Chapter 3 Aim-Oriented Empiricism: Exposition, and Implications for Science and the Philosophy of Science

Abstract

In this chapter I outline the second wave of my work on the metaphysics of science. Physics only ever accepts unified theories. This means, I realized, that physics makes a big, influential, highly problematic metaphysical assumption about the nature of the universe: it has some kind of underlying unity. Precisely because this assumption is influential and problematic – no more than a conjecture – it is vital that it is made explicit and critically assessed as an integral part of physics itself, in an attempt to improve it. We need, I came to realize, a new kind of science which represents the metaphysical presuppositions of physics in the form of a hierarchy of assumptions, and actively seeks to improve the most substantial and problematic of these assumptions, low down in the hierarchy, as an integral part of physics itself. This new conception of science – aim-oriented empiricism – puts physics and metaphysics together to recreate natural philosophy. Major, outstanding problems in the philosophy of science, including the problem of induction, are solved by this new conception of science. It has revolutionary implications for research in the metaphysics of science. I spell out twenty implications this new conception of science has for research in the metaphysics of science.