James Ladyman, Don Ross.
Every Thing Must Go: metaphysics naturalized.
OUP. 2007
Every Thing Must Go argues that the only kind of metaphysics
that can contribute to objective knowledge is one based specifically on
contemporary science as it really is,
and not on philosophers’ a priori intuitions, common sense, or simplifications of science.
In addition to showing how recent metaphysics has drifted away
from connection with all other serious scholarly inquiry as a result of not heeding this restriction,
Ladyman and Ross demonstrate how to build a metaphysics compatible with
current fundamental physics (‘ontic structural realism’), which,
when combined with their metaphysics of the special sciences (‘rainforest realism’),
can be used to unify physics with the other sciences without reducing these sciences to physics itself.
Taking science metaphysically seriously, they argue, means that metaphysicians must abandon
the picture of the world as composed of self-subsistent individual objects,
and the paradigm of causation as the collision of such objects.
Every Thing Must Go also assesses the role of information theory and complex systems theory in attempts to explain the relationship between the special sciences and physics, treading a middle road between the grand synthesis of thermodynamics and information, and eliminativism about information. The consequences of the authors’ 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.
