(Rough!

) DRAFT: Not for quotation

Metaphysics and Science

Michael Dickson1
History and Philosophy of Science
Indiana University2

The scope and limitations of this discussion

This paper is about the relationship between science and metaphysics. I am particularly
concerned to comment on how metaphysics as currently conceived by its practitioners is, or
ought to be, closely connected to contemporary science and philosophy of science, though
such a concern naturally leads me to propose my own account of metaphysics, an account that
is largely based (as many contemporary accounts are) on Aristotle. Such a discussion belongs
to meta-philosophy, and as such, it suffers the limitations of any philosophical discussion with
pretense of great generality.
First, generality precludes detailed consideration of a wide range of examples. The best I
can offer here is a consideration of some examples that may be judged important at least in
the sense that they come from well-read mainstream journals and books, written by people
who seem to have considerable standing in the profession. And while my consideration of
these examples will be somewhat brief, a brief consideration is sufficient to illustrate the
general points I want to make.
Second, general claims can be difficult to apply in specific cases. Consider this parallel
case: to claim that the foundations of mathematics should be based on set theory does not
tell one how to produce those foundations. Similarly, I will claim that metaphysics ought to
be pursued in a certain way, in relation to science and philosophy of science. Doing so does
not, however, provide more than a hint about how to proceed in specific cases (i.e., how to
pursue specific metaphysical projects).
Third, generality presupposes that there is something about its subject matter that can
be captured in very general terms. In the present case, I am assuming that there is an
essence of metaphysics, that is, some general account that applies to just about anything
that one would care to call metaphysics. I am far from clear that this presupposition
1

Authors full address: 1011 East Third Street, 130 Goodbody Hall, HPS, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47401 USA
2
Thanks to audiences at Indiana University, the University of Minnesota, the University of Chicago, and
the University of Connecticut for comments on related talks. Thanks also to Michael Friedman and Jon
Jacobs for some helpful comments. Finally, thanks to Jeremy Butterfield for helpful conversations, and
especially for pointing out some references on rational continuum mechanics.

is true, and even less clear that I am the right person to provide a general definition of
contemporary metaphysics. Hence I shall take it as an important part of my discussion
to provide an account of metaphysics that is based on the accounts of those who profess
the discipline. My only defense here is that there is sufficient commonality amongst those
accounts to suggest a common activity. As we shall see, however, there is also considerable
variation, so that my discussion will have to be quite general indeed if it is to capture all,
or most, of the varieties of contemporary metaphysics. As I suggested above, the specific
examples that I discuss will leave most of this variety unexplored.
Fourth, very general arguments invariably require presuppositions that are themselves
very general in scope, and therefore not amenable to detailed defense with a limited amount
of ink. For example, I shall have to make some assumptions about the long-standing debate
in philosophy of science about the underdetermination of theory by evidence. While I will
need to take a position on this debate, I can do no more than indicate a line of argument
here.
The paper has seven sections, including this introduction. In the next section I shall
discuss Aristotles account of metaphysics, with the help of Irwins (1988) analysis. In
section three I shall consider the accounts of three contemporary metaphysicians, paying
special attention to their apparent adherence to some methodological principles that seem
in part to characterize contemporary metaphysics. In section four I shall propose a specific
account of the relationship between metaphysics and science, which will of course include a
particular conception of metaphysics itself. In section five, I present an argument in favor
of this account, based on the nature of evidence in metaphysics. In section six, I present a
related argument, based on a conception of the nature of intellectual inquiry and the point
of doing metaphysics in the first place. Finally, in section seven, I illustrate the preceding
considerations with a brief look at a few examples.

The nature of metaphysics according to Aristotle

A study of various contemporary attempts to describe metaphysics turns up two noteworthy

results: (1) amongst contemporary metaphysicians (i.e., those contemporary philosophers
who claim to do metaphysics), there is a considerable variety of opinion about what they
actually do (though also a few notable points of agreement, as I shall discuss in the next
section); and (2) at the same time, almost every account of the nature of metaphysics begins
with a discussion of Aristotle. (Apparently it is obligatory to mention that the title of
Aristotles Metaphysics can be understood to mean the book that comes after the physics
and historically it probably should be understood in that way.) Indeed, whatever all, or
most, contemporary metaphysicians have in common seems to be largely contained in this
common heritage, so before turning to some contemporary accounts of metaphysics, I shall
consider Aristotle. Later, I shall adopt what I take to be the essence of Aristotles account.
Alas, even Aristotle presents us with multiple accounts of metaphysics. There are fourteen
books in the Metaphysics, seven of which begin with an account of what exactly is being done
in this treatise, and several of which differ, at least prima facie, in this account. This fact can
be explained in part by noting that the Metaphysics was almost certainly not intended by
2

Aristotle to be a single treatise. Instead, the various books of the Metaphysics were almost
certainly put together by some later editor. Even so, it seems clear that from one book to
the next, Aristotle does take himself to be describing roughly the same activity. After all, he
uses similar terminology in each case (e.g., first philosophy and the highest scienceI shall
continue to use the term metaphysics). Indeed, following Irwin3 , I read the Metaphysics in
part as a defense of the possibility of metaphysics in the face of severe difficulties.
The structure of Aristotles defense can be seen in a brief synopsis of the relevant parts
of the Metaphysics, focusing on those passages where Aristotle gives something like a definition or account of metaphysics. At the beginning of book 1, Aristotle gives an account
of metaphysics as a kind of wisdom (sofa), the science [pistmh] about certain causes
[ataj] and principles [rxj] (982a2-3). Those certain causes and principles turn out to
be the first and most universal ones; God [qej] is found to be both the proper possessor
of such knowledge and, in part at least, the object of such knowledge. In a related account,
at the beginning of book 2, metaphysics is described as the science of truth [pistmhn tj
lhqeaj] (993b21), and it turns out that such a science requires a knowledge of causes,
which are themselves most true [lhqesttoj] (993b29) when they are the principles of
eternal things [tn e ntwn rxj] (993b27). Together, then, these accounts point to a
conception of metaphysics as something like philosophical theology. Aristotle writes:
For the most divine science is the most honorable, and a science would be most
divine in only two ways: if God above all would have it, or if it were a science
of divine objects. This science alone [that is, the science that is being done here,
in the Metaphysics] happens to be divine in both ways; for God is thought by all
to be one of the causes and a principle, and God alone or in the highest degree
would possess such a science.4
Later, Aristotle argues that there is an immovable, eternal, substancepresumably the
God mentioned herewhich is the ultimate principle or cause of all other beings, so that
metaphysics is, ultimately, concerned with this particular substance, at least in the sense
that it is paradigmatic of substance. So metaphysics is a science, the science of truth, or
wisdom, which entails that it is a science of first principle of causes, which entails that it is,
at least paradigmatically, a science of God.
Book 3 introduces several difficulties, both methodological and substantive, for the very
possibility of metaphysics so conceived. There are three sorts of difficulty: questions about
what could be the subject-matter of metaphysics, questions about how metaphysical knowledge is possible, and specific questions about the nature of first principles. The first two
sorts of difficulty arise from Aristotles conception of scientific knowledge. The theory that
Aristotle expounds at length in the Prior Analytics and Posterior Analytics is that each
3

Irwin, T. Aristotles First Principles (Oxford University Press, 1988). See especially the whole of chapter
8, which makes in detail the case that I am outlining here.
4

gr qeiotth ka timiwtth: toiath d dixj n eh mnh: m te gr mlist' n qej xoi, qea

tn pisthmn sti, kn e tij tn qewn eh.

mnh d' ath totwn mfotrwn tetkhken: te

gr qej doke tn atwn psin enai ka rx tij, ka tn toiathn mnoj mlist'.

This and subsequent translations of Aristotle are mine.

