Daisuke Kachi

The widespread mistrust of metaphysics-the main obstacle to the unification of physics and philosophy-is based on the myth that metaphysical claims cannot be falsified or verified, because they are supposedly true independently of empirical knowledge. This is not true of metaphysical naturalism, whose approach is to critically reflect on the theories and findings of all the empirical disciplines and abstract from them a theory about such general features of reality that no single empirical discipline can be the authority on. Causation is such a feature, since its instances include anything from planetary motions to particle interactions, chemical reactions, biological functions, and closing a door. Consequently, a general account of causation is beyond any particular empirical discipline. Metaphysical naturalism takes a meta-perspective on the results of the empirical sciences and attempts to figure out how it fits together in a coherent whole, e.g. by offering a general account of causation. General accounts of this kind are falsifiable in so far as the theories are falsifiable from which they are generalizations. The paper also discusses some fundamental metaphysical principles implicitly assumed by the sciences generally, and why they imply that unification is methodologically virtuous.

Kit Fine is an English philosopher who is among the most important philosophers of the turn of the millennium. He is perhaps most influential for reinvigorating a neo-Aristotelian turn within contemporary analytic philosophy. Fine’s prolific work is characterized by a unique blend of logical acumen, respect for appearances, ingenious creativity, and originality. His vast corpus is filled with numerous significant contributions to metaphysics, philosophy of language, logic, philosophy of mathematics, and the history of philosophy. Although Fine is well-known for favoring ideas familiar from the neo-Aristotelian tradition (such as dependence, essence, and hylomorphism), his work is most distinctive for its methodology. Fine’s general view is that metaphysics is not best approached through the study of language Roughly put, Fine’s approach focuses on providing a rigorous account of the apparent phenomena themselves, and not just how we represent them in language or thought, prior to any attempt to discern the reality underlying them. Furthermore, a strong and ecumenical respect for the intelligible options, demands patience for the messy details, even when they resist tidying or systematization. All this leads to a steadfastness in refusing to allow epistemic qualms about how we know what we seem to know interferes with our attempts to clarify just what it is that we seem to know. This article surveys the wide variety of Fine’s rich and creative contributions to philosophy, and it conveys what Fine’s distinctive methodology is and how it informs his contributions to philosophy.