French, S (2018) Toying with the Toolbox: How Metaphysics Can Still Make a Contribution. Journal for General Philosophy of Science, 49 (2). pp. 211-230. ISSN 0925-4560
Abstract
Current analytic metaphysics has been claimed to be, at best, out of touch with modern physics, at worst, actually in conflict with the latter (Callender, in: French, Saatsi (eds) The continuum companion to the philosophy of science, Continuum, London, 2011; Ladyman and Ross Every thing must go: metaphysics naturalized, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007). While agreeing with some of these claims, it has been suggested that metaphysics may still be of service by providing a kind of ‘toolbox’ of devices that philosophers of science can access in order to help provide an interpretation of theories in fundamental physics (French and McKenzie in Eur J Anal Philos 8:42–59, 2012; see also French and McKenzie, in: Bigaj, Wuthrich (eds) Metaphysics in contemporary physics, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 2015). In this context it has been argued that ‘standard’ forms of dispositionalism simply cannot be sustained in the context of modern physics but that certain ‘non-standard’ views may provide the resources to help explicate the sense in which physics may be regarded as ‘modally informed’. Here that suggestion will be further extended in order to consider the implications both with regard to the overall relevance of metaphysics given advances in science and for the prospects of a naturalised metaphysics more generally. In particular, this paper will focus on three concerns: (1) that the particular tools identified are not, in fact, ‘scientifically disinterested’ and thus that the distinction between ‘naturalised’ and ‘non-naturalised’ metaphysics is at best vague or poorly drawn; (2) that the usefulness of such tools depends on their being shaped to fit the relevant physics and thus the latter ‘guts’ metaphysics; (3) that if metaphysics does prove to be useful in this sense then we have no reason to scorn non-naturalised metaphysics to begin with.
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Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018, The Author(s). This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. |
Keywords: | Dispositionalism; Identity of indiscernibles; Metaphysics; Physics; Potentiality; Standard Model; Symmetry; Toolbox |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science (Leeds) > School of Philosophy (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Arts & Humanities Research Council AHRC AH/L008955/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 01 Feb 2017 11:17 |
Last Modified: | 23 Jun 2023 22:22 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Verlag |
Identification Number: | 10.1007/s10838-018-9401-8 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:111473 |
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