(983a5-9)

specific science takes some principles as its starting-point, and demonstrates (in the logical
sense, by way of syllogisms of a certain kind) what must follow from them. The principles themselves are indemonstrable within that science, though they might be demonstrable
within some other science. (Indeed, exactly in this way later Aristotelians would build a
hierarchy of the sciences, hints of which can be found in Aristotle himself.) By a principles
being indemonstrable, Aristotle means that the specific science does not demonstrate that
its principles apply to anything. So, for example, in the Physics Aristotle quickly dismisses
Parmenides on the grounds that it is no part of physics to show that things change. Change
is a principle of the science of physics, and therefore it is not the physicists responsibility
to show that anything does in fact change.
Alas, if metaphysics is, as Aristotle describes in book 1, the science of first principles,
then it must be impossible, on Aristotles conception of science. Aristotle notes this point
more or less explicitly in his list of problems for metaphysics in book 3. For example, having
claimed that the first principles of things are substances (because substances exist first and
foremost), Aristotle asks:
Is our investigation concerned only with substances or also with their attributes?
I mean, for example, if solids and lines and planes are substances, is it the concern
of the same science to know these and their attributes (which are proved by the
mathematical sciences) for each genus, or of another science? If of the same,
then the science of substances, too, would be a demonstrative science; but it
seems that there is no demonstration of whatness. But if of another science,
what science will be the one to investigate the attributes of substances? It is
extremely difficult to answer this question.5
Aristotle is describing the dilemma in which he finds himself. If metaphysics is concerned
to demonstrate the attributes of substances, then either it is no different from the special
sciences (also concerned with the attributes of various substances, though not all at once),
or it differs from them by not taking substance for granted. But it seems that there is
no demonstration of whatnessi.e., one cannot show that substance applies to anything.
Speaking more generally (abstracting from Aristotles peculiar claim that the first principles
are substances), first principles are (by definition) not demonstrable. And yet metaphysics
must be concerned to demonstrate the attributes of substance (or more generally, with the
attributes of the first principles) if it is to be a science of substances (first principles), for
according to Aristotles conception of science, a science of X demonstrates the attributes of
X.
Hence, again, either the science of metaphysics is just like any other science, and merely
demonstrates the attributes of certain principles taken for granted, or somehow it sidesteps
5

ti d pteron per tj osaj mnon qewra stn ka per t sumbebhkta tataij; lgw d'
oon, e t steren osa tj sti ka gramma ka ppeda, pteron tj atj tata gnwrzein
stn pistmhj ka t sumbebhkta per kaston gnoj per n a maqhmatika deiknousin,
llhj.

e mn gr tj atj, podeiktik tij n eh ka tj osaj, o doke d to t stin

pdeixij enai:

e d' traj, tj stai qewrosa per tn osan tsumbebhkta; toto gr

podonai pagxlepon.

(997a25-34)

the apparent impossibility of demonstrating first principles themselves. The dilemma leaves
the very possibility of metaphysics as a science (as able to generate knowledge) in serious
doubt. On the one hand, metaphysics cannot just be another science, for it is in a far worse
position than they: the other sciences can appeal to higher sciences for a demonstration
of their principles, while the principles of metaphysics would be free-floating, apparently
completely lacking in justification. On the other hand, it is far from clear how those principles
could be justified.
Apparently in response to these challenges to the possibility of metaphysics as a science,
book 4 re-describes metaphysics as a science that investigates being as being and what
belongs to it by itself [pistmh tij qewre t n n ka t totw prxonta kaq' at]
(1003a20-21), that is, what belongs essentially to it:
There is a science that investigates being as being and what belongs essentially
to it. This science is not the same as any of the so-called special sciences; for
none of those sciences examines universally being qua being, but, cutting off
some part of it, each of them investigates the attributes of that part, as in the
case of the mathematical sciences. Now, since we are seeking the principles and
the highest causes, clearly these must belong to some nature in virtue of itself.
If, then, also those who were seeking the elements of things were seeking these
principles, these elements too must be elements of being, not accidentally, but
as being. Accordingly, it is of being as being that we, too, must find the first
causes.6
As Aristotle goes on to say (and as I have already noted), by being he means, primarily,
substance (anything that is a this). Later, Aristotle spells out the conclusion of these
considerations very clearly:
And indeed our inquiry or perplexity concerning what being is, in early times
and now and always, is just this: What is a substance?. . . And so we, too, must
speculate most of all, and first of all, and exclusively, so to say, concerning being
that is spoken of in this sense. What is being?7
Aristotle is clear here that he has not abandoned his earlier conception of the project. He
reiterates that metaphysics seeks to examine the principles and highest causes. Rather than
6

stin pistmh tij qewre t n n ka t to tw prxonta kaq' at. ath d' stn odemi
tn n mrei legomnwn at: odema gr tn llwn piskope kaqlou per to ntoj n,
ll mroj ato ti potemmenai per totou qewrosi t sumbebhkj, oon a maqhmatika tn
pisthmn.

pe d tj rxj ka tj krottaj ataj zhtomen, dlon j qsej tinoj atj

nagkaon enai kaq' atn.

e on ka o t stoixea tn ntwn zhtontej tataj tj rxj

ztoun, ngkh ka t stoixea to ntoj enai m kat sumbebhkj ll' n: di ka mn to

ntoj n yj prtaj ataj lhpton.

(1003a21-33)

ka d ka t plai te ka nn ka e zhtomenon ka e poromenon, t t n, tot sti tj

. . . di ka mn ka mlista ka proton ka mnon j epen per to otwj ntoj qewrhton

(1028b3-7)

osa

t stin.

abandoning his project, Aristotle is clarifying it partially in answer the problems described
in book 3. In particular, he shows how metaphysics, while studying the very same substances
studied by the special sciences, can nonetheless be a distinct enterprise, for it studies them
purely as substances, as beings. Indeed, as Irwin writes, metaphysics distinguishes itself from
the special sciences precisely because it studies those properties of the objects of special
sciences that the special sciences themselves must assume.8
However, distinguishing metaphysics, as the science of substance, from the other sciences
does not answer the more fundamental challenge remaining from book 3, namely, to show
that there can be such a science in the first place. Indeed, as the dilemma raised above shows,
the distinction raises that particular challenge all the more acutely. Aristotle is painfully
aware of the problem, and in the end recognizes that his conception of science simply makes
no room for metaphysics as a science. And yet he insists that metaphysical knowledge is,
in some serious sense, possible. In particular, metaphysics cannot be approached merely
dialectically, for dialectic begins with an examination of common opinion, which might itself
be so far from the truth as to make even an exemplary application of the method of dialectic
insufficient to lead to the truth.9 He writes:
All of these sciences [the special sciences] single out some existent thing or class,
and concern themselves with that, not with being unconditionally or in so far as it
is being. Nor do they give any argument about the essence; but some make it clear
by perception, others take it as an assumption, and from this demonstrate with
more or less necessity the intrinsic attributes of the genus that concerns them.
Hence it is clear from this survey of examples that there is no demonstration of
substance or of essence, but some other way of making it clear.10
What is this other way ? Aristotle shows us more than tells us, by his various arguments that
appear in the Metaphysics. Those arguments are indeed dialectical in the logical sense, but
they can be distinguished from run-of-the-mill dialectical arguments in one crucial respect:
their starting point is the necessary presupposition required for the special sciences, namely,
the existence of the principles of those sciences. In other words, for Aristotle, metaphysics
gets its epistemological punch not by being demonstrative (in Aristotles sense), but by
taking as its starting-point the principles required for the possibility of the special sciences,
that is, the possibility of them as genuine producers of knowledge, which he does not doubt.
(And Aristotle takes the primary such principle to be substance.)
The clearest example we have, from Aristotle, is his defense of the principle of noncontradiction. Aristotle explicitly recognizes that this principle is taken for granted in the
8
9
10

Irwin, op. cit., p. 170.

Topics; cf. 1061b6-10.
ll psai atai per n ti ka gnoj ti perigraymenai per totou pragmateontai, ll' ox
per ntoj plj od n, od to t stin oqna lgon pointai, ll' k totou, a mn
asqsei poisasai at dlon a d' pqesin labosai t t stin, otw t kaq' at prxontai
t gnei per esin podeiknousin nagkaiteron malakteron:

diper fanern ti ok

stin pdexij osaj od to t stin k tj toiathj pagwgj, ll tij lloj trpoj tj

dhlsewj.

(1025b8-16); cf. 1064a8-10, also GA 742b32-4.

special sciences, and therefore that a defense of the principle is properly a part of metaphysics
as he conceives it. He also notices precisely the sort of problems already raised about
arguments concerning such principles. Pretty clearly we arent going to mount an argument
whose conclusion is the principle of non-contradiction without begging the question:
Some, indeed, demand to have the law proved, but they do so because they lack
education; for it shows lack of education not to know of what we should require
proof, and of what we should not. For it is quite impossible that everything
should have a proof; the process would go on to infinity. . . 11
So how can it be defended? A plausible answer is crucial, because on the one hand, metaphysics cannot be mere dialectic for Aristotle, and yet on the other hand it is not science in
the usual sense (of deriving conclusions from principles).
Aristotles answer is that the principle can be demonstrated by refutation.12 Aristotle
imagines an opponent who claims that for any property, P , one can always assert that a
subect, S, both has and does not have P . But then, Aristotle asks, what can possibly
identify the subject as one and the same subject that both has and does not have P ? For
the subject must itself be identified by its having some characteristic property. That is, S is
S precisely because it has some property or other making it S.13 Call this property PS . But
then, according to our imagined opponent, we can say of S both that it has PS and that it
does not have PS . But in the latter case, we could not possible be making the assertion that
S fails to have the property PS , because if it failed to have that property, it would not be
S. In other words, our opponent has in fact failed to assert that S both has and does not
have PS .14
So Aristotle has not, here, proven the principle of non-contradiction. Rather, he has
shown that denying itat least, denying it in the specific way that he here imagines his
opponent to dois impossible, because doing so undermines an assumption required for
denying it in the first place (namely, that in the statements S has P and S does not have
P , S refers to the same subject in both cases). This sort of argument is supposed to be
paradigmatic of metaphysical reasoning. Metaphysics is supposed to examine, in this way,
the principles that are taken for granted by the special sciences (that is, for Aristotle, all
knowledge-producing inquiries apart from metaphysicsgiven his theory of knowledge, it is
pretty clear that for Aristotle, such inquiries are logic, mathematics, and the other sciences
such as physics, biology, astronomy, and so on).
11

xiosi d ka toto podeiknnai tinj d paideusanz:

sti gr paideusa t m ignskein

tnwn de zhten pdeixin ka tnwn o de: lwj mn gr pntwn dnaton pdeixin enai (ej

. . . (1006a5-9)

peiron gr n badzoi, ste mhd) otwj enai pdeixin)

12

sti d) podexai legktikj ka per totou ti dnaton (1006a12).

