Book Description

This volume brings together the lectures presented at the 5th Metaphysics of Science Workshop held from June 2 to 3, 2005, in Ghent, Belgium. The aim of this volume is twofold. First, it fields a selection of ongoing discussions on a central topic in contemporary analytical metaphysics. Authors were asked to encapsulate their lecture topic into a pr(r)cis, highlighting the contesting views, accentuating the pro and contra of the main arguments, and shedding light on the origin, the evolution and the eventual offspring of a respective discussion. Second, this volume addresses the methodological question by examining what can be learned if we compare these discussions from a methodological perspective. What are the red herrings and shortcomings? Is an integrated methodology possible? Does each discussion finally await a pluralism of plausible positions or will an overall convincing account be expected? And finally, can analytical metaphysics methodologically assert and investigate their basic assumptions, if not from a common sense stance?. Sample Chapter(s). Chapter 1: Worldviews, Science and Us: Studies of Analytical Metaphysics. A Selection of Topics From a Methodological Perspective (55 KB). Contents: Worldviews, Science and Us: Studies of Analytical Metaphysics. A Selection of Topics from a Methodological Perspective (R Vanderbeeken & B D''Hooghe); Introduction: Contemporary Analytic Metaphysics, Its Crisis and Challenge (R Vanderbeeken); Holism and Structural Realism (M Esfeld & V Lam); Common Sense, Relativity and Theories of Time (P Dowe); Purely Dispositional Worlds (S-H Choi); Natural Kinds OCo What Are They? (J OdrowaOCoSypniewska); Personal Identity, Conceptual Analysis and No-Fault Disagreement (C West); A World of Tropes? (A-S Maurin); Causal Pluralism (S Psillos); Why Social Emergence? Discussing the Use of Analytical Metaphysics in Social Theory (J Van Bouwel); Counterfactuals, Causation and Humean Supervenience (P Noordhof); Disentangling Causal Pluralism (L de Vreese); Mathematical Entities (L Decock). Readership: Physics, chemists and material scientist