Metaphysics lives - part 3

This is the third in a short series of posts based on a review* at Catholic world Report of Scholastic Metaphysics: a Contemporary Introduction by Edward Feser. 

Contemporary scientism contends that there is no such thing as metaphysics that can go beyond physics and that nothing can attain fundamentals better than modern science. Feser disputes these contentions:-

3. In principle, the laws of nature discovered by the scientific method offer incomplete explanations of reality. Feser discusses how the much-ballyhooed “laws of nature” presuppose physical things that exist and that operate in accordance with the laws. But even if the “laws of nature” are able to describe how, for the most part, actual physical things really behave, that description is still different from an explanation for why they do what they do.

Are the physical things listening to a decree from God that demands that they follow the laws he prescribes? Hardly. But this puzzle opens up vast arenas of philosophical controversy. Yet we need only appreciate for the moment the difference between a description and an explanation. All too often, the proponents of “scientism” think that because they can write equations for “laws of nature” they therefore somehow possess explanations of physical things. But usually they don’t; usually they are simply confusing mathematical descriptions with essential explanations.

Feser points out that “laws of nature” need not tell us anything about the natures or essences of physical things. Further, they need not reflect the will of God. As ad hoc pattern recognition on our part, they stop short of ultimate foundations and remain merely provisional descriptions—unless in haste we inflate them into unwarranted philosophical deities that pretend to be explanations. As soon as this distinction can be appreciated, the need for the serious intellectual competencies of philosophy will be likewise rightly appreciated. Philosophy is destined to play an indispensable complementary role along with science whenever humanity seeks ultimate explanations for the real natures of things in the most rigorously essential terms.

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* The reviewer is Christopher S. Morrissey, professor of philosophy at Redeemer Pacific College, Trinity Western University in Langley, British Columbia.

Scholastic Metaphysics: a Contemporary Introduction by Edward Feser. Editions Scholasticae, 2014, 290pp.