Structural Scientific Realism

This research project examines the use of Feynman diagrams in Quantum Field Theory (QFT) to substantiate a defence of a structuralist approach to scientific representation. I argue that a structuralist conception can uniquely account for the ubiquity of idealization in model-building, as well as provide a framework through which our best theories can make contact with reality. As such, the dissertation engages two distinct forms of philosophical inquiry which are identified in the literature; the methodological inquiry studies the functional utility of idealization in pragmatic terms, overlooking what our models say about the real world; whereas the metaphysical inquiry addresses how our idealized models can indeed 'latch onto reality' (Saatsi, 2012: 245). I suggest the structuralist view can accommodate both modes, which necessarily leads the narrative to position the argument within the realism debate. Accordingly, I defend 'ontic' structural realism (OSR), as originally conceived by Ladyman (1998), which uses recent advances in quantum physics to validate a metaphysical reconceptualization of the status of objects to establish the ontological primacy of structure (Ladyman, 1998: 420). The case study will show that we can develop a structural account of representation which can distinctively accommodate the indispensability of idealization in modelling, whilst also meshing well with the metaphysical demands of modern physics (French, 2014: 61 & 170, and Ladyman and Ross, 2007: 131).

Naturalizing Badiou offers a naturalist critique and revision of Alain Badiou's philosophy. It argues against some core elements of his systematic philosophy, considering them unacceptable for the naturalist philosopher. At the same time, however, it highlights how Badiou's broader and ambitious metaphilosophical commitments can fruitfully supplement the orthodox naturalism grounding some contemporary stances in the philosophy of science. This goal is pursued through staging an encounter of Badiou's mathematical ontology and theory of truth with contemporary trends in philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of science. Targeting Badiou's inability to elucidate the link between the empirical and the ontological, and his residual reliance on a Heideggerian project of fundamental ontology, the book articulates a particular understanding of what realism and naturalism should commit us to. It then presents a creative fusion of Badiou's attention to metamathematical results with a structural-informational metaphysics, proposing a 'matherialism' that unites the more daring speculative insights of the former with the naturalist and empiricist commitments motivating the latter.

Penelitian ini berupaya untuk menjelaskan sebuah fenomena hubungan internasional yang tergambar dalam rivalitas antar aktor, yaitu Rusia dan Uni Eropa, yang dipicu oleh konflik antar aktor lainnya, yaitu konflik Rusia dan Ukraina yang berdampak pada upaya aneksasi Rusia terhadap wilayah Krimea.
Berawal dari konflik yang terjadi antara Rusia dan Ukraina pada tahun 2014, Rusia melakukan upaya aneksasi terhadap wilayah Krimea yang merupakan provinsi paling Selatan Ukraina ditengah konflik internal Ukraina yang sedang memanas. Upaya aneksasi tersebut memancing kekhawatiran bagi Uni Eropa selaku organisasi kawasan yang juga sedang melakukan ekspansi kerjasama dan kemungkinan keanggotaan terhadap Ukraina. Fenomena tersebut dapat dijelaskan sebagai aksi – reaksi yang terjadi antara Rusia dan Uni Eropa. Rusia merasa terancam dengan kedekatan Ukraina terhadap Uni Eropa, terlebih lagi jika Ukraina menjadi anggota Uni Eropa. Begitu juga Uni Eropa yang merasa terintimidasi dengan sikap Rusia yang sangat memengaruhi perilaku pengambilan keputusan Ukraina.
Dengan metode kualitatif penelitian ini berupaya untuk mengkonstruksi dan memahami realitas dengan memperhatikan proses dan peristiwa rivalitas Rusia dan Uni Eropa yang di picu oleh upaya aneksasi Rusia terhadap Krimea sebagai fenomena hubungan internasional dan ditinjau melalui disiplin keilmuwan hubungan internasional.
Penelitian ini menggunakan paradigma neorealisme sebagai kerangka dasar berfikir penulisan secara ilmiah untuk membuktikan secara teoretis dan empiris bahwa fenomena yang terjadi merupakan bukti dari dunia yang anarkis dimana masing-masing aktor berupaya untuk memaksimalisasi powernya (Power Maximize). Dalam kasus ini Rusia dan Uni Eropa sebagai poros kekuatan di kawasan saling bersitegang (rivalry) yang berakar dari konflik internal Ukraina dan aneksasi Rusia terhadap wilayah Krimea. Penelitian ini meyakini bahwa fenomena tersebut mengindikasikan bahwa rivalitas yang terjadi merupakan cerminan dari interaksi antar aktor dalam mempertahankan, mendapatkan dan menyeimbangkan power (Balance of Power). Di sisi lain, penelitian ini juga meyakini aneksasi yang di lakukan Rusia terhadap Krimea dan pembelaan Uni Eropa terhadap Ukraina membuktikan bahwa negara yang memiliki relativitas power (Power Relativity) berlebih, baik secara fisik maupun laten, selalu berupaya menjadi hegemon di tingkat kawasan (Regional Hegemony).

