaphysics that rounds out the scientific image by settling theoretical questions unaddressed by scientists) from speculative metaphysics (the sort of metaphysics that tackles questions remote from science) and recommends a version of fictionalism about the latter.

METHODOLOGICAL (HISTORICAL AND LEGAL) PROBLEMS IN THE STUDY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR

The article deals with the key problem of methodological search in historical and legal research on the global theme of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic war. A synthesis of proven methods (formational, civilizational) using scientific metaphysics at the level of the theological method is undertaken. The study reflects the transition from monism to pluralism, taking into account both the regularities of the legal development of mankind, and the multi-variant nature of this process. In conclusion, it is concluded that there is no alternative to the new level of methodological search. A new level of methodological search entails the use of a new methodology that allows you to evaluate all the main subjects of the topic as right or wrong, which involves the development of appropriate criteria, depending on the methodological justification. Methodological work on this topic focuses historical and legal research on understanding the essence of legal existence in the context of the ancient Roman greeting of the triumphant memento mori.