Why Metaphysical Debates Never End

In this lecture, Amie L. Thomasson examines how metaphysics came to be understood as the study of ultimate reality and why that conception has led the discipline into deep trouble. She begins with the origins of the term itself, tracing how philosophy and science were once unified before the sciences broke away, leaving philosophers in crisis over what remained for them to study. Thomasson surveys the early 20th century rejection of metaphysics and its later revival through Quine's influence, then identifies what she calls "symptoms of dysfunction": a massive proliferation of competing views with no agreement about what would settle debates, leading to widespread skepticism even among practitioners. She diagnoses the core error as "functional monism," the assumption that all of the terms of interest in metaphysics serve the same purpose. She also critiques several prominent approaches including the neo-Quinean, structural, truthmaker, and grounding frameworks. The lecture concludes by introducing functional pluralism and conceptual engineering as tools that can resolve longstanding problems while preserving valuable work from the history of philosophy.