Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'The Possibility of Metaphysics' and 'Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts

4 ideas

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 1. Nature of Metaphysics
9414 Metaphysics is the mapping of possibilities [Lowe, by Mumford]
     Full Idea: Metaphysics can be judged as the mapping of possibilities.
     From: report of E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 1) by Stephen Mumford - Laws in Nature 2.2
16414 Science needs metaphysics to weed out its presuppositions [Lowe, by Hofweber]
     Full Idea: Lowe argues that the sciences need metaphysics to discharge the assumptions that they simply made at the outset.
     From: report of E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998]) by Thomas Hofweber - Ambitious, yet modest, Metaphysics 1.2
     A reaction: Hofweber doesn't buy this, and neither do I. I don't think science 'needs' metaphysics (or barely needs it), but I do think metaphysics needs a fair degree of science. It is high-level abstraction based on the facts.
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 5. Metaphysics beyond Science
8282 Only metaphysics can decide whether identity survives through change [Lowe]
     Full Idea: Only metaphysics can vindicate a judgement that a caterpillar survives to become a butterfly, but a pig does not survive to become pork, or that water survives as ice, but that paper does not survive as ash.
     From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 8.2)
     A reaction: The works of Lowe, and other modern heroes, have shown that these real questions can be pursued intensively into areas where no scientist, or even theologian, would dare to tread.
16127 Metaphysics tells us what there could be, rather than what there is [Lowe]
     Full Idea: I do not claim that metaphysics on its own can, in general, tell us what there is. Rather - to a first approximation - I hold that metaphysics by itself only tells us what there could be.
     From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 1.3)
     A reaction: If there is going to be a modern defence of metaphysics, in an age dominated by empirical science, this sounds pretty good to me. Presumably it also says what there couldn't be. The challenge is to offer authority for any claims made.