What is being shown to be
impossible, here, is the denial of the principle of non-contradiction.
13
Although Aristotle might think that this property is something like an essential property in some strong
sense, there is no clear need to make this assumption. For example, the property could just be filling a
given spatial temporal region.
14
See Irwin, op. cit., pp. 179183.

The nature of metaphysics according to contemporary metaphysicians

While Aristotle may reasonably be thought to have first defined the discipline of metaphysics,
that discipline has certainly not always lived up to his definition. Indeed, metaphysics
came to include the study of being from more specialized perspectives. Some rationalist
philosophers referred to two types, or branches, of metaphysics: general metaphysics, the
science of being qua being more or less as conceived by Aristotle; and special metaphysics,
the science of being from some perspective. For example, Christian Wolff explicitly divided
metaphysics into general (which he took to be the study of being qua being, or ontology)
and special, the latter of which was subdivided into rational theology, rational psychology,
and rational cosmology. Now Aristotle himself (as I understand him) would not have denied
that metaphysics can address some of the topics that the rationalist philosopher places
under special metaphysics, so long as it does not make the mistake of doing so in a way
that encroaches on issues that properly come under the purview of the special sciences.
While, on the one hand, it is no part of physics to prove that there are changeable things,
it is likewise no part of metaphysics to draw conclusions that are properly derived from
considerations internal to physics. (The metaphysician might claim to argue for them from
other considerations, but in this case he or she is really doing armchair physics. The point is
that if the conclusions could follow from considerations entirely within physics, then they are
not, in Aristotles conception, a part of metaphysics.) So in general, an Aristotelian should
be quite skeptical of special metaphysics, at least as it was practiced by some rationalist
philosophers.
But many contemporary metaphysicians do not seem to share this skepticism. Indeed,
the Wolffian distinction between general and special metaphysics seems to have survived,
with both aspects of the enterprise alive and well. As Simons puts it:15 Metaphysics is
generally practised today as, on the one hand, general ontology or theory of objects and,
on the other hand, an assortment of more or less traditional metaphysical disputes, on such
topics as free will, God, universals, space and time and persons. However, I do not wish
to rely on the second-order observations. Instead, I turn, first, to an examination of some
contemporary views about metaphysics as given by those who practice the discipline. Later
I shall consider some examples.
I begin with Laurence and MacDonalds introduction to the nature of metaphysics.
Metaphysics, as Aristotle characterized it, is concerned with the study of being
qua being. That is, it is concerned to study being as such. . . . Other disciplines,
specifically the sciences, . . . are not interested in being in general, the kind of being
that abstracts from the nature of this or that particular thing. But metaphysics
is interested in this. Metaphysics is interested in determining what is required,
what conditions need to be met, for somethinganythingto exist.16
15

Peter Simons, p. 312 in Kim, Jaegwon, and Sosa, Ernest (eds.) A Companion to Metaphysics (Blackwell
Publishers, Oxford, 1995).
16
Contemporary Readings in the Foundations of Metaphysics, p. 1.

Apparently this interest extends to, or implies, an interest in what types of thing there
are, for they write later that one of the central questions in metaphysics is the question
of what types of things or entities there are (ibid.). Apparently it also extends to at least
some forms of what the rationalist philosophers called special metaphysics, for while special
metaphysics does not make it into their official account of the nature of metaphysics, a brief
look at the index of their book reveals substantial discussion of notions such as physical
objects, physical properties, numbers, time, and more, not from the point of view of
their being mere beings, but from the point of view of their being physical objects, physical
properties, and so on.
The other essential ingredient in their account of metaphysics is a statement of some
methodological principles that further characterize the enterprise. Two of these principles
will be especially important for me, and are quite commonly adopted by contemporary
metaphysicians:17
The Principle of Parsimony: The issue of whether or not to accept properties, for example, or numbers, or events, thus turns on the question of what
explanatory roles entities of these sorts are needed to play. If they are not necessary, then we reject them. If they play a valuable explanatory role in our best
theories, then we accept them.
The Principle of Commitment: A criterion of ontological commitment could
help us decide what to believe about what exists by telling us what features
in our language or thought, or theory embodied in language and thought, have
ontological significance, or have implications for what exists.
On the one hand, these principles seem to be compatible with the Aristotelian conception
of metaphysics as I outlined it above. In more explicitly Aristotelian terms, the Principle of
Commitment is the principle that the possibility of the special sciences requires the existence
of the principles of the special sciences. (Mathematics does not study whether numbers exist,
but the possibility of mathematical knowledge relies on the existence of numbers. And so
on.) Similarly, according to (an explicitly Aristotelian version of) the Principle of Parsimony,
if it can be shown that a given special science can dispense with a certain principle, then we
no longer have any reason to accept such a principle. (So one might, for example, argue that
in fact mathematics can get along just fine without the supposition that numbers exist.)
On the other hand, one could well ask, in the first place, whether the principles are to
be interpreted in quite this way. Evidence from the practice of metaphysicians (for example,
evidence from other parts of the book in question) seems to suggest not. In particular, it
seems that they have a much wider conception of what sorts of explanations and features...
the metaphysician ought to take seriously. But I shall return to this issue later.
Our next example is from Van Inwagen. His account is more or less linguistic, an attempt
to say which statements count as metaphysical. He writes:
Perhaps, in the end, all we can say is this: some categories or concepts are
sufficiently general that a statement will count as a metaphysical statement if
17

The principles are from ibid., p. 5 and are written here as they are there. Many contemporary metaphysicians explicitly or implicitly adopt these or very similar principles. We shall see an example later.

given that it is made in a context in which no restrictions of intended reference are

in force, and given that the person who makes it is making a serious effort to say
what is strictly and literally trueit employs only these categories. Among these
categories are many that we have already used in our examples: physical thing,
spatial object, cause, event, past, property. . . . [T]here will be borderline
cases of sufficiently general categories: impenetrable, pain, straight and
surface are possible examples of borderline cases.18
This characterization apparently leaves wide open the door to the house of metaphysics. I
suspect that a little clever thought could produce a great many statements that meet van
Inwagens characterization but that seem to come rather under the purview of science, or
the philosophy of the special sciences. In particular, many statements from physics and the
interpretation of contemporary physics seem to satisfy van Inwagens criterion. Consider:
No physical thing is impenetrable (arguably a statement from some field theories), or no
event can be the cause of another event in its past (arguably a statement from the theory of
relativity), or every physical thing is composed of parts with no spatial extension (arguably
a statement from Bohms theory or from relativistic quantum field theory19 ).
What about the qualifier that there be no restrictions of intended reference? Let us
consider just one example and see how this qualifier might apply. I suggested that the
statement no event can be the cause of another event in its past might meet van Inwagens
criterion. One might retort that this statement comes with an implicit restriction, and should
be parsed as: if the theory of relativity is true of a world, then in that world, no event....
But no: this restriction is not part of the meaning of the original statement. Instead, the
appeal to special relativity is part of the justification. The claim is intended to be perfectly
and absolutely general: in the class of all things that are events, there is not a single one
that is the cause of another in its past. One can argue for this claim on the basis of special
relativity, and of course the evidence for the truth of that theory is at least in part empirical,
but the claim itself does not rely on these points.
Again, however, one might retort that empirical considerations simply cannot be a part
of metaphysics, because the very nature of the enterprise is somehow incompatible with the
possibility that empirical considerations could either justify or defeat a metaphysical claim.
But some (if not all) of the categories mentioned by van Inwagen have plainly empirical
import. Can one be said to be making a serious effort to say what is strictly and literally
true while ignoring this fact? Again, I turn to such questions in greater detail later. (Of
course, I do not suppose that van Inwagen would endorse or reject any of the arguments here.
He is in any case clearly uneasy about pronouncing a definition of metaphysics. I shall, on
the other hand, press van Inwagen on such questions later, not while considering his general
discussion of the nature of metaphysics, but while considering a specific example of his own
metaphysical practice.)
Finally, I consider Louxs account of metaphysics. He too begins with Aristotle, and
18

van Inwagen, The Nature of Metaphysics, pp. 13-14.

