Abstract

Metaphysics, having long since recovered the logical positivist/empiricist objections that were supposed to signal its death, is once again coming under sustained criticism, and from a similar direction. Once it was realised that speculative systematic metaphysics needn’t be abandoned in light of empiricist scruples, metaphysics flourished. But it’s become increasingly clear that, even if the logical empiricists didn’t exactly get their objections right, there is something worrying about the evidential basis for contemporary metaphysics. Not that metaphysicians are unaware of this. There is lots of recent activity in metametaphysics, and much of this research is more or less connected to worries about whether we can have evidence in favour of a metaphysical hypothesis. Roughly: there are alternative views according to which metaphysical disputes variously..