APQ - APPON PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

There has been a controversy on the status of metaphysics in the field of scientific knowledge. The logical positivists are of the view that metaphysics is meaningless as its object of study cannot be given a cognitive status. The logical positivists have claimed that any knowledge outside science is dubitable and unfounded. This is informed by the contributions and achievements of science and by extension, technology in the alleviation and eradication of humans' problems. The task of this paper is to defend the status of metaphysics against the verification principle as the standard of what is scientific. Metaphysics is the study of the totality of reality, while every other science is concerned with the study of one aspect or the other of reality. Unlike metaphysics, the natural (physical) science like physics, chemistry and biology are specific. In the justification of the existence of metaphysics and its defence, this writing complies with the view that the construction of scientific theories is based on the metaphysical ideas. Though there might be demarcation in operation, both complement each other. The quarrel with logical positivists is not that the demarcation is not possible rather it is the way they rejected metaphysics as meaningless and insignificant. Researches and experiences have shown that metaphysics is indispensable even in the activities and operational methodology of science. On this exemplary basis, the unobserved theoretical entities (e.g. electrons, atoms, molecules quark, and so on) are utilised by science and in the final analysis provides a systematic and coherent account of the phenomena we encounter in experience. So, the programme of elimination of metaphysical thesis from science is unjustifiable on the ground that metaphysics is the foundation of all disciplines including the assumptions of science.

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