Naturalizing Metaphysics

Quine’s negative characterization of naturalism as the rejection of first philosophy invites the question of why he believes that first philosophy ought to be dismissed. This chapter discusses Quine’s position vis-à-vis traditional metaphysics. It concludes that Quine’s views on metaphysics are subtler than is often presupposed; both the received view that Quine saved metaphysics and the opposite view that Carnap and Quine are on the same antimetaphysical team are too one-sided if we take seriously Quine’s own pronouncements on the issue. The chapter offers a detailed reconstruction of Quine’s naturalistic perspective on metaphysical existence claims and shows how he is able to both blur the boundary between scientific sense and metaphysical nonsense and to argue that we cannot ask what reality is really like in a distinctively philosophical way.