It might sound odd that I mention field theory in this context, but in fact many physicists have argued that relativistic quantum field theory (unlike its non-relativistic counterpart) cannot sustain a field
interpretation but must instead be understood to describe particles, possibly point-like particles.
19

10

indeed he takes the view that metaphysics most properly conceived is just the science of
being qua being, without extension to special metaphysics. Especially important, for Loux,
is the identification of categories. He writes:
In this book, we will follow the Aristotelian characterization of metaphysics as
a discipline concerned with being qua being. That characterization gives rise to
the attempt to identify the most general kinds or categories under which things
fall and to delineate the relations that hold among those categories.20
Loux goes on to endorse something like the conjunction of the Principle of Parsimony and
the Principle of Commitment in the course of discussing an imagined dispute about what
could make the sentence George performed five somersaults true. One philosopher says
that the truth of the statement rests on the real existence of certain somersaults (namely,
the ones that George did), while another says that there is no special class of entities as
somersaults, in much the same way that behavioral psychologists denied a special category
of intentions. Loux writes:
They are disagreeing about whether the relevant facts of ordinary usage and the
truth of the relevant prephilosophical claims require us to recognize somersaults
in our official philosophical story about the world and its workings; they are
disagreeing about whether things like somersaults should enter into our official
philosophical inventory of things that are.21
Later, speaking more generally, Loux writes:
Are there properties? Are there relations? Are there events? . . . In each case,
there is a body of prephilosophical facts that function as data for the dispute.
One party to the dispute insists that to explain the relevant prephilosophical
facts, we must answer the existential question affirmatively.
The other party, of course, argues that an alternative explanation can be found.
Again, one wonders exactly which prephilosophical facts must be explained, and perhaps
more importantly, how one determines whether a given potential explanandum is indeed a
fact in the first place. The actual practice of metaphysics, on Louxs account, appears to
depend crucially on this issue. I shall return to it later.

Metaphysics and science

Given these accounts of metaphysics (and they are quite typical of what one finds amongst
contemporary metaphysicians), what can we say about the relationship between metaphysics
and science? Let us note, first, that, unlike Aristotle, contemporary accounts of the nature of
metaphysics mention the special sciences only to distinguish metaphysics from them. Recall
that Aristotle, in the end, grounded the epistemic value of metaphysics on the fact that it
20
21

Loux, M. Metaphysics, p. 2.
Loux, op. cit., p. 15.

11

takes as its own starting-point the presuppositions required for the special sciences. I know
of no contemporary metaphysician who follows Aristotle on this point.22
On the other hand, as I noted earlier, it does not follow that according to the contemporary accounts, the special sciences do not play an important role in the practice of
metaphysics, and indeed one does find occasional reference to the special sciences in the practice of metaphysics, though one also finds explicit denial of their relevance to metaphysical
issues.
The central claim of this paper is that by abandoning this aspect of Aristotelian metaphysics
that is, by dropping the idea that the prephilosophical facts requiring explanation are the
principles of the special sciencescontemporary metaphysics runs a serious risk of being
unrespectable, epistemically. In other words, in a way that I shall discuss, metaphysics (as
described by many contemporary metaphysicians) must look to science and the interpretation
of science. My discussion will largely focus on physics (my own area of expertise), but the
point extends to other sciences. (I will give one example from biology.) For a while longer,
I will also maintain the sharp Aristotelian distinction between issues concerning being qua
being and other issues apparently allowed into metaphysics by at least some contemporary
accounts, for example, van Inwagens. In the end, I shall propose that we may blur this
distinction somewhat without harm to the project of metaphysics.
To illustrate the relationship between science and metaphysics that I have in mind, I
shall begin with Louxs account. He says that metaphysics is ultimately concerned with the
types of thing that there are. One might be tempted to say, in response, that of course
science is also concerned with what types of thing that there are. Are there atoms? Are
there forces? Does luminiferous ether exist? These sorts of question have been and still
are, raised by physics. However, maintaining for the moment the Louxs strict definition of
metaphysics, we should point out that prima facie at least, physics appears to be concerned
with what types of physical things there are, while metaphysics, under Louxs conception,
is concerned with what types of thing there are, period. Presumably physical things would
be just one (though according to some philosophers, the only) example. To put the point
in Aristotelian terms, physics presupposes its principlephysical thingsand then perhaps
goes on to study what types of physical thing that there are. So the quick and dirty argument
for the relevance of physics to metaphysics does not work.
But that argument also misses something important about the nature of physics. It is
not, in fact, concerned merely with what physical things there are. Rather, it is concerned to
give an account of those things, and doing so involves, even if only implicitly, some reference
to what types of things that there are, in general. Are there events? Well, can we make any
sense of the theories of special and general relativity without them? (Probably not.) Are
the possible worlds? Well, can we make sense of quantum theory without them? (Probably.)
And if we can, are we thereby committed to the existence of some other basic category of
things, perhaps mathematical objects of some sort, or chances? Physicists and philosophers
of physics grapple with exactly these sorts of question. In other words, they grapple with
questions that are, by metaphysicians own lights, metaphysical. The subject-matter of
metaphysics is, in part, the subject-matter of physics and the philosophy of physics.
22

Of course I may well just be ignorant of them.

12

I hope it is clear that I am not claiming that there is nothing for metaphysics to do. I am
claiming, rather, that metaphysical questions are properly addressed to, and in the context
of, that is, while respecting, or taking into account, what is required for or presupposed by
scientific explanations. Thus far, I have only pointed out that science can indirectly play
the role of addressing metaphysical questions by means of an analysis of what is required
for scientific understanding (or at least by means of taking such requirements as evidence).
I have not yet argued that science should be taken to play that role, much less that the
evidence thus provided has a special authority in metaphysical investigations.
I turn now to that argument, which has two parts. The first concerns the methodology
of metaphysics, and the second concerns the point of metaphysics.

The methodology of metaphysics

My claim that science provides a kind of evidence for metaphysics that has special authority
therein is based, in part, on the methodological principles that we have already seen. The
Principle of Parsimony confirms the crucial evidentiary role that explanatory power has in
metaphysical arguments, and the Principle of Commitment asserts that what needs explaining is, in Laurence and MacDonalds words, features in our language or thought, or more
generally, in Louxs words, prephilosophical facts.
Why adopt such principles? The issue here is what will count as evidence in metaphysics.
While all disciplines raise this issuefor example, there are serious questions in science about
the nature of experimental evidence and about what sorts of experiment do provide good
evidence, and so onmetaphysics raises it in a particularly pressing form. It does so in
part because in comparison with other disciplines (and I am not thinking only of science
here) metaphysics shows precious little agreement amongst its practitioners. Another cause
for concern about the nature of evidence in metaphysics arises from the pronouncements of
some metaphysicians themselves. Consider this notable (and admittedly radical, but by no
means unique) account from Schlesinger:
[I]t seems we cannot coherently imagine any fact, no matter how strange and
different from anything so far observed, that might be discovered in the future
and that would affect the credibility of any metaphysical hypothesis.23
Indeed, Schlesinger considers a situation where in fact some empirical evidence is successfully
brought to bear on a purported metaphysical question, and he says:
I do not believe that this would disprove my thesis; it would show rather than
what was thought to be a metaphysical problem turned out to be a scientific
problem.24
23

Schlesinger, George N. Metaphysics: Methods and Problems (Barnes and Noble Books, New Jersey,
1983), p. 31.
24
ibid., p. 22.

13

One is left tempted by Bradleys quip that metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for
what we believe upon instinct.25
Of course, we need not follow Schlesingers conception of evidence in metaphysics, and
many metaphysicians do not. My point is that while many disciplines have agreed (though
changing) standards of evidence, metaphysics shows considerable variation amongst its practitioners on this issue. This fact alone makes the question of what the standards ought to
be in metaphysics somewhat more pressing than it is in other disciplines.
It is difficult to know how to proceed, here. Indeed, we saw above that Aristotle himself
had a very hard time with this question. Reading extensive accounts about the nature of
evidence in metaphysics leaves one with the impression that any answer to the question will
beg questions against those who have a different conception of the enterprise. However, we
are not at a total loss for guidance. In the remainder of this section, I will take as my guide
the following two claims, each more or less stolen from Aristotle:
Absence of first principles: Unlike other disciplines, metaphysics does not
have first principles that it can take for granted and upon which metaphysical
arguments can be based.
Need for objective evidence: Arguments in metaphysics must proceed from
something other than personal intuition.
A few brief comments about these principles are in order.
Unlike Aristotle (perhaps), I have no grand theory in mind of what a first principle is.
The point I am making in the first claim is rather mundane: metaphysics cannot take the
existence of any type of being for granted. Physics can take the existence of a physical world
for granted, without worrying about radical idealism. And subdisciplines within physics
often take other things for granted. Psychology can take the existence of other minds for
granted, without worrying about the problem (if it is a problem) of other minds. Metaphysics,
because it is the study of the conditions that anything must satisfy if it is to exist, can take
the existence of no thing for granted. What is more, it cannot take anything for granted as
principle from which, logically, metaphysical conclusions can be derived. As we saw from
Aristotle, even the principle of non-contradiction is up for grabs, and subject to metaphysical
analysis.
For now, I have a similarly unremarkable claim in mind in asserting the need for objective
evidence. The point of this claim is just to rule out personal intuition as insufficient to
establish a metaphysical claim. I have in mind some metaphysicians who seem to appeal
to personal intuition. For example, after offering a definitions of various temporal concepts,
Slote writes, It should be noted, however, that the correctness of our definitions depends on
the logical impossibility of certain kinds of time travel into the past and then, after making
a few brief remarks about relativity, dismisses this problem, saying that I am not sure that
such time travel is impossible, but I think the whole idea of it is very suspicious and hard to
make sense of.26 My point here is not to question Slotes attitude towards time travel, but
25
26

Bradley, F.H. Appearance and Reality (Oxford University Press, 1893)., p. x.

