Rethinking Metaphysics

Abstract This book aims to change how we think about what metaphysics can do, and why it matters. Traditionally, metaphysics has been presented as aiming to discover deep truths about the world. But this leads to a rivalry with science, mysteries about how we could gain this knowledge, and a despairing skepticism about our ability to gain knowledge in metaphysics. Rethinking Metaphysics diagnoses the problems with traditional and many recent approaches to metaphysics as arising from a problematic assumption that all discourse functions in the same way. By drawing on work in linguistics, it shows how to develop a richer view of linguistic functions that enables us to see why this assumption leads us astray. A better understanding of the plurality of linguistic functions also enables us to disentangle ourselves from many old metaphysical problems. In place of the traditional model, we should think of metaphysics as work in conceptual engineering—including both reverse-engineering projects aimed at understanding how various parts of our language and conceptual scheme work and what functions they serve, and constructive-engineering projects that investigate what concepts and language we should use. Rethinking metaphysics as conceptual engineering in this way enables us to avoid the problems of traditional views of metaphysics, while also demonstrating the perennial importance of metaphysics to human life. For how we think and talk is centrally important to how we live and to how we organize our societies and our investigations. And our ways of thinking and speaking must constantly be rethought in situations of new knowledge, new technology, and evolving needs.