The Metaphysics of Nature, Science, and the Rules of Engagement

Abstract

Compositional explanations in the sciences have been amazingly successful. Given their success, I outline a strategy focused on such compositional explanation that I term “Engagement” that I argue offers the best prospects for illuminating the compositional concepts of such explanations and also the metaphysics of nature itself. In contrast, I show the prominent philosophical accounts of verticality all fail to follow Engagement and hence provide inadequate accounts of verticality in compositional explanation and nature. I also detail how a minority approach in philosophy, that does follow Engagement, offers the most promising account of verticality in science and nature. My conclusion is that in the future, philosophers interested in the metaphysics of nature, and scientific composition, need to follow the rules of Engagement. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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