Old problems for neo-positivist naturalized metaphysics
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(2020) 10:16
PAPER IN PHILOSOPHY OF THE NATURAL SCIENCES
Open Access
Old problems for neo-positivist naturalized metaphysics Rasmus Jaksland 1 Received: 18 February 2019 / Accepted: 18 February 2020/ # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract In her paper “Neo-positivist metaphysics” (Philosophical Studies, 160(1), 53–78, 2012), Alyssa Ney promises a naturalized metaphysics that is acceptable even by positivists’ – and specifically Carnap’s – standards. This neo-positivist metaphysics takes its outset in the findings of our best science and relies on them to inform a metaphysics that can avoid the dependence on linguistic frameworks that is inherent to Carnapian deflationism. Neo-positivist metaphysics attempts to sidestep these problems by inheriting its semantic credentials directly from science itself. This paper argues that such attempts are unsuccessful since science contains no resources with which to answer Carnap’s challenge either, and a science-based metaphysics is therefore just as vulnerable to Carnapian deflationism as traditional metaphysics. Consequently, neopositivist metaphysics does not provide the promised metaphysics that can avoid Carnapian deflationism. While this conclusion focuses on Ney’s neo-positivist metaphysics, its scope includes any attempt to avoid Carnapian deflationism by a naturalized metaphysics that relies on strict deference to the findings of science. Substantial metaphysics – naturalized or not – is impossible unless or until Carnapian deflationism is refuted, and the resources for such a refutation cannot be found in naturalized metaphysics. Keywords Naturalized metaphysics . Carnap . Ontology . Metametaphysics . Deflationism
. Scientific realism
1 Introduction Naturalized metaphysics is a prominent recent player in the field of analytic metaphysics. It features both a destructive and constructive component: The destructive
* Rasmus Jaksland [email protected]
1
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Faculty of Humanities, NTNU – Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
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component echoes and renews the criticism of metaphysics found in the empiricist tradition while the constructive component offers a solution by a closer integration between science and metaphysics. It is the success of this latter constructive aspect of naturalized metaphysics that the present paper explores and ultimately refutes. In her article “Neo-positivist Metaphysics”, Ney (2012) offers one of the most detailed accounts of a naturalistic approach that is claimed to yield a substantial metaphysics while avoiding the problems faced by traditional metaphysics. In accordance with the overall tenet of naturalized metaphysics, the characterizing feature of neo-positivist metaphysicians “is their serious engagement with the findings of science, particularly fundamental physics” (Ney 2012, 54). This kind of naturalism – the deference to the findings of science – is supposed to ensure the success of
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