Slote, Michael A. Metaphysics and Essence (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1975), pp. 38-39.

14

rather to question the relevance of his own opinion of the matter, thus expressed. My claim
is that something other than an individuals intuition, or ability to make sense of a claim,
is needed as evidence in metaphysics. There is no evident connection between anybodys
personal intuition about a claim, or anybodys ability to make sense of a claim, and the
truth of that claim.
Returning to the methodological principles of Parsimony and Commitment, I believe
that the point of introducing them must be, on the one hand, to acknowledge the absence
of first principles in metaphysics, and on the other hand, to provide a kind of objective
evidence for metaphysics, that evidence being the features in our language or thought or
the prephilosophical facts that we seek to explain in as parsimonious a manner as possible.
But why do these things need explaining, and why does explaining them (parsimoniously)
lend credence to a metaphysical claim or system? There are apparently several presuppositions at work here that one might want to question, for example, whether the more parsimonious explanation is more likely true, and so forthquestions familiar from the philosophy
of science. But there is a question that logically precedes this and related questions, namely,
why we should take features in our language or thought as any kind of evidence in the first
place.
The answer must be based on some sort of principle of optimism about the human
intellect. The idea, I suppose, is that human beings somehow naturally get things basically
right about the world. Human beings are not radically mistaken about the nature of reality.
If we say or think that there are somersaults, then there must, in some sense or other, be
somersaults. If we say or think that there are numbers, or whatever, then there must, in
some sense or other, be numbers. If the existence of somersaults, or numbers, or whatever,
can be explained, or best explained, only by the assumption that they form a basic category,
then in fact they must be a basic category.
What might justify this principle of optimism? Apart from the idea that human beings
somehow generate realityso that, in effect, human intuitions about reality are something
akin to self-fulfilling propheciesI can think of two basic forms of an answer to this question,
a theological form, and a naturalistic form. The theological answer is that God created
human beings to be capable of grasping the world (for whatever reason). Some contemporary
philosophers believe this answer on the basis of some particular understanding of God. The
naturalistic answer is that, by some force of nature, human beings are so constituted that
they will, as a matter of fact, basically gets things right. Some contemporary philosophers
believe this answer on the basis of some particular understanding of the theory of evolution.
There is an obvious objection to the principle of optimism, however. As a matter of
fact, we humans have often been dead wrong about the nature of reality. Many human
beings have supposed (and some still do suppose) that the earth is a disk, or that it is at
the center of the universe. Many humans beings have supposed (and many still do suppose)
that heavier bodies fall significantly faster than lighter bodies, or that simultaneity is an
absolute relation. We were wrong about those things. Indeed, and more to the point, a
brief perusal of journals in experimental human cognition reveals a plethora of cases where
what we believe instinctively about the world is simply wrong. And I am not speaking,
here, of sophisticated scientific beliefs such as the belief in phlogiston or the belief in the
Ptolemaic model of the solar system (though of course we were wrong about them too). I
15

am speaking about our more or less everyday beliefs about the world, beliefs that many
people continue to presume to be obviously true. In fact, it remains quite easy to astound
smart undergraduates with simple experiments involving Galilean relativity, or the Monty
Hall problem.
Aristotle was aware of these problems, and precisely because of them, he ruled out dialectic as a way to produce knowledge. Dialectic begins with common beliefs, carefully
examining them and evaluating them against one another. But such an examination can
produce, at best, a coherent set of beliefs that may well remain false. In other words, if the
Principle of Commitment really is just about human language and thought, then it does
not, after all, seem to be able to provide a sound basis for metaphysical investigation, because
upon reflection, it does not seem that we really should commit ourselves to the deliverances
of human thought and language, at least not of the everyday, allegedly intuitive sort.
To what should we commit ourselves? Louxs phrase prephilosophical facts provides a
clue how to proceed. Loux himself might have had in mind mundane facts such as the
purported existence of somersaults, but the bare notion of a prephilosophical fact leaves
open other possibilities. The issue that we face is this: mere opinion, or intuition, or instinct,
or commonly held belief, appears to be insufficient to ground metaphysical arguments. But
the deliverances of science will not do either, for they are inevitably based on assumptions
that metaphysics as the science of being qua being ought not take for granted. To put the
point differently, metaphysics cannot provide the explanation of the deliverances of science,
for science itself provides that sort of explanation. However, there is something left for
metaphysics to explain, namely, the possibility of science in the first place. In other words, I
am proposing, along more or less Aristotelian lines, that metaphysics as the science of being
qua being has a reasonable claim to produce knowledge if it takes as its task the parsimonious
explanation of the commitments or presuppositions of science, rather than the commitments
of quotidian human language and thought.
Why? What is special about science and more specifically its presuppositions or commitments? The brief answer is that the commitments of sciencewhatever they are (and it
might be part of the task of metaphysics to identify them)give rise to the most reliable
and best-tested claims that we know about. (Of course, they are not infallible.)
As I shall discuss later, this proposal for metaphysics does in fact leave intact a number
of traditional metaphysical questions, but it re-orients metaphysics towards science in a
way that is often lacking in contemporary metaphysics, which still often seems to take
personal intuition or the way things seem to us as its starting-point. Indeed, even some
metaphysicians who appear to be cognizant of the role that science might play in metaphysics
do not, in my view, quite properly appreciate it. I shall conclude this section with an example
to illustrate the point. This example will also help to illustrate my general proposal.
Zimmerman wrote, in the 1990s, a series of papers27 discussing the issue whether extended
physical objects are composed of simple, indivisible parts. One is immediately tempted to
peg this work as exactly the sort of work that should be undertaken only in relation to the
27

I have in mind specifically the following: Could Extended Objects Be Made Out of Simple Parts?,
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 56 (1996):129; Indivisible Parts and Extended Objects: Some
Philosophical Episodes from Topologys Prehistory, The Monist 79 (1996):148180.

16

deliverances of science. But Zimmerman is aware of this objection to his project, and clarifies
his position thus:
The question . . . is intended to be a peculilarly metaphysics one; it is not, Are
there any extended bodies, and if there are do any happen to be composed of
simples?, but rather, If there were such things as extended physical bodies,
could they be composed entirely of simples?28
He further clarifies his notion of an extended body thus:
If something is . . . an extended body, then (1) it fills a precise three-dimensional
region of space . . . , and (2) it is in some manner impenetrable with respect to
other classes of space-occupiers.29
Zimmerman acknowledges that contemporary quantum theory probably entails that there
are no extended objects, in his sense. He does not seem to appreciate that no scientific
theory has ever explicitly countenanced his particular notion of extended objects, and here
lies the basis of my main point.
Here, I suspect that Zimmerman would object. In the article that I am discussing,
he cites Locke, and in other places, Descartes and Newton, as holding this view of bodies.
However, as Zimmermans notion of a three-dimensionally extended body unfolds, it becomes
clear not only that they did not hold such a view, but also that they could not have done
so. Zimmermans argument relies heavily on his notion of filling a region of space. It
turns out that what he means is filling a region of a topological space that is topologically
closed. Then, cleverly applying what are essentially simple facts from topology, he makes
his argument. I suppose it is obvious to any historian, and to most of the rest of us, that
Newton could have had no such account of filling a space in mind.
And he didnt need it. Although Newton sometimes couched his theory in language
that appears to involve a commitment to extended impenetrable bodiesin a loose sense,
certainly not in Zimmermans sensethe thery itself, in Newtons hands at least, had no
need of any precise account of such things. (One can apply Newtons theory to the motions
of the planets, the tides, the motion of falling bodies, and so on, without a half of a thought
about impenetrability or extension. Indeed, with a few simple assumptions, one can even
apply the theory to collisions.) So what does Zimmermans argument show, assuming that
the argument is valid? It shows, in that case, only that some people may have harbored a
concept that, if made precise in a certain way, leads to a contradiction. (Can it be made
precise in some other way? Yes, and I shall return to that point later.)
Now, although he mentions Newtonian science, Zimmerman does not, I think, really take
himself to be addressing the presuppositions of scientists. Indeed, as I have suggested, qua
scientists, they did not need to be making any particularly precise presuppositions about the
nature of extended bodies (at least not in the 17th and 18th centuries). It was scientifically
permissible for them to maintain a nave, everyday, instictive, view that tables and chairs
are solid through and through, and so on. It is this nave, everyday, view that I think
28
29

Could Extended Objects Be Made Out of Simple Parts?, op. cit., p. 2.

