Conceptual analysis demonstrates a framework for assessing progress in metaphysics, highlighting a novel approach to resolve debates on its epistemic value and relationship to natural science.
Recent critiques of metaphysics tend to focus on arguing that it is methodologically unreliable, otherwise epistemically deficient, and/or irrelevant to practical concerns. Defenders counter that metaphysics is continuous with science, an unavoidable part of inquiry, and/or already yielding valuable results. So far, neither side has yielded much ground. We suggest that a fruitful way forward is to look at the capacity of metaphysics to make progress. We provide a framework within which to theorise about progress in metaphysics and then sketch several candidate accounts of what progress in metaphysics might be. We show that examining metaphysics from the perspective of its progress provides a promising way of advancing debates about the value of metaphysics, while also illuminating broader questions about the relationship between metaphysics, philosophy more generally, and natural science.
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Baron et al. (2026) studied this question.
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