Minimal Metaphysics for Scientific Practice

Provides a minimal metaphysics for scientific practice, yielding new accounts of lawhood, causation and reduction.

List of contents

Introduction; 1. Laws of nature and their modal surface structure; 2. The problem of ceteris paribus clauses; 3. Causation ¿ conceptual groundwork; 4. Causation ¿ application and augmentation; 5. Reductive practices; 6. Reduction and physical foundationalism; 7. Reduction and ontological monism; 8. Concluding remarks: methods and epistemic sources in metaphysics.

About the author

Andreas Hüttemann is Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Cologne. He is the author of What's Wrong with Microphysicalism? (2004) and Ursachen (2013), and has published many book chapters and journal articles on metaphysics, philosophy of science and early modern philosophy.

Summary

This book provides a minimal metaphysics for scientific practice, i.e. one that refrains from postulating any structure that is explanatorily irrelevant. Hüttemann analyses central aspects of scientific practice, such as prediction, explanation and manipulation, to consider whether and (if so) what presuppositions best account for these practices.

Foreword

Provides a minimal metaphysics for scientific practice, yielding new accounts of lawhood, causation and reduction.

Product details

• Authors: Andreas Huttemann, Andreas Hüttemann
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.08.2023
• EAN: 9781009010436
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0901043-6
• No. of pages: 240
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Natural sciences (general); Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: general, reference works; PHILOSOPHY / Epistemology, PHILOSOPHY / Metaphysics, SCIENCE / Philosophy & Social Aspects, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy: metaphysics & ontology, Philosophy: metaphysics and ontology, Philosophy: epistemology & theory of knowledge, Philosophy: epistemology and theory of knowledge