Chapter 4 - Critiques of Metaphysics

Annotated Bibliography

Rudolf Carnap. 1932. The Elimination of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language.

http://www.calstatela.edu/sites/

Argues that, based on the verificationist theory of meaning, metaphysical statements are meaningless

Rudolf Carnap. 1950. Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology.

http://www.ditext.com/carnap/carnap.html

Source of Carnap’s notion of a linguistic framework and his critique of ontology based on the internal/external distinction

W.V.O. Quine. 1951. On Carnap’s Views on Ontology.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02199422?LI=true

A critique of Carnap’s “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology,” including a discussion of the internal/external distinction

W.V.O. Quine. 1951. Two Dogmas of Empiricism.

http://www.ditext.com/quine/quine.html

Argues against the analytic/synthetic distinction and the reduction of all meaningful statements to statements about sensory experience

Gillian Russell. Forthcoming. Quine on the Analytic/Synthetic Distinction.

http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/

Explanation of Quine’s attack on the analytic/synthetic distinction

Stephen Yablo. 1998. Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake?

http://www.mit.edu/~yablo/om.pdf

Argues that we can free Carnap’s attack on ontology from a reliance on the analytic/synthetic distinction to present a challenge for contemporary metaphysics

Eli Hirsch. 2005. Physical-Object Ontology, Verbal Disputes, and Common Sense.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/

Argues that many metaphysical debates are merely verbal

Huw Price. 1997. Carnap, Quine, and the Fate of Metaphysics.

http://prce.hu/w/preprints/CarnapQuine.pdf

Assesses Quine’s response to Carnap

James Ladyman and Don Ross. 2007. In Defence of Scientism.

http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/

A critique of contemporary analytic metaphysics

Katherine Hawley. 2010. Critical Notice of Every Thing Must Go: Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater.

http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/

Response to Ladyman and Ross’s critique of contemporary metaphysics, and offers a view of the role of metaphysics vis-à-vis scientific inquiry

Laurie Paul. 2012. Metaphysics as Modeling: The Handmaiden’s Tale.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11098-012-9906-7

Argues that although the subject matter of metaphysics is distinct from that of science, exploring a more fundamental set of issues, the methodology of the metaphysician is the same as that of the scientist

Alyssa Ney. 2012. Neo-Positivist Metaphysics.

http://link.springer.com/article/

Proposes a way to see metaphysical questions as substantive and connected to empirical enquiry in a way that is responsive to Carnapian worries

Steven French and Kerry McKenzie. 2012. Thinking Outside the Toolbox: Towards a More Productive Engagement Between Metaphysics and Philosophy of Physics.

http://hrcak.srce.hr/92844

Explores how metaphysics could provide tools for the interpretation of scientific theories and what it needs to do to provide more than just a toolbox

Annotated Weblinks

http://www.philostv.com/craig-callender-and-jonathan-schaffer/

Craig Callendar and Jonathan Schaffer discuss mereology and its relation to science at Philosophy TV.

http://www.philostv.com/tuomas-tahko-and-thomas-hofweber/

Tuomas Tahko and Thomas Hofweber discuss the role and limits of metaphysics and its relation to science at Philosophy TV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKYZ8U-P5jA (part 1)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnC5-Q9UbpQ (part 2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piICQX9Zr3A (part 3)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gje68E74ESo (part 4)

Ted Sider discusses the relationship between metaphysics and the real world in this presentation of his paper, “Is Metaphysics About the Real World?”

http://philosophybites.com/2012/01/kit-fine-on-what-is-metaphysics.html

Kit Fine discusses the role of metaphysics at Philosophy Bites.

Discussion Questions

1. Why might someone like Carnap worry that views about the ontological status of numbers and other abstract entities, like those discussed in Chapter 2, are meaningless? Be precise. Use a clear example of one of the views we examined in that chapter to explain what he would think is misguided about the debate.
2. What are some other examples (aside from those in the book) of questions people care about that don’t seem to have clear conditions of verification? State two.
3. Sketch the reason that seemed the most compelling to you for thinking the logical positivists’ approach was misguided.
4. Assuming one accepted Carnap’s internal/external distinction, do you think it is more plausible for the metaphysician to defend her practice of asking ontological questions (say, about the existence of numbers) as internal questions or as external questions? Explain your answer.
5. Explain in your own words what you think Wittgenstein meant by instructing philosophers to “throw away the ladder.”
6. Do you agree with Quine’s point in “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” that no claim (even those of logic) is immune to revision? Why or why not?
7. What is Laurie Paul’s view about the relationship between metaphysics and science?
8. Discuss what you think the relationship is between the subject matter of metaphysics and that of science. Are they the same or different? How so?
9. Discuss what you think the relationship is between the methodology of metaphysics and that of science. Are they the same or different? How so?
10. What kind of progress do you think can be made by asking ontological questions?