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Science and Metaphysics: Selected Essays from Rationally Speaking

Massimo Pigliucci

3.6/5 ( ratings)

These days science and metaphysics are undergoing a somewhat more difficult relationship than in the time of Aristotle. On the one hand we have scientists like Stephen Hawking, Lawrence Krauss and Neil deGrasse Tyson who flat out reject all metaphysics as useless speculation. On the other hand there are metaphysicians within the so-called “analytic” tradition in philosophy who seem convinced that one can arrive at a rational view of the fundamentals of the world while gingerly ignoring science. I fall in neither camp, and am much more sympathetic to what is sometimes referred to as “naturalized metaphysics” . The idea is that one simply cannot do metaphysics without science, but that science itself is insufficient to arrive at a project of unification of our knowledge of the world — conceptual analysis is also warranted. The essays collected here, broadly speaking, are rooted in this sensible, middle ground approach to metaphysics. We begin with “pure metaphysics” , move to the metaphysics of logic and mathematics , then to the perennial battle between naturalistic and supernaturalistic views of the world, and finally to sections on metaphysics and biology and metaphysics and physics.

Language: English

Pages: 170

Format: Kindle Edition

Publisher: rationallyspeaking.org

Release: July 20, 2013

Science and Metaphysics: Selected Essays from Rationally Speaking

Massimo Pigliucci

3.6/5 ( ratings)

These days science and metaphysics are undergoing a somewhat more difficult relationship than in the time of Aristotle. On the one hand we have scientists like Stephen Hawking, Lawrence Krauss and Neil deGrasse Tyson who flat out reject all metaphysics as useless speculation. On the other hand there are metaphysicians within the so-called “analytic” tradition in philosophy who seem convinced that one can arrive at a rational view of the fundamentals of the world while gingerly ignoring science. I fall in neither camp, and am much more sympathetic to what is sometimes referred to as “naturalized metaphysics” . The idea is that one simply cannot do metaphysics without science, but that science itself is insufficient to arrive at a project of unification of our knowledge of the world — conceptual analysis is also warranted. The essays collected here, broadly speaking, are rooted in this sensible, middle ground approach to metaphysics. We begin with “pure metaphysics” , move to the metaphysics of logic and mathematics , then to the perennial battle between naturalistic and supernaturalistic views of the world, and finally to sections on metaphysics and biology and metaphysics and physics.

Language: English

Pages: 170

Format: Kindle Edition

Publisher: rationallyspeaking.org

Release: July 20, 2013

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