Ibid.

17

Zimmerman takes himself to be addressing, and it is in addressing this view that I think
he has gone astray. Why should it be subject to metaphysical analysis? While the analysis
itself may be admirable, insofar as it adopts a rigor that modern topology can provide, it
is not clear what the value of the analysis is. It is not really an analysis of our everyday
notionssurely they do not contain the topological content that Zimmerman gives them
but neither is it an analysis of the requirements of (at least early Newtonian) science, for
that science did not require such notions. Zimmerman has, let us grant, shown that the best
explanation of the existence of extended objects is that they are made of atomless gunk,
but once we learn what he means by extended objects, it is far from clear why we should
believe that they exist in the first place.
It is crucial to bear in mind that my point is not that modern science might cast doubt on
the existence of such things. Zimmerman is aware of this objection, but thinks that even the
assertion of the possibility of the existence of such objects is enough to get the metaphysical
wheels turning in a useful direction. I have my doubts about that claim, but nevermind.
The crucial point is that Zimmermans conclusions are significant only if the precise meaning
that he attaches to the phrase extended object makes sense in some scientific context. (It
could not possibly be the content of our everyday beliefs about extended objectsvery few
of us have anything like correct intuitions about the sorts of topological notions employed
in Zimmermans analysis.)
There is a scientific context in which the notion of an extended body composed of impenetrable point-like parts is important, namely, rational continuum mechanics. It is here that
Zimmermans analysis potentially has some bite: he seems to have shown that one way of
making sense of this concept, that is, one way of understanding the very possibility of rational
continuum mechanics, that is, one way to understand its foundational presupposition, does
not pan out. Of course, it does not follow that the concept is inherently self-contradictory.
It is more likelygiven the successes of rational continuum mechanicsthat we have simply
not yet seen how to make sense of its presuppositions.
Well, that conclusion would be correct in this case if others had not already provided
a foundational understanding of the presuppositions of the theory. However, as Zimmerman seems not to have noticed, others have asked the question: How is rational continuum
mechanics possible? In particular, what understanding of extended bodies does it require?
Authors such as Truesdell and Noll and Virga have addressed this question in detail, providing a topologically respectable account of extended bodies that makes sense in the context
of rational continuum mechanics, and shows how, as a science of extended bodies, it is possible.30 Of course, their account is incompatible with Zimmermans, but what does this fact
show? What recourse can Zimmerman take? He could argue that his account better accords
with our intuitions about what extended bodies are like. But what weight could such an
argument have (especially given that our intuitions are clearly not explicitly topological)
in the face of the empirical success of a science that can be understood in terms of an al30

See Truesdell, C.A., III. A First Course in Rational Continuum Mechanics, Part I, 2nd edition (Boston:
Academic Press, 1991); Noll, W. and Virga, E. G. Fit regions and functions of bounded variation Archive
for Rational Mechanics and Analysis 102 (1988):121. I am grateful to Jeremy Butterfield for pointing out
these references to me.

18

ternative, incompatible, account? In light of this situation, Zimmerman is in fact very far
from discussing the implications of the even the possible existence of extended bodies. He
is discussing the implications of the possible exemplification of a topological concept made
up by him, one that we now have good reason to believe does not correspond to a reasonable
definition of an extended physical body. It is far from clear what the significance of such a
discussion is.
My own discussion, now, has encroached on a slightly new issue, namely, the point of
metaphysics. I turn, now, to a consideration of this issue.

The point of metaphysics

My proposal that metaphysics should take as its starting point those concepts that are
foundational to science more or less exhausts what I have to say about how, in my view,
metaphysics ought to proceed. However, it is useful to approach the same conclusion from
a slightly different direction, by asking: What is the point of metaphysics?
No doubt some would claim that it is inherently valuable. Indeed, Aristotle seems to
say as much on occasion in the Metaphysics, and in Book 10 of the Nicomachean Ethics
he apparently argues that engaging in something like metaphysics (qewra) is at least
part of the most blessed life, the aim of human existence. Such views raise very weighty
issues, and I am not qualified to say much about them. Suffice it to say that if engaging in
metaphysics plays a role in the most blessed life, then it does, after all, have a point. I will
pause only to notice that under this conception, what would have a point is not the product
of metaphysical thinking, but rather the practice of metaphysics. (For example, Aristotle
argues that contemplation, an activity, is the aim of human existence.)
Let us not consider metaphysics as human activity, but rather metaphysics as the product
of that activity. Does it have a point? Is it good for something? It is hard to know how
to answer this question. We have already seen that, for Aristotle at least, metaphysics
examines, clarifies, and justifies, the principles, or foundations, of the other sciences. It
provides, in modern terminology, the foundations for the special sciences such as physics,
mathematics, and biology, and my proposal more or less follows Aristotle in this conception.
Indeed, we can easily see what he means in at least the practical sense by looking at his own
practice of physics and biology. In both cases, he makes considerable and substantive use of
what are, apparently, the concepts that are clarified and justified by metaphysicsthis like
his own account of substances, his own account of the nature of causality, and so on.
Moreover, I suggested in the previous section that an inquiry into the nature of metaphysics leads naturally to the Aristotelian conception (as I understand it), because metaphysics, necessarily lacking its own principles, can do no better than to take the commitments
of successful scientific theory as its starting point (though determining those commitments
might also be a part of the enterprise). In this section, I shall arrive at a similar conclusion
by way of a conditional principle:
If metaphysics (considered as a product, not as an activity) has a point, then
it must be possible to make correct metaphysical claims, and there must exist
intersubjectively available evidence that bears on the truth of those claims.
19

I am suggesting that unless this principle is true, metaphysics as product does not have a
point, by which I mean that we have no good reasons to accept its conclusions, or to consider
it a worthwhile intellectual pursuit. For suppose that the principle failed. Failure in virtue of
the impossibility of making true metaphysical claims clearly renders it pointless in the sense
just described. Indeed, many argumentsfor example, those made by some positivists
against metaphysics are really arguments that it is impossible to make true statements in
metaphysics (because, for example, those statements may be meaningless). Here, I shall set
such arguments aside, and therefore focus on the condition that there be intersubjectively
available evidence that bears on the truth of those claims. So suppose that this condition fails.
Then, at the very least, the products of metaphysics will not be admissible assumptions in
any intellectual activity that requires the availability of intersubjectively available evidence.
Of course, such activities existpoetry, for example (and bad metaphysics can inspire good
poetry, though perhaps not the best poetry).
But I contend that if (the products of) metaphysics are not subject to evaluation by
intersubjectively available evidence, then those products cannot be a part of any project
of intellectual inquiry, which I take to include giving reasons for claims, which reasons we
ought to acknowledge as reasons for any rational person to believe the claims. My position
on this point is surely controversial, and the statement of the position is itself fraught with
philosophically problematic concepts; I cannot provide a justification of the position, except
by allusion: my view is that intellectual projects are essentially (in the strong sense of that
term) intersubjective. Human inquiry is, in other words, necessarily a group project. Any
attempt to justify this assumption would take us back to those weighty issues about human
nature that I avoided earlier, so here I shall have to take it as an unjustified assumption of
my argument.
What, then, could count as intersubjectively available evidence for metaphysical claims?
And what relation would this evidence bear to the products of metaphysics? Apparently
there are two possible answers to the second question. First, there may be some pieces of
evidence that can server as the premises of some argument whose conclusion is a metaphysical
claim. Second, there may be some pieces of evidence that are the consequences of some
argument whose premises are the products of metaphysics. The former relation is something
like deductive, while the latter is, roughly speaking, hypopthetico-deductive. I inserted the
qualifiers something like and roughly speaking on purpose: I do not mean to suppose
that the relationship between evidence and that for which it is evidence must be logically
deductive, but only that some form of argument can either get us from the evidence to the
evidenced, or from the evidenced to the evidence.
What sorts of evidence could bear one of those relations to the products of metaphysics?
Historically, four sorts have been adduced: theological, logical, mathematical, and empirical.
Let us consider each.
Theological
Many metaphysical arguments have been based on claims about how God must have
done things. In other words, those arguments take the form: God created the cosmos, and
being such-and-such type of being, God could have to have done so in the following way.... I
am dubious that Gods being such-and-such type of being is an intersubjectively available
piece of evidence. The point is not that a God who is prior to, or the source of, all being
20

