ABSTRACT
Empirical metaphysics enters the field of speculative thought with an implicit assumption which must predetermine the issue of its inquiry. This chapter examines the relation between metaphysics and philosophy. In adopting the phrase empirical metaphysics, Professor Alexander commits himself to an examination of the credentials of experience. For the purpose of empirical metaphysics the subject of experience is of course the mind of man. If the objects of experience are real things, and the empirical metaphysician must assume that they are, it is the percipient mind which guarantees their reality. Alexander, the philosopher, tells that the effect of the empirical method in metaphysics is severely and persistently to treat finite minds as one among the many forms of finite existence, having no privilege among them except such as it derives from its greater perfection of development. The empirical method may necessitate a certain conception of mind.
