Inductive Metaphysics

Inductive Metaphysics (IM) is a comparatively new branch of metaphysics that justifies metaphysical principles by inductive or abductive inferences from empirical evidence, rather than by purely logico-conceptual considerations. This is the first volume to provide a representative picture of current research and debates in this branch of metaphysics. Metaphysics was traditionally conceived as a purely conceptual, a priori enterprise. Besides the traditional view, there has always been the opposite view of metaphysics as an a posteriori discipline, but it was not until the 19th century that an a posteriori understanding of metaphysics was turned into a philosophical program entitled "Inductive Metaphysics". The program of IM argues that premises in metaphysical arguments should rely on empirical data and that inductive and abductive inferences are legitimate methods in metaphysics. This volume explores IM as a continuously expanding and highly topical field of metaphysics with contributions in virtually all domains of the discipline. The chapters are divided into six thematic sections. It starts with a section on the increasing role of IM in the history of philosophy and in contemporary philosophy. The next section addresses the central role of the method of abduction for IM, followed by a section on the relation of IM to metaphysical accounts of grounding, explanation, and evidence, and a section on IM and the formation of concepts. The last two sections cover the applications of IM in physics and in the life sciences. Inductive Metaphysics will appeal to scholars and graduate students working in metaphysics, philosophy of science, epistemology, logic, and cognitive science. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) 4.0 International license. Funded by DFG (research unit FOR 2495, project number SCHU 1566/13-1) and Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf (Open Access Fund).

Andreas Hüttemann is a Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Cologne. He is the author of A Minimal Metaphysics for Scientific Practice (2021) and has published many book chapters and journal articles on metaphysics, philosophy of science and early modern philosophy. Gerhard Schurz is a Senior Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the Heinrich Heine University of Düsseldorf. He has published more than 270 research papers and 12 books, including Philosophy of Science (Routledge 2014), Hume's Problem Solved (2019), and Optimality Justifications (2024).

Introduction to the Contributions List of Contributors Part 1: Inductive Metaphysics in the History of Philosophy and Contemporary Philosophy 1. Inductive Metaphysics: Reconstruction and Defence 2. Inductive Metaphysics in Contemporary Philosophy: Insights, Challenges, and Prospects 3. Inductive Metaphysics in the Context of Two Movements: Critical Realism and Logical Empiricism 4. Inductive Reasoning in Kant's Metaphysics of Nature Part 2: Inductive Metaphysics and the Method of Abduction 5. The Indefeasibility of Abduction 6. Logical Abductivism: Challenges and Prospects 7. Abduction in Philosophy of Mind Part 3: Ground, Explanation, and Data in the Context of Inductive Metaphysics 8. Inductive Metaphysics: Lessons for the Notion of Ground 9. Skepticism about Metaphysical Explanation 10. Data, Curve-Fitting, and Model-Building in the Metaphysics of Laws and Causation Part 4: Inductive Metaphysics and the Formation of Concepts 11. Naturalness and Concept Learning: Recent Progress and Prospects 12. Conceptual Re-Engineering for Inductive Metaphysicians Part 5: Inductive Metaphysics in the Philosophy of Physics 13. Simplicity as a Guide to Scientific Metaphysics: Insights from Physics 14. On Solving the Problem of the Direction of Time Part 6: Inductive Metaphysics in the Philosophy of the Life Sciences 15. Causal Bases of Potentialities in the Life Sciences: Extrinsicality, Multi-levelness, and Processuality 16. Metaphysics of Evolution and the Propensity Concept of Fitness