The methodology of metaphysics has come under severe scrutiny from critics who claim that, while metaphysics aims to uncover deep non-conceptual truths regarding reality, its standard methodology is incapable of giving us justified beliefs regarding which metaphysical theses are true. In this Element I investigate whether this criticism of metaphysics is on the right track, by way of an opinionated introduction to the methodology of metaphysics. I give an overview of recent debates concerning the methodology of metaphysics, with special attention paid to the epistemic credentials of appeals to intuitions and non-empirical theoretical virtues. I also examine alternative proposed aims of metaphysics other than that of uncovering deep non-conceptual truths, and with what sorts of methodologies those aims might be associated. These alternative proposed aims of metaphysics include achieving practical benefits, achieving understanding, discovering stable equilibria among possible metaphysical views, and analyzing and/or engineering our concepts.
Recent critiques of metaphysics tend to focus on arguing that it is methodologically unreliable, otherwise epistemically deficient, and/or irrelevant to practical concerns. Defenders counter that metaphysics is continuous with science, an unavoidable part of inquiry, and/or already yielding valuable results. So far, ne...
Sam Baron, Finnur Dellsén, James Norton· Synthese· 0 citations
This article proposes a revisionary approach to the meta-metaphysics of law. It challenges the growing tendency in analytic jurisprudence to treat questions about the nature of law as metaphysical problems that require employing explanatory metaphysical tools (e.g., grounding). Instead, it argues that metaphysical cl...
Miguel Garcia-Godinez· Law and Philosophy· 0 citations
In this paper I discuss an initially very plausible principle about metaphysical explanation, which has recently been explicitly defended. Suppose some q metaphysically explains the metaphysical necessity of p. Does q then also metaphysically explain p’s truth? The principle at issue, call it ‘(NT)’, gives an affirmati...
Difficulties with the epistemology of metaphysics are often thought to be remedied by naturalizing the field. In this paper, two proposals for such a kind of metaphysics are examined. These proposals face a dilemma: one of them reduces metaphysics to a mere ontological catalog of scientific posits, while the other reve...
Raoni Arroyo, J. B. Becker Arenhart· European Journal for Philoso...· 0 citations
Deep scientific realism is scientific realism plus the claim that science requires a metaphysical interpretation. Metaphysics is supposed to fill an intelligibility gap: science by itself, it is argued, does not provide a clear image of reality. The metaphysics needed to deliver the goods comes from a toolbox of concep...
Raoni Arroyo, J. B. Becker Arenhart· Synthese· 0 citations
This paper clarifies the methodology of my book,
How to Take Skepticism Seriously
(OUP, 2024). The book aims to dispose of external world skepticism without building or appealing to epistemological theory. John Greco urges this can’t be done. In response, this paper clarifies what is meant by “epistemological the...
Adam Leite· International Journal for th...· 1 citation
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