James Ladyman and Don Ross, Everything Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), x + 346 Pps., $99.00.
James Ladyman is a professor at the University of Bristol, while Don Ross is a professor at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. Although many philosophers of the twentieth century regarded metaphysics as a relic of history, it has never ceased to be done, despite charges to the contrary. The question is, the authors argue, how it was done. In this title, the two authors make a case for a truly naturalistic metaphysics. In so doing, they aim to unify hypotheses and theories that are taken seriously by contemporary science. They argue that contemporary analytic metaphysics fails to qualify as part of the enlightened pursuit of objective truth, and thus should be discontinued. Every Thing Must Go argues that the only kind of metaphysics that can contribute to objective knowledge is one based on contemporary science as it really is in reality, and not on philosophers’ a priori intuitions, common sense, or simplifications of science.
Chapter one, admittedly by the authors, is destructive in its aim: it intends to persuade the reader that standard analytic metaphysics (they call it ‘neo-scholastic’ metaphysics) contributes absolutely nothing to human knowledge, and even misrepresents the relative significance of what we do know on the basis of science. They argue that there is no reason to think that humanity’s habitual intuitions and inferential responses are well designed for either science or metaphysics. Moreover, there are grounds today to assert that what Plato, Descartes, and others held as innate is not, but is rather a developmental and educational achievement instead. On the contrary, science is often counterintuitive and against common sense. In this first chapter, they explain and defend their particular form of naturalism, as well as their view of the relationship between physics and the remainder of science. Additionally, they lay out their guiding principle for the entire book, one which they name the principle of naturalistic closure (PNC), and in so doing, they align themselves with Peirce and his pragmatic philosophy, the essence of which claims that one is not able to intuit or induct beyond that which is able to be investigated by current science.
The second chapter is more philosophically-inclined, and seeks to construct the foundations for the authors’ metaphysics, one which is based on what they call ‘ontic structural realism’ (OSR). They contend that this OSR position is the best synthesis of several decades of reflection and argument in the philosophy of science on the debate between empiricists and scientific realists, and one which is based on Perciean verificationism. They define standard scientific realism in this chapter, identify arguments for it and against, and then defend a form of it (i.e. their own OSR). According to the OSR view, our best physical theories tell us only about structure – not entities – because there are no entities, as per se.
Chapters three and four make up the heart of the author’s constructive naturalistic metaphysics, and are characteristically dense reading, reading that should not be taken lightly. Chapter three asks which among possible unifying principles are motivated by advanced physical theory as it is now found. They claim that relational structure is ontologically subsistent and that individual objects are not (148). They also seek to show herein that OSR is directly motivated by the current physical theory, namely quantum theory and general relativity, which is a demonstration of their argument from chapter one that the input for philosophizing about science must come from science itself. Chapter four inquires as to how the general image of reality that is suggested by fundamental physics can be reconciled with the special sciences that have different theoretical structures and commitments. On the basis of their inquiries at the beginning of chapter four, they propose a relatively lush theory of ontology that they call ‘Rainforest Realism’ (RR). Based on chapters three and four, the authors contend that neither physics nor the special sciences should be based on an individualist metaphysics, but on a relational metaphysics instead.
Chapter five shows how their naturalistic metaphysics, composed of a combination of OSR and RR achieves consilience among various sciences regarding the interpretation of causal claims, the status of scientific laws, principles of classification, predictive and explanatory generalizations. It is in this chapter that their combined position of naturalistic metaphysics is entitled ‘Information-Theoretic Structural Realism’ (ITSR). The concluding chapter, number six, orients the authors’ metaphysics to work done by other philosophers, and consider traditional points of issue between realism and empiricism, noting that at times they side with realism, while at other times they side with empiricism, which explains why they regard their view as a kind of ‘neo-positivism’.
In sum, taking science metaphysically seriously, Ladyman and Ross argue, means that one must abandon the picture of the world as composed of self-subsistent individual objects, as well as the paradigm of causation as the collision of such objects. The consequences of the author’s metaphysical theory for central issues in the philosophy of science are explored, including the implications for the realism vs. empiricism debate, the role of causation in scientific explanations, the nature of causation and laws, the status of abstract and virtual objects, and the objective reality of natural kinds. The single most important point of the two authors within this text seems to be that taking the conventional philosophical model of an individual as being equivalent to the model of an existent mistakes practical convenience for metaphysical generalization. To those readers who have sympathies with Peirce’s verificationism and realism in general, this book will be well received; but for those who are anti-realists or pure empiricists, many things contained herein would proverbially inflame you. Nevertheless, I recommend it without hesitation.
Bradford McCall, Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA.