Naturalistic Metaphysics and the Parity Thesis: Why Scientific Realism Doesn't Lead to Realism about Metaphysics

TL;DR

This paper critically examines the parity thesis, which claims that naturalists should hold the same epistemic attitudes towards science and metaphysics, and argues for a more nuanced relationship between them.

Contribution

It challenges Emery's inference from scientific realism to metaphysical realism, proposing a more complex view of their relationship within naturalistic philosophy.

Findings

The parity thesis is widely accepted among naturalists.

Reasons are provided to resist the inference from scientific realism to metaphysical realism.

A nuanced view of science and metaphysics relationship is proposed.

Abstract

In recent work, Nina Emery has defended the view that, in the context of naturalistic metaphysics, one should maintain the same epistemic attitude towards science and metaphysics. That is, naturalists who are scientific realists ought to be realists about metaphysics as well; and naturalists who are antirealists about science should also be antirealists about metaphysics. We call this the `parity thesis'. This paper suggests that the parity thesis is widely, albeit often implicitly, accepted among naturalistically inclined philosophers, and essentially for reasons similar to Emery's. Then, reasons are provided for resisting Emery's specific inference from scientific realism to realism about metaphysics. The resulting picture is a more nuanced view of the relationship between science and metaphysics within the naturalistic setting than the one which is currently most popular.