In philosophy, the Canberra Plan is a contemporary program of

methodology In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for bri ...

and

analysis Analysis ( : analyses) is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts in order to gain a better understanding of it. The technique has been applied in the study of mathematics and logic since before Aristotle (3 ...

that answers questions about what the world is like according to physics. It is considered a naturalistic approach in

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

, which holds that metaphysics can explain the features of the world described by physics and what the different classes of everyday belief represent. A more detailed description of the plan refers to it as a family of

doctrines Doctrine (from la, doctrina, meaning "teaching, instruction") is a codification of beliefs or a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the essence of teachings in a given branch of knowledge or in a belief system ...

that are grounded on a

physicalist In philosophy, physicalism is the metaphysical thesis that "everything is physical", that there is "nothing over and above" the physical, or that everything supervenes on the physical. Physicalism is a form of ontological monism—a "one substance ...

worldview as well as

a priori ("from the earlier") and ("from the later") are Latin phrases used in philosophy to distinguish types of knowledge, justification, or argument by their reliance on empirical evidence or experience. knowledge is independent from current ex ...

philosophizing to explain our thoughts about our world as revealed by physics. The Canberra Plan arose in the 1990s at the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

in Canberra, Australia. Its originators were David Lewis and Frank Jackson. An important question that it raises concerns what to say once "it turns out that there is nothing of which the a priori theory is true." There are those who say that the Canberra Plan could prove insufficient and inconsistent to effectively pick out a feature of or relationship in the world.

References

Bibliography

* David Braddon-Mitchell,

Robert Nola Robert Nola (25 June 1940 - 23 October 2022) was a New Zealand philosophy academic, and was an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Auckland. His work focussed on the philosophy and history of science, on epist ...

, "Introducing the Canberra Plan", ''Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism'', MIT Press, 2008 Philosophical methodology Canberra {{philosophy-stub