For much of the twentieth century, metaphysics has been deeply out of fashion, derided as the unfounded beliefs and prejudices of a pre-scientific era. But metaphysics is back. Both in the writings of philosophers and implicitly in culture more generally. It is a phenomenon we should take seriously, but it is not one that we can casually endorse. To find a way forward, we need to rethink the very nature of metaphysics, and what it is to have an overall framework of belief. We can perhaps account for the fall of metaphysics from its highpoint in the nineteenth century and its more recent return as indicative of a more general long term historical shift in our framework of belief. An avalanche of technological breakthroughs and the remarkable impact of science in the first half of the twentieth century, cars, planes, electricity, and, more darkly, atomic power, led to a consistent and accelerating decline in religious belief. So that both intellectual and popular culture has …
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