display all the ideas for this combination of texts
12 ideas
| 14912 | There is no test for metaphysics, except devising alternative theories [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: The metaphysician has no test for the truth of her beliefs except that other metaphysicians can't think of obviously superior alternative beliefs. (They can always think of possibly superior ones, in profusion). | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.7) | |
| A reaction: [they cite Van Fraassen for this view] At least this seems to concede that some metaphysical views can be rejected by the observation of beliefs that are superior. Almost everyone has rejected Lewis on possible worlds for this reason. |
| 14904 | Metaphysics builds consilience networks across science [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics is the enterprise of critically elucidating consilience networks across the sciences. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: I don't disagree with this. The issue, I think, is how abstract you are prepared to go. At high levels of abstraction, it is very hard to keep in touch with the empirical research. There are truths, though, at that high level. It is clearest in logic. |
| 14907 | Progress in metaphysics must be tied to progress in science [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: To the extent that metaphysics is closely motivated by science, we should expect to make progress in metaphysics iff we can expect to make progress in science. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: To defer to and respect science does not necessitate that metaphysics cannot do independent work. I take there to be truths at a high-level of abstraction that are independent of the physical sciences, just as there are truths of chess or economics. |
| 14908 | Metaphysics must involve at least two scientific hypotheses, one fundamental, and add to explanation [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Principle of Naturalist Closure: A serious metaphysical claim must involve at least two scientific hypotheses, at least one from fundamental physics, and explain more than what the two hypotheses explain separately. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: [compressed, from their longer qualified version] The idea that metaphysics should add to explanation is close to my heart. I am musing over whether essences add to explanation, which would be total anathema to Ladyman and Ross. |
| 14910 | Some science is so general that it is metaphysical [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Some scientific propositions are sufficiently general as themselves to be metaphysical. Our notion of metaphysics is thus recursive, and requires no attempt to identify a boundary between metaphysical and scientific propositions. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.5 n45) | |
| A reaction: Note that this still leaves room for some metaphysics which is not science, though see Idea 14904 for their views on that. |
| 14940 | Cutting-edge physics has little to offer metaphysics [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: There is little positive by way of implications for metaphysics that we can adduce from cutting-edge physics. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.7.2) | |
| A reaction: My personal suspicion is that this will always be the case, even though there may be huge advances in physics, and I offer that as a reason why metaphysicians do not (pace Ladyman and Ross) need to study physics. They grasp 'negative' lessons. |
| 14945 | The aim of metaphysics is to unite the special sciences with physics [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: The demand to unify the special sciences with physics is, according to us, the motivation for having any metaphysics at all. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: The crunch question is whether metaphysicians are allowed to develop their own concepts for this task, or whether they can only make links between the concepts employed by the scientists. I vote for the former. |
| 14898 | Modern metaphysics pursues aesthetic criteria like story-writing, and abandons scientific truth [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: The criteria of adequacy for metaphysics have come apart from anything to do with truth. Rather they are internal and peculiar to philosophy, they are semi-aesthetic, and they have more in common with the virtues of story-writing than with science. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.2.1) | |
| A reaction: Part of a sustained polemic against contemporary analytic metaphysics. I love metaphysics, but they may be right. Writers like Sider, Fine, Lowe, Lewis, Stalnaker, Kripke, Armstrong, Dummett seem to tell independent stories, that really are works of art. |
| 14899 | Why think that conceptual analysis reveals reality, rather than just how people think? [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Why should we think that the products of conceptual analysis reveal anything about the deep structure of reality, rather than telling us about how some class of people think about and categorize reality? | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.2.2) | |
| A reaction: One line, associated with Jackson, is that analysis tells you not about reality, but about what to make of your experiences of reality when you have them. It would be a foolish scientist who paid no attention to his or her conceptual scheme. |
| 14936 | A metaphysics based on quantum gravity could result in almost anything [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: We cannot say what the metaphysical implications of quantum gravity are, but they range from eleven dimensions to two, from continuous fundamental structure to a discrete one, and from universal symmetries to no symmetries. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.7.2) | |
| A reaction: I offer this observation as a good reason for doubting whether the project of building our metaphysics directly onto our fundamental physics has much prospect of success. Quantum gravity is the unified theory they are all hoping for. |
| 14897 | We should abandon intuitions, especially that the world is made of little things, and made of something [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Abandoning intuitions is usually regarded as a cost rather than a benefit. By contrast, as naturalists we are not concerned with preserving intuitions at all (especially that the world is composed of little things, and that it must be made of something). | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.2.1) |
| 14905 | The supremacy of science rests on its iterated error filters [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: The epistemic supremacy of science rests on repeated iteration of institutional error filters. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: You could add repeated iteration of institutional error filters to journals about astrology, but it wouldn't thereby acquire epistemic supremacy. It is the tangible nature of the evidence which bestows the authority. |