The many Metaphysics within Physics. Essay review of 'The Metaphysics within Physics' by Tim Maudlin

摘要

Tim Maudlin’s new book The Metaphysics within Physics (Oxford University Press,2007)collects six essays by one of the most thoughtful and original minds working in the philosophy of physics nowadays.Some had previously circulated informally for years.For example,Chapter 1(‘A Modest Proposal Concerning Laws,Counterfactuals and Explanations’)is as old as my own philosophical career—I recall reading a draft in the early 1990s.The mere publication of such a long-awaited collection is there-fore already good news.In addition,the degree of coherence and the lack of redundancy are greater than one would expect from a collection of disparate essays written at diverse times and with a range of different targets.The whole book can be understood coherently as an extended argument in favor of a particular‘physics-based’methodology for in quiry in metaphysics.This methodology recommends a detailed and thorough analysis of current physics as a benchmark for any thesis,dispute or argument in metaphysics.It follows that proper metaphysical inquiry must be suitably informed not just about the current state of play in analytical metaphysics but also about the current state of development of the relevant part of present day physics.