Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized

Ladyman, James and Ross, Don

ISBN 10: 0199276196 / ISBN 13: 9780199276196

Published by Oxford University Press, 2007

About this Item

Publication of 346 pages. The dust jacket is a little shelf rubbed and a small hole on the spine. The boards are in good condition. There are pen markings, underlining's and notes of interest written on the last few pages within the body of the book. The text is legible. Tightly bound and presented in cellophane. The binding is excellent. GK. Our orders are shipped using tracked courier delivery services. Seller Inventory # 6qqxc

Bibliographic Details

Title: Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Publication Date: 2007

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Very Good

Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

Edition: First Edition.

About this title

Synopsis:

Every Thing Must Go aruges that the only kind of metaphysics that can contribute to objective knowledge is one based specifically on contemporary science as it really is, and not on philosophers' a priori intuitions, common sense, or simplifications of science. In addition to showing how recent metaphysics has drifted away from connection with all other serious scholarly inquiry as a result of not heeding this restriction, they demonstrate how to build a metaphysics compatible with current fundamental phsyics ("ontic structural realism"), which, when combined with their metaphysics of the special sciences ("rainforet realism"), can be used to unify physics with the other sciences without reducing these sciences to physics intself. Taking science metaphysically seriously, Ladyman and Ross argue, means that metaphysicians must abandon the picture of the world as composed of self-subsistent individual objects, and the paradigm of causation as the collision of such objects.

Every Thing Must Go also assesses the role of information theory and complex systems theory in attempts to explain the relationship between the special sciences and physics, treading a middle road between the grand synthesis of thermodynamics and information, and eliminativism about information. The consequences of the author's metaphysical theory for central issues in the philosophy of science are explored, including the implications for the realism vs. empiricism debate, the role of causation in scientific explanations, the nature of causation and laws, the status of abstract and virtual objects, and the objective reality of natural kinds

About the Author:

James Ladyman is at the University of Bristol. Don Ross is at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.