1. How does pragmatic, science-based metaphysics relate to contemporary analytic metaphysics? Can they coexist?
2. Assuming (as I do, though of course this may be subject to debate) that a pragmatic metaphysics should be pluralistic, is pluralism merely a reflection of the partiality of scientific representations, or are there respects in which it reflects something important about reality?
3. Is the world composed of things (substances), processes or both? If both is either ontologically prior?
1. What role is there for analytic metaphysics and how does it relate to a physics-based metaphysics?
2. What is the status of scientific modalities?
3. Can (and should?) one be a realist about the categorical ontology of science (the basic entities, relations and quantities postulated by our theories), but a pragmatist about modality?
1. What is the relationship between pragmatic metaphysics and analytical
metaphysics? If one approaches philosophy of science questions in a “pragmatic” spirit and with a focus on methodology, in what sense, if any, is one doing some form of “metaphysics”? Should pragmatists think of
what they are doing as “pragmatic metaphysics” or instead as offering a replacement for metaphysics?
2. Can one fruitfully discuss causation and other modal notions in science while eschewing the concerns about “grounds” and “truth-makers” that motivate discussions of these topics in analytical metaphysics?
3. To what extent does pragmatic or functionalist treatment of important scientific notions (like “cause” etc.) commit one to anti-realism or anti-representationalism about those notions?
1. What are taken to be the constraints on or evidence for (grounding) a metaphysical claim – like that of
lawfulness, or ontology? In particular, what role do scientific practices and theories play?
2. In what sense is a metaphysical claim pragmatic – if it is in the sense of how it satisfies a function – then what are the norms that structure that – function for what?
3. How much about what is possible, what is necessary and what is essential (what I take to be the trifecta of analytic metaphysics) can be learned from natural science and what kinds of
inferences and assumptions are used to go beyond science (e.g. what is the role of intuitions). How does a pragmatic stance judge such inferences and assumptions?