Inductive Metaphysics: Insights, Challenges, and Prospects

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.