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Zusatztext Chakravartty's book is a delight. His combination of realism in metaphysics and voluntarism in epistemology gives him a uniquely insightful approach to all the issues concerning scientific realism and what Chakravartty calls its unavoidable dilemmas. I regard this as required reading for anyone intent on continuing the debate. Informationen zum Autor Anjan Chakravartty is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, where he works on topics in the philosophy of science, metaphysics, and epistemology. He is the Director of the John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values, the Editor in Chief of the journal Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, and has taught previously at the Universities of Toronto and Cambridge. Klappentext Though science and philosophy take different approaches to ontology, metaphysical inferences are relevant to interpreting scientific work, and empirical investigations are relevant to philosophy. This book argues that there is no uniquely rational way to determine which domains of ontology are appropriate for belief, making room for choice in a transformative account of scientific ontology. Zusammenfassung Though science and philosophy take different approaches to ontology, metaphysical inferences are relevant to interpreting scientific work, and empirical investigations are relevant to philosophy. This book argues that there is no uniquely rational way to determine which domains of ontology are appropriate for belief, making room for choice in a transformative account of scientific ontology. Inhaltsverzeichnis Preface Part I Naturalized Metaphysics Chapter 1: Ontology: scientific and meta-scientific 1.1 Scientific and philosophical conceptions of ontology 1.2 Deflationary ontology: historicism; sociology; pragmatics 1.3 Ontological limits: empiricism; scientific realism; metaphysics 1.4 Do case studies of science settle ontological disputes? 1.5 Examples of the robustness of ontology under cases Chapter 2: Science and metaphysics, then and now 2.1 Ontology and the nature of metaphysical inference 2.2 Is modern science inherently metaphysical? 2.3 Epistemic stances regarding scientific ontology 2.4 Metaphysical inferences: lowercase 'm' versus capital 'M' 2.5 The (possible) autonomy of (some) metaphysics from science Chapter 3: Naturalism and the grounding metaphor 3.1 In hopes of a demarcation of scientific ontology 3.2 On conflating the a priori with that which is prior 3.3 How not to naturalize metaphysical inferences 3.4 Unpacking the metaphors: "grounding" and "distance" 3.5 On the distinction between theorizing and speculating Part II Illustrations and Morals Chapter 4: Dispositions: science as a basis for scientific ontology 4.1 How dispositions manifest in the philosophy of science 4.2 Explanatory power I: unifying aspects of scientific realism 4.3 Explanatory power II: giving scientific explanations 4.4 Explanatory power III: consolidating scientific knowledge 4.5 Property identity and the actual power of explanatory power Chapter 5: Structures: science as a constraint on scientific ontology 5.1 Thinking about ontology in the domain of fundamental physics 5.2 Situating an ontological inquiry into subatomic "particles" 5.3 Structuralist interpretations of the metaphysics of particles 5.4 Reasoning about ontological bedrock: an unavoidable dilemma 5.5 Dissolving the dilemma: the variability of belief and suspension Part III: Voluntarist Epistemology Chapter 6: Knowledge under ontological uncertainty 6.1 Inconsistent ontologies and incompatible beliefs 6.2 Belief and ontological pluralism: perspectival knowledge? 6.3 A trilemma for perspectivism: irrelevant; unstable; incoherent 6.4 Two kinds of context-transcendent pluralism about ontology 6.5 Ontologi...