could not, in effect, serve as the principle of metaphysics itself, from which metaphysics could
derive something about the nature of being. The point, rather, is that it seems we do not
have the sort of epistemic access to such a principle to render appeal to it (i.e., God, or the
nature of God) intersubjectively available.
Logical
On the other hand, sometimes arguments based on an appeal to God, or how God must
have done things, are more of a trope for arguments that are essentially logical. Many
metaphysical arguments, particularly within certain branches of rationalism, take the form:
It is logically necessary that.... But it is unclear how such arguments could ever succeed in
metaphysics, for as we saw in Aristotles defense of the principle of non-contradiction, logical
principles themselves are up for grabs in metaphysics. Indeed, prior to those principles
themselves, we must confront the issue of the nature of logical principles. I believe that
contemporary quantum theory raises this issue in a particularly pressing way, but I leave
that point aside for now. Moreover, from logical principles alone, one presumably cannot
derive anything but further purely logical claimsthe failure of rationalist philosophy should
teach us at least that lesson.
But having committed ourselvesfor whatever reasonsto some logical principles, one
might hope that metaphysics could seek a foundation for those principles. Indeed, we saw
Aristotle make just such an attempt. However, we must be careful about what ought and
ought not be expected, here. Clearly one is not going to derive, in a non-circular way,
logical principles from some more primitive principles. (Aristotle makes no such claim, for
example.) Instead, one is presumably going to justify the principles in some ultimately nonlogical fashion. Various such justifications have been proposed. For example, Dummett31
has claimed that realism requires the law of distributivity in logic. My view, expressed
elsewhere,32 is that the only sorts of justification for the claim that one or another logical principle is true are empirical or mathematical. That is, only by showing that one
or another logical principle makes better sense of the deliverances of empirical science or
mathematics can we provide anything like a compelling account of the truth of some set of
logical principles. I do not have time, here, to pursue that point, however.
Mathematical
Here I think that we are in much the same situation. From purely mathematical claims,
one can surely only derive other mathematical claims. (Some have seemingly failed to notice
this point, and tried to understand, for example, the value of the fine structure constant in
quantum theory in purely mathematical terms.) On the other hand, as I claimed just above,
mathematics can provide some sort of evidence for metaphysics. Above I claimed that it
could do so by serving as evidence in an argument of the form: in order to make sense
of the deliverances of mathematics, one must adopt such-and-such logical principles. Thus
mathematics can provide evidence for metaphysical accounts of the foundations of logic. But
it can also provide a more direct kind of evidence. After all, surely part of metaphysics is
to examine the nature of mathematical objects, for example. While one certainly cannot
31

Dummett, M. (1976). Is Logic Empirical? In Lewis, H., editor, Contemporary British Philosophy,
pages 4568. Allen and Unwin, London.
32
Quantum Logic is Alive (It is True It is False), Philosophy of Science 68 (Supp):274287.

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derive claims about the nature of mathematical objects, in logical or mathematical fashion,
mathematics can serve (and, in the better examples of the metaphysics of mathematical
objects, has served) as evidence for such claims. For example, some philosophers have
argued against a finitist conception of mathematical objects on the grounds that finitism
cannot make sense of certain crucial parts of mathematical practice.
Empirical
The same relation holds, or ought to hold, I argue, between metaphysics and the fourth
sort of evidence traditionally adduced for metaphysical claims, empirical evidence. Many
metaphysical arguments have taken the form: In order to make sense of what we know,
or think we know, about physical reality, we must accept as true such-and-such claim of
metaphysics. And at this point in my argument, I take it as given that the sort of knowledge,
or purported knowledge, that is most worthy of this sort of examination is the knoweldge
provided by science. We return, therefore, to the position that I adopted at the end of the
previous section, namely, that empirical science is the datum that must be respected by
metaphysics, in the roughly hypothetico-deductive sense that I mentioned above.
My argument, in summary, is the following. If metaphysics as product has a point, then
it must be subject to some form of intersubjectively available evidence. Personal intuition
is (by definition) not intersubjectively available. Theological evidence is not either. Logical
evidence is. One cannot derive metaphysical claims from logical principles, but one can,
perhaps, taking a logical principle as given, investigate how best to understand the truth of
the principle. Doing so is a kind of metaphysics. Mathematical evidence is intersubjectively
available. Again, from mathematics one cannot derive metaphysical claims, but one can
investigate how best to understand the truth of some piece of mathematics. Empirical
evidence is intersubjectively available, and serves as evidence for metaphysics in the way I
have already described.
Those who are unfamiliar with the philosophy of the special sciences may have one of
two forms of skepticism about my claim that metaphysics ought to be about the foundations
of the concepts to which science is committed.
First, they may suppose that science just isnt the right sort of thing to play the role
of guide metaphysics in this way. Science is about the empirical, the a posteriori, and in
general about begins qua physical beings, while metaphysics is about the a priori, and in
general about beings qua beings. Doesnt my view stumble over this point?
I dont think that it does, because I dont think that science is restricted in quite that way.
It is true, of course, the empirical investigation characterizes the methods of science. Armchair physics does not have a very noble history, except in those cases where one has already
brought to the armchair a concern with known empirical phenomena. However, metaphysical
propositionsand more generally, propositions that are not strictly derived from empirical
investigation alonemake a crucial appearance in science, indeed in two ways. First, such
propositions often contribute to essential background assumptions. Philosophers and historians of science are, in fact, largely engaged it he project of spelling out the metaphysical
presuppositions of science. Second, and more important for us, metaphysical propositions
often appear in our attempts to understand, to give an account of, the results of empirical
inquiry. Such attempts re, while not perhaps a part of empirical science proper, a crucial
component of the scientific enterprise, for the often guide further theorizing in an essential
22

way. A nice example is afforded by contemporary efforts to formulate a consistent theory of

quantum gravity. These efforts are largely, and often explicitly, guided by the interpretive,
and frequently metaphysical, questions surrounding quantum theory, not to mention another
traditional metaphysical issue, the nature of time.
Note also that be connecting metaphysics to science in this way, we do not thereby
lose altogether the distinctive character of metaphysical claims. Relying on Reichenbachs
distinction between the constitutive and apodeictic senses of the a priori, we can maintain a
constitutive, and in this sense, a priori, status for metaphysics.
Recall that I am considering two objections to this conception of metaphysics. The second
objection admits all I have said thus far, but calls into question my implicit assumption that
science could adjudicate amongst metaphysical principles. In other words, it might be that
science requires foundational principles, and it might be that the proper role of metaphysics
is to provide and examine them, but pretty much any principles will do. Metaphysics would,
in this case, float free of science, though if my argument is correct, it is not clear that it
would then have a point.
I have some sympathy for this objection. After all, there is a bewildering variety of
attempts to provide a metaphysical foundation for quantum theory, for example. From the
outside, at least, it is easy to suppose that the persistence of this varietyits apparent resistance to being trimmed downpoints to the conclusion that pretty much any metaphysics
will do for science.
More or less the same issue comes up within the philosophy of science itself, in the form of
a debate about the underdetermination of theory by evidence, which I think should really
be labeled the underdetermination of interpretation by evidence. There are basically two
routes to the conclusion that the evidence, namely, the results of empirical investigation, do
not uniquely imply any given interpretation, though the question is acutely complication by
the fact that, as I have pointed out, those results often already involve certain interpretational
presuppositions. The first route is logical, the claim being that any system of propositions is
open to so-called non-standard models, so that, as a point of logic, multiple interpretations
of the empirical facts will always be available. The second route is based on the actual
variety of interpretations that seems to exist at any given moment in the history of science,
and proceeds by asking the rhetorical question What reason do we have for thinking that
this variety will ever be reduced to a single alternative?
I certainly do not want to get side-tracked into a long discussion of this debate; for the
purposes of this discussion, I think it is enough to assert my own view of the matter.33 The
logical route falters precisely because it is purely logical. The logical point being conceded,
we can still suppose that some criteria beyond that of mere logical consistency with the
empirical facts will rule out some interpretations. Indeed, philosophy of physics, along with
the philosophy of other special sciences, does operate under this assumption. A proposed
interpretation must be fruitful for further investigation. it must contribute to understanding.
And so on. Of course, spelling out these and other criteria in detail is itself a difficult task,
33

Some additional discussion is in my The Light at the End of the Tunneling: Observation and Underdetermination, Philosophy of Science 66 (Supp):47-58).

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but one that I shall leave aside here.34

The second route to underdetermination I find considerably more convincing, but also
insufficient to establish the claim that underdetermination rules out the possibility that
science can adjudicate amongst metaphysical propositions (in the sense already described,
that is, by its fundamental requirements conflicting with those propositions); for the actual
variety of interpretations in scienceor at least, the actual variety of interpretations that are
live optionscan rule out some metaphysical propositions. Moreover, this variety can change
over time in a way that rules out further interpretationsphilosophy of the special sciences
is, after all, largely concerned with developing such interpretations to the point where they
can be either plausibly accepted or rued out. It may turn out, for example, that one can
understand general relativity only under the assumption that space-time is itself some sort
of substanceexactly this question is actively debated by philosophers of physics, and we
can see, in the history of the debate during the twentieth century, something like progress.
We understand the issues now better than we did 50 years ago (largely thanks, of course, to
work done 50 years ago). Moreover, that progress is closely connected with developments in
science, for example, the realization of the existence of Godelian space-times, the so-called
hole argument, and so on. In these cases, science has served as a datum for metaphysics,
in the literal sense of datumit may well turn out that any metaphysics that fails to make
space-time out as a substance is just wrong, and is wrong because such a metaphysics cannot
make sense of science.
What about those areas of metaphysics that do not, apparently, have any implications
for science? What about metaphysical debates about, for example, what it means to be a
part, or what it is to be identical with something, or any of a number of highly abstract
questions apparently irrelevant to science? I am open to the conclusion that these debates in
fact have no point, though I think that this conclusion can be reached too hastily. Quantum
theoryjust to take the example most familiar to memay well require such accounts. For
example, there have been recent discussions about what version, if any, of the Principle of
the Identity of Indiscernibles is required for a proper understanding of certain quantummechanical phenomena.