Kata Kunci: Kebijakan Ofensif, Rivalitas Rusia – Uni Eropa, Aneksasi, Power Maximize, Power Relativity, Balance of Power, Regional Hegemony.

Here I examine the way in which Russell tries to justify the inference from sense experience to the structural features of the external world by means of his five postulates. I first explain how logical constructions allow him to relate scientific theories to sense experience. Then I examine the weak form of realism he wants to defend, namely, epistemic structural realism. Finally, I show how, in Russell's view, the five postulates support the inference from sense experience to the abstract structure of the external wolrd.

Desde hace siglos, la ciencia se ha erigido como la fuente de conocimiento sobre el mundo natural por antonomasia. Su metodología y práctica presentan numerosas y profundas complejidades que han ocupado por igual a filósofos y miembros de la propia comunidad científica. Si bien resulta casi imposible arribar a caracterizaciones generales exentas de controversia, algunas problemáticas son transversales a las distintas formas que la ciencia ha adoptado a lo largo de su historia. Una central entre ellas consiste en dar cuenta de fenómenos correspondientes al ámbito de la experiencia inmediata (es decir, accesibles mediante la observación directa) apelando a la postulación de entidades o procesos que resultan, en principio o circunstancialmente, inobservables. Las órbitas planetarias, el átomo, la fuerza de gravedad y los genes son ejemplos de entidades inobservables cuya postulación motorizó algunos de los desarrollos científicos más relevantes de la historia de la humanidad. De ese modo, las teorías y modelos científicos pueden pensarse como una ventana hacia el conocimiento de los aspectos inobservables del mundo. Esta idea, sin embargo, es resistida por muchos filósofos de la ciencia. Para ellos, el éxito predictivo de nuestras teorías actuales no es garantía de que describan adecuadamente el mundo inobservable; después de todo, muchas teorías en el pasado exitosas fueron posteriormente descartadas. En torno a esta tensión se ha desarrollado, durante las últimas décadas, el apasionante debate entre realistas y antirrealistas científicos. En este volumen, Bruno Borge y Nélida Gentile reúnen trabajos originales que recorren varios aspectos de esta disputa y acercan al público hispanohablante las voces originales de muchos de los protagonistas (e incluso mentores) del debate.

https://www.eudeba.com.ar/Papel/9789502329468/La+ciencia+y+el+mundo+inobservable

Much debate has ensued regarding the challenge to scientific realism provided by consideration of certain problematic episodes of theory change in the history of science. This paper contends that there is an interesting case which has been overlooked in this debate, namely the prediction of the positron by Dirac from his ‘hole’ theory, and its subsequent replacement by a theory which failed to contain a central, and essential, theoretical posit: the ‘Dirac sea’ of negative energy electrons. Accounting for this case with the ‘divide and conquer’ strategy of contemporary scientific realism proves particularly troublesome, even for the structural realist.

El tema central de esta tesis de licencatura gira en torno a la metafísica del problema mente/cuerpo y el realismo estructural epistémico. La propuesta es que una posición en el espíritu de la de Bertrand Russell en The Analysis of Matter (Russell, 1927), respecto a la naturaleza de nuestro conocimiento de la física, deja un hueco para las propiedades fenoménicas (qualia): abriendo un espacio para la posibilidad de un fisicalismo no-reduccionista también de corte russelliano, el cuál está en mejor posición que propuestas rivales. Este es un tema bastante explorado en la literatura contemporánea sobre el problema mente-cuerpo, pero no lo era cuando se escribió esta tesis.

El capítulo I incluye una discusión detallada del problema mente-cuerpo; una discusión y evaluación de varios argumentos clásicos a favor y en contra del materialismo así como una discusión de algunas conexiones con otros problemas metafísicos como el de la identidad personal. En los capítulos II y III argumento que la posición russelliana aquí planteada puede acomodar las propiedades fenoménicas (qualia) de una forma que es compatible con nuestro conocimiento actual de la física, en virtud de que, como Russell sugería, del mundo físico sólo conocemos su estructura abstracta, posición que en filosofía de la ciencia se ha caracterizado como un realismo estructural epistémico, ESR. Para hacer esto explico de manera introductoria la noción russelliana de estructura desde la lógica de Principia Mathematica y exploro algunos elementos de la metafísica russelliana de la mente: el monismo neutral. Busco mostrar que una posición en ese espíritu armoniza mejor con varias consideraciones pre-teóricas que tenemos acerca de la interacción mente-materia. Discuto los argumentos de Chalmers (1996), Kripke (1980) y Jackson (1982) a favor del dualismo a la luz de esta posición con el objetivo de argumentar que es iluminadora respecto a sus defectos.

