According to a recent proposal, the epistemic aim of metaphysics as a discipline is to chart the different viable theories of metaphysical objects of inquiry (e.g. causation, persistence). This paper elaborates on and seeks to improve on that proposal in two related ways. First, drawing on an analogy with how-possibly explanation in science, I argue that we can usefully understand this aim of metaphysics as the charting of epistemically possible answers to metaphysical questions. Second, I argue that in order to account for the epistemic goodness of this aim, one should appeal to the epistemic value it has in virtue of providing resources for non-factive understanding of the objects of metaphysical inquiry.
This paper takes off from two claims about metaphysics as a collective, epistemic endeavour. First, the familiar observation that metaphysics as a discipline is plagued by systematic, persistent disagreement between researchers who we take to be equally competent, applying the same methods, and who are all among the experts on the topic. I’ll refer to this as Unresolved Dispute. Second, the decision to take seriously the fact that some instances of metaphysical inquiry and its products (e.g. metaphysical accounts or theories) are assessed positively by its own lights—i.e. in line with the norms and standards of epistemic assessment that apparently govern the discipline. I’ll refer to this assumption as…
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