ABSTRACT
At first glance, critical realism and logical empiricism seem to be opposed in their assessment of inductive metaphysics. While critical realists such as Wilhelm Wundt, Oswald Külpe, or Erich Becher quite enthusiastically embraced and advanced the idea of an inductive, science-based account of metaphysics, logical empiricists such as Rudolf Carnap, Otto Neurath, or Moritz Schlick explicitly rejected this very idea. However, there was a scientific realist faction within the logical empiricist movement that came quite close to the idea of an inductive metaphysics as advocated by the critical realists. In this context, the views of Hans Reichenbach, Viktor Kraft, and Eino Kaila are of particular interest. Reichenbach’s endorsement of “inference to the best explanation”, Kraft’s affirmative interpretation of what he called “constructive hypotheses”, and Kaila’s comprehensive “invariantism” can all be read as contributing to the realization of the idea of an inductive metaphysics. In what follows, the relevant arguments for this claim are provided.
