Scientific Ontology: Integrating Naturalized Metaphysics and Voluntarist Epistemology (Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Science) - Hardcover

Chakravartty, Anjan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0190651458 ISBN 13: 9780190651459

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2017

Synopsis

Both science and philosophy are interested in questions of ontology - questions about what exists and what these things are like. Science and philosophy, however, seem like very different ways of investigating the world, so how should one proceed? Some defer to the sciences, conceived as something apart from philosophy, and others to metaphysics, conceived as something apart from science, for certain kinds of answers. This book contends that these sorts of deference are misconceived. A compelling account of ontology must appreciate the ways in which the sciences incorporate metaphysical assumptions and arguments. At the same time, it must pay careful attention to how observation, experience, and the empirical dimensions of science are related to what may be viewed as defensible philosophical theorizing about ontology. The promise of an effectively naturalized metaphysics is to encourage beliefs that are formed in ways that do justice to scientific theorizing, modeling, and experimentation. But even armed with such a view, there is no one, uniquely rational way to draw lines between domains of ontology that are suitable for belief, and ones in which it would be better to suspend belief instead. In crucial respects, ontology is in the eye of the beholder: it is informed by underlying commitments with implications for the limits of inquiry, which inevitably vary across rational inquirers. As result, the proper scope of ontology is subject to a striking form of voluntary choice, yielding a new and transformative conception of scientific ontology.

About this title

About the Author

Anjan Chakravartty is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, where he works on topics in the philosophy of science, metaphysics, and epistemology. He is the Director of the John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values, the Editor in Chief of the journal Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, and has taught previously at the Universities of Toronto and Cambridge.

Review

"Chakravartty's book is a delight. His combination of realism in metaphysics and voluntarism in epistemology gives him a uniquely insightful approach to all the issues concerning scientific realism and what Chakravartty calls its unavoidable dilemmas. I regard this as required reading for anyone intent on continuing the debate." Bas van Fraassen, Princeton University and San Francisco State University

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0190651458
• ISBN 13: 9780190651459
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 294