Right out of the box: how to situate metaphysics of science in relation to other metaphysical approaches

Guay, Alexandre; Pradeu, Thomas

doi:10.1007/s11229-017-1576-8

Cited by 24 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…Finally, the existence of PinS demonstrates that philosophy of science plays a role in the construction of our knowledge of the world. Philosophers of science can use philosophical tools to contribute to the specific knowledge of a given part of the world, that is, to the construction of a local scientific image (Van Fraassen [1980]; Guay and Pradeu [2020]). When engaged in PinS, philosophers of science contribute to the special ontology of a given science (asking, for example, 'should we admit superorganisms to our ontology of the living world?').…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Philosophy in Science: Can Philosophers of Science Permeate through Science and Produce Scientific Knowledge?

Pradeu¹,

Lemoine²,

Khelfaoui³

et al. 2024

The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science

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Most philosophers of science do philosophy 'on' science. By contrast, others do philosophy 'in' science ('PinS'), that is, they use philosophical tools to address scientific problems and to provide scientifically useful proposals.Here, we consider the evidence in favour of a trend of this nature. We proceed in two stages. First, we identify relevant authors and articles empirically with bibliometric tools, given that PinS would be likely to infiltrate science and thus to be published in scientific journals ('intervention'), cited in scientific journals ('visibility') and sometimes recognized as a scientific result by scientists ('contribution'). We show that many central figures in philosophy of science have been involved in PinS, and that some philosophers have even 'specialized' in this practice. Second, we propose a conceptual definition of PinS as a process involving three conditions (raising a scientific problem, using philosophical tools to address it, and making a scientific proposal), and we ask whether the articles identified at the first stage fulfil all these conditions. We show that PinS is a distinctive, quantitatively substantial trend within philosophy of science, demonstrating the existence of a methodological continuity from science to philosophy of science.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Philosophy in Science: Can Philosophers of Science Permeate through Science and Produce Scientific Knowledge?

Pradeu¹,

Lemoine²,

Khelfaoui³

et al. 2024

The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science

Self Cite

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“…Still, some clarification is much needed. To dive directly into the core of the debate, let us use the taxonomy provided by Guay and Pradeu (2020), where metaphysics of science seeks to enrich the scientific description of the world with an additional metaphysical layer, and scientific metaphysics is a project which seeks to read off or extract metaphysical content from science itself.…”

Section: Introduction: Ontology Metaphysics and Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

Floating free from physics: the metaphysics of quantum mechanics

Arroyo,

Arenhart

2020

Preprint

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We discuss some methodological aspects of the relation between physics and metaphysics by dealing specifically with the case of non-relativistic quantum mechanics. Our main claim is that current attempts to productively integrate quantum mechanics and metaphysics are best seen as approaches of what should be called 'the metaphysics of science', which is developed by applying already existing metaphysical concepts to scientific theories. We argue that, in this perspective, metaphysics must be understood as an autonomous discipline. It results that this metaphysics cannot hope to derive any kind of justification from science. Thus, one of the main motivations of such project, which is the obtaining of a scientifically respectable justification for the attribution of a single true metaphysical profile to the posits of a scientific theory, is doomed because of the emergence of metaphysical underdetermination from the outset. If metaphysics floats free from physics, which is a premise of such project of integration between these two areas, then it is always possible to attribute more than one metaphysical profile to dress physical entities.

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“…10 To a criticism towards this standard attitude, see Bennett (2016). 11 For the claim that metaphysics can (and does) operate also with an a posteriori methodology, see Guay and Pradeu (2020); for an argument in which science also operates at the a priori level, see Chakravartty (2013). This is the 'dilemma' addressed by Robus (2015).…”

Section: Moderate Naturalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

spectrum of metametaphysics

Arenhart

Arroyo

2021

Veritas

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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.

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Right out of the box: how to situate metaphysics of science in relation to other metaphysical approaches

Cited by 24 publications

References 54 publications

Philosophy in Science: Can Philosophers of Science Permeate through Science and Produce Scientific Knowledge?

Philosophy in Science: Can Philosophers of Science Permeate through Science and Produce Scientific Knowledge?

Floating free from physics: the metaphysics of quantum mechanics

spectrum of metametaphysics

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