ABSTRACT
The physical and social sciences raise all manner of philosophical problems. Metaphysics and science also sometimes coincide in terms of their subject matter. It is true that the subject matter of metaphysical inquiry is generally at a more abstract level than the various subjects of the special sciences, but physics, like metaphysics, is concerned with the structure of space and time, cosmology is concerned with the universe as a whole, and psychology is concerned with minds. A generation ago, it was a widely held assumption amongst philosophers that this hierarchical picture of the sciences was essentially correct, and that physics was the most fundamental science. This, in turn, was sometimes thought to imply that the other sciences did not raise any philosophical (and certainly no ontological) problems not already raised by physics. Finally, it is sometimes asserted that science delivers metaphysical results, that is, that particular scientific theories have consequences for metaphysical debate.
