Metaphysics and science try to explain what there is in the world. How are they related? Traditionally metaphysics is “a priory” whereas science is “a posteriori” i.e. metaphysics is non-empiric while science is empiric. Two modern views about the nature of metaphysics are:

i) Metaphysics is prior to science and to empiric knowledge (E.J. Lowe (1998)), i.e. metaphysics do not tells what there is but what is possible. It is science job to discover which one among all possibilities is the actual one. Science without the help of metaphysics cannot tell what is possible unless science become metaphysics.

ii) Metaphysics and science go together in search of knowledge. This position (Putnam (1992)) states that metaphysics is possible but only when understood as “a posteriori” activity, i.e. the division between science and metaphysics is not that one is empiric and the other “a priori”. Metaphysics goes side by side with science. While science deals with specific situations, metaphysics deals with general matters, e.g. While a scientist talk about “nature laws”, a metaphysicist will study what are the characteristics that make a statement to qualify as a law. In this way metaphysics is -like everything else- “a posteriori”, but with a peculiar abstract character.

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