An illustration

I have already considered, in passing, some specific cases where science can provide evidence
concerning metaphysical questions. To conclude, I shall consider an example in slightly more
detail, though only slightly more detail. I merely wish to indicate, by example, the claims
that I have been making.
My example comes from Peter van Inwagens book Material Beings, which is, unsurprisingly, an attempt to say what counts as a material object. More precisely, van Inwagen is
concerned to answer the following question, which he calls the Special Composition Question:
34

In The Light at the End of the Tunneling (op. cit.), I argue that expressibility in a certain kind of
mathematical formalism plays a crucial role, at least in physics.

24

Suppose one had certain (nonoverlapping) objects, the xs, at ones disposal: what
would one have to dowhat could one doto get the xs to compose something?
(p. 31)
By way of explanation, he continues:
For example: Suppose that one has a lot of wooden blocks that one may do with
as one wills; what must one do to get the blocks to add up to something? (p.
31)
After considering, and rejecting, a number of answers to this question, most of them involving
the idea that the wooden blocks must be bonded together in some appropriate way, van
Inwagen proposes the following answer to his question, which I have translated from logicese back into English:
The xs compose some y if and only if the activity of the xs constitutes a life (of
there is only one of the xs). (p. 82, paraphrased)
As van Inwagen recognizes, it is now incumbent upon him to say what it means for the
activity of the xs to constitute a life, which he takes to involve two tasks: saying what it
is for the activity of the xs to constitute any event at all, and then saying what it is for an
event to be a life. He says little about the former, but he does have something to say about
the latter.
I am not concerned with what he says, but rather with what he does not say. Indeed,
my main concern is to point out that biology and the philosophy of biology are, apparently,
relevant to his project. In particular, if van Inwagens definition of what it is to be a life
cannot make sense of biological practice, if it cannot make sense of our best attempts to
study the subject of the definition (living beings), if it cannot be part of a foundation for
biology, then, I say, his definition should be judged wrong. If I am incorrect in making this
claimif it is open for van Inwagen to say no matter how my account fairs with respect
to the foundations of biology, it is the correct account of what constitutes a lifethen
apparently there is no intersubjectively available evidence external to metaphysics itself (or
indeed van Inwagens and his readers intuition) that can bear on the correctness of the
account, and in that case, I am willing to say that it does not have a point (for reasons
already discussed). And in fact van Inwagen does not consider how his account fairs with
respect to the foundations of biology.
Now, van Inwagen does say that it is the business of biology (p. 83) to provide a full
account of life, and yet he goes on to claim that he does have something useful (p. 84) to
say on the matter. In my view, there are two problems with van Inwagens strategy. First,
while it is certainly true, in a sense, that it is the business of biology to provide the full
account of life, at the same time, it is not the business of biology to provide a foundational
understanding of this concept or of the theories of life that form part of biology. Those
jobs (while sometimes performed by the same people) are better conceived as a part of the
philosophy of biology, or that part of it that is concerned with the metaphysical foundations
of biology. Second, and more to the point of our present concerns, van Inwagen makes no
25

attempt to say how his own definition might be a part of those foundations. In other words,
he proceeds, apparently, entirely on the basis of personal intuition, not subjecting his account
to the only sort of evidence that (if my argument here is correct) could be relevant. Cameron
puts the point well:
My objection to van Inwagens account is not with his description of the
output of his intuitions; I have a great deal of sympathy for his judgements in
these cases. My problem is rather that this isnt an account of life at all, it is
simply a reporting of intuitions. We know (let us agree) that lives are reasonably
well individuated compared to flames, but we dont know why. We know (let us
agree) that lives are jealous whereas waves are not, but not why. Van Inwagen
may of course respond to this criticism by noting that it is the scientists, not
the philosophers, who will eventually reveal to us why these things are true of
lives, but if he applies this strategy then it is unclear what he supposes that his
own account accomplishes. If traditional philosophical methods have something
to contribute to our search for lifes definition, then it must be more robust than
this survey of features intuitively associated with being alive. Genuine analyses
must do more than report on the contours of our intuitions. . . . 35
There is another, perhaps more subtle, consequence of van Inwagens account, one that
is relevant to physics. As van Inwagen discusses in great detail later in the book, his account
seems to imply that the only material things that exist, that are truly material objects, that
belong, as Lous might say, in our official philosophical inventory of what exists, are living
beings and simples (i.e., beings that are not composed of other beings). One consequence of
this view, which van Inwagen accepts, is that his official philosophical inventory is very much
smaller than the inventory that ordinary speakers of English appear to adopt. He writes:
There are certain properties that a thing would have to have to be properly called
a table on anyones understanding of the word, and nothing has all fo these properties. If aything did have them, it would be real, a true object, actually a thing,
a substance, a unified whole, and something more than a collection of particles.
But nothing does. If there were tables, they would be composite material objects,
and every composite material object is a real, a true object, actually a thing, a
substance, a unified whole, and something more than a collection of particles.
But there are no tables. (p. 100)
Van Inwagen is concerned to make this point clear, because he is implicitly accepting the
Principle of Commitment. He takes as a serious objection the possibility that his own account
cannot make sense of the presuppositions of ordinary speakers of English. He thinks that
his account can, however, make sense of ordinary practice. He writes:
My position, therefore, is that when people say things in the ordinary business
of life by uttering sentences that start There are charis . . . or There are stars
35

Cameron, Richard. Teleology in Aristotle and Contemporary Philosophy of Biology: An Account of

the Nature of Life, PhD Dissertation, University of Colorado, Boulder, p. 18.

26

. . . , they very often say things that are literally true. . . . I can say this because I
accept certain theses in the philosophy of language.
You can probably imagine what those theses are, more or less. They also render a statement
such as the sun rose this morning literally true, even when uttered by Copernicus, and the
heat flowed from the cup even when uttered by an advocate of the kinetic theory of heat.
I have already indicated that it is unclear why we should worry about the presuppositions
of ordinary speakers of English (or any other language), unless, perhaps, we are psychologists,
or linguists of a sort. In any case, if van Inwagen is concerned to respect those utterances, why
is he silent on the utterances of science, utterances that are vastly more carefully considered?
There are two points to make here.
First, it is not obvious whether his account is consistent with the practice of science.
On first glance, it would appear to be consistent with at least a great deal of physics. For
example, the physicist too might well deny that chairs exist as independent things, in the
appropriate sensethey are just collections of particles. The proper objects of investigation
for the physicist are not chairs, but something else, perhaps fundamental particles, perhaps
fields of some sort. However, there is at the same time some reason, from physics, to be
concerned about van Inwagens general claim. For example, quantum theory tells us that
some pairs of particles can be entangled with one another in a way that does strongly
suggest that the pair is something more than a collection of the two particles. Indeed, some
philosophers of physics have argued that the only way to make sense of quantum theory is
to suppose that such pairs are, in some relevant metaphysical sense, one thing. In other
words, it is an open, and very difficult, question whether physics can always be understood
as proceeding on the assumption that the composite, non-living, material objects are always,
in his words, never something more than a collection of particles.
Second, the linguistic ploy the van Inwagen uses to square his account with everyday
presuppositions does not look very plausible in the case of the foundations of science. After
all, that ploy relies, apparently, on the idea that the language we use in conducting the
business of everyday life does not directly express or refelct the way things really are,
fundamentally, presumably because in fact we do not use language to express such things,
nor do we reflect on such things in the course of conducting the business of everyday life.
But similar remarks do not hold for the assertions of those who are engaged in an attempt to
provide or understand the foundations of science, for those assertions are uttered in a context
in which one is concerned with what, fundamentally, exists, and in which one has engaged
in a certain amount of reflection on that question. Indeed, scientists and those engaged in
understanding the foundations of science often feel compelled to develop a special language
precisely in order to discuss, as unambiguously as they can, what, fundamentally, exists.
In other words, there is no distinction, in this case, between what scientific theories and
their interpretations appear to be saying about the nature of reality, and what they are
actually saying about the nature of reality, so that if there is an apparent conflict between
the assertions of these enterprises and van Inwagens theory, then there is a real conflict.
More generally, my claim is that, while rarely if ever directly, conflict can arise between
science and metaphysics, in the ways I have described, and just as science should try its best
to generate conflict between itself and the empirical evidence, so also metaphysics should try
27

its best to generate conflict between itself and science. Doing so entails taking serious note
of the science. Only in this way can we legitimately claim to put our theoriesscientific or
metaphysicalto the test. Only in this way can we honestly ask for the assent of others to
our theories.

References
See footnotes. Further references available on request.

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