Can empirical science provide a justification for metaphysics?

The article discusses the problem of justification of metaphysics. The following characteristics of metaphysical thinking are distinguished: (1) it must be a speculative-theoretical conceptualisation, otherwise it would not differ in any way from formal logic and mathematics; (2) it is a holistic view of the world and can not do without a claim to systemic thinking. Kant set the task for metaphysics and metaphysicians to justify their claims. The contemporary answer to Kant's challenge acquires particular urgency. The metaphysical justification of science, destroyed by Kantian criticism, is now replaced by attempts of a scientific justification of metaphysics, and it comes to the metaphysical position of scientific realism. Discussions about the revival of metaphysics and its scientific justification are conducted both in analytic and continental philosophical traditions. An example of the justification of metaphysics through natural science is the argumentative strategy that appeals to the empirical discovery of the world-without-man. Quentin Meillassoux undertakes a thorough elaboration of this argument and takes it as the starting point of his reasoning in defence of speculative realism. This empirical argument indicates that a philosopher who adopts a critical position is a product of world history, or a part of the world, but not its transcendental constructor. However, a meaningful interpretation of the dating of arche-fossil and arche-observable objects and processes is possible only under certain axiomatic assumptions that are somehow taken for granted. These axiomatic assumptions form materialist and idealist ontologies, each of which saves the phenomenon of the world-without-man and thus is capable of supporting the assertion about the possibility of metaphysics. These two kinds of ontology can be contrasted with a skeptical point of view that speaks about their equality and thus denies metaphysics. But we can also ask the question of the ontological foundations of the skeptical position itself. We can distinguish ontological presuppositions and their subsequent conclusions - a metaphysical conclusion about the knowability of the world or an anti-metaphysical conclusion about the unknowa-bility of the world. The conclusion about the unknowability of the world always rests on this or that ontology; otherwise it would be an empty nihilism of no philosophical significance whatever. What is important is that the skeptical position itself is a conclusion from the scientific ontology, which, from the point of view of the skeptic, is needed to ' save the phenomena'. Science, says a modern skeptic, tells us about reality, which is the result of adapting our theoretical constructions to empirical discoveries. The only reality that we have the right to have is a scientific reality. We can distinguish this reality from "unscientific reality" only within the framework of ontological interpretations of experience, interpreting experience either a 'scientific' or 'unscientific' way. The anti-metaphysical conclusion of skepticism itself is an interpretation of scientific ontology. Thus, science can provide a justification for both metaphysics and anti-metaphysical, skeptical, conclusions. The justification of metaphysics is first and foremost a philosophical question. And the answer to it depends not only and not so much on science itself, but on the philosophical position chosen in relation to science.

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