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Binding: HardcoverDewey Decimal Number: 110 EAN: 9780199276196 Edition: 1 ISBN: 0199276196 Label: Oxford University Press, USA Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 320 Publication Date: August 23, 2007 Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA Studio: Oxford University Press, USA Related Items:
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Product Description: Every Thing Must Go aruges 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, they demonstrate how to build a metaphysics compatible with current fundamental phsyics ("ontic structural realism"), which, when combined with their metaphysics of the special sciences ("rainforet realism"), can be used to unify physics with the other sciences without reducing these sciences to physics intself. Taking science metaphysically seriously, Ladyman and Ross 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 author's 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 Average Rating:
 Rating: - Every Thing Must GoEverything Must Go is bold attempt to replace our standard metaphysical picture of the world with a radically different view. The motivation for this change comes from taking science, and especially fundamental physics, seriously. The basic structure of the book is as follows. The authors begin by calling into question the methodology of current "armchair" metaphysics. A new naturalistic methodology is proposed according to which the goal of metaphysics is to unify the various sciences. Using ... Read More Rating: - a new metaphysics means new hope...I read this book after Craig Dilworth's "The Metaphysics of Science." Whereas Dilworth concludes something different has to follow the current state of physics, this book provides a good candidate for what that something different may consist of. Ladyman and Ross appreciate what's at stake here. If you get your metaphysics wrong, then you can get nothing else right. That alone makes the struggle to develop a metaphysics grounded in state of the art science worth bothering with. ... Read More 
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