Rationally Speaking #69 - James Ladyman on Metaphysics

Rationally Speaking Podcast

New York City Skeptics

Society & Culture, Skepticism, Science, Philosophy

4.6 • 787 Ratings

🗓️ 9 September 2012

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Compared to other fields of philosophy, "metaphysics" doesn't get a great rap -- it's both dauntingly obtuse and often derided as nonsense. In this episode of Rationally Speaking, Massimo and Julia chat with James Ladyman, Professor of philosophy at the University of Bristol and the author of Every Thing Must Go. The conversation covers: what is metaphysics, exactly, and where (in Ladyman's opinion) has it gone off the rails? Where does traditional science err in its classification of the "building blocks" of physics? What would a new, improved, metaphysics look like -- and what implications does that have for age-old questions like "What is causality?" and "Is the world real?"

Transcript

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0:00.0	Rationally speaking is a presentation of New York City skeptics dedicated to promoting critical thinking, skeptical inquiry, and science education.
0:22.6	For more information, please visit us at NYC Skeptics.org.
0:35.0	Welcome to Rationally Speaking, the podcast where we explore the borderlands between reason and nonsense.
0:40.4	I am your host, Massimo Pilucci, and with me, as always, is my co-host, Julia Galev.
0:44.9	Julia, what are we going to talk about today?
0:47.1	Massimo, with us today via Skype, coming in from the UK, is James Ladyman, who is a professor of philosophy at the University of Bristol.
0:57.3	James is primarily focused on the philosophy of science and has written a great introductory
1:03.1	textbook called Understanding Philosophy of Science. But he's also written...
1:07.0	Which I actually happen to use in my classes on philosophy of science. Yes, it is very good. That's great. We're not going to talk too much about that today, though.
1:15.0	We're going to be focusing on another one of James's recent books, which is actually about
1:19.9	metaphysics and its relationship to science. It's called Everything Must Go, Metaphysics Naturalized.
1:26.5	James, welcome. It's great to have you here.
1:29.0	Hello, it's great to be here. That book is co-written with Don Ross, of course.
1:34.6	Yes, and I noticed that you also have a couple of other sort of part-time collaborators on the book,
1:39.9	which is David Spurrett and John Collier, right?
1:45.6	That's right.
1:46.1	So this book, tell us in sort of broad terms, how did this come about?
1:50.6	This book is about, as Julia said, the relationship between metaphysics and science.
1:56.3	Now, some scientists would say there is no such thing as metaphysics anymore.
2:00.1	It's all science.
2:01.7	And some metaphysicians would say metaphysics has very little to do with science i'm guessing you fall
2:07.9	somewhere in between well we have a definition of metaphysics in the book which is the attempt
	...

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