Finalmente, considero y rechazo algunas objeciones, como la objeción de que el Monismo Russelliano colapsa en pansiquismo: una posición sumamente controversial en la filosofía de la mente. Concluyo con observaciones generales acerca de cómo la posición russelliana integra armoniosamente el funcionalismo, el no-reduccionismo sobre qualia, el estructuralismo epistémico y explica qué es lo que falla en los argumentos clásicos en contra del materialismo.

O presente trabalho versa sobre o projeto empirista de Bas van Fraassen, cuja obra é referência obrigatória no quadro das teorias empiristas contemporâneas não apenas na filosofia da ciência, mas também na filosofia em geral. Projeto esse que abrange três momentos fundamentais: o empirismo construtivo, o empirismo como atitude, e o empirismo estrutural. Assim, inicialmente no delineamento de nossa problemática de pesquisa, esquadrinhamos a história da filosofia da ciência do século XX, de forma que encontramos no empirismo lógico – em particular, nas contribuições de Rudolf Carnap e de Hans Reichenbach – o precedente teórico da noção de ‘análise lógica da ciência’, subsumida na definição de ‘reconstrução racional’. A saber, o programa neopositivista para a filosofia da ciência tencionava realizar uma epistemologia analítica com exemplos científicos, uma ‘análise lógica da ciência’, ideia esta firmemente contestada por van Fraassen e por outros autores instrumentalistas - no caso, Larry Laudan. Depois, passamos para o exame pormenorizado e crítico das mencionadas teorias empiristas de van Fraassen. Isto é, sua teoria da ciência, o empirismo construtivo, sustenta que a ciência pode ser interpretada à maneira de uma busca por adequação empírica, não pela verdade, entendendo-se essa a correta e fidedigna descrição dos fenômenos observáveis. Quanto à formulação empirista de van Fraassen para além da filosofia da ciência, o empirismo como atitude, este parte da crítica à metafísica para a defesa dos aspectos volitivos na cognição humana, donde, o nome de epistemologia voluntarista, por esta se centrar nas atitudes, e não em doutrinas ou teorias factuais. Já o empirismo estrutural, que é uma atualização do empirismo construtivo, visa à descrição da estrutura dos fenômenos observáveis, com base na abordagem semântica das teorias, e.g., conjunto de modelos semânticos. Assente isso, nos debruçamos em aspectos específicos do empirismo construtivo, ou seja, a já referida abordagem semântica, a própria concepção de modelo, e os conceitos cruciais, no bojo dessa teoria da ciência: adequação empírica e observabilidade. Então, argumentamos que a interpretação da adequação empírica, tal qual uma versão da teoria correspondencial da verdade, é equivocada, por comprometer ontologicamente o empirismo construtivo. Ademais, no tocante à observabilidade, examinamos os seus limites gerais e específicos, mostrando que esse é um ponto muito delicado do empirismo construtivo, visto que van Fraassen endossa um naturalismo tópico, o qual se torna mais um problema do que uma solução para as críticas e dificuldades teóricas. Por exemplo, a circularidade, o regresso infinito, e a arbitrariedade da distinção observável/inobservável. Enfim, a partir das propostas de Nancy Cartwright e de Arthur Fine, esboçamos uma resolução para tais impasses em uma chave instrumentalista e pragmatista.

El debate entre realistas y antirrealistas científicos enfrenta dos posturas antagónicas respecto del estatus epistémico de las teorías científicas. Para los realistas científicos la mejor explicación del éxito predictivo de ciencia es admitir que ésta brinda un relato aproximadamente verdadero acerca de cómo es el mundo inobservable que subyace a los fenómenos. Los antirrealistas, por su parte, apelan a la historia de la ciencia para exponer todo un catálogo de teorías exitosas, pero falsas. De ese modo, consideran osado asumir un compromiso con la verdad aproximada de las teorías actuales. En ese marco, el Realismo Estructural pretende dar cuenta de ambas intuiciones capitalizando lo mejor de dos mundos: el conocimiento acumulativo del que las teorías nos proveen da cuenta sólo de la estructura del mundo inobservable, pero no nos informa nada acerca de su naturaleza. Esta tesis ha sido desarrollada, criticada y reformulada de modos diversos.
El presente volumen presenta al Realismo Estructural y sus variantes en el marco de los debates acerca del Realismo Científico mediante un abordaje doble. En primer término, se procura dar cuenta del contexto histórico (filosófico y científico) en el que se desarrollaron sus tesis principales; en segundo lugar, se emprende una reconstrucción y análisis crítico de sus fundamentos y de las principales objeciones que se les han formulado.

The appeal of both neutral monism and panpsychism is that they appear to have the makings of two theories which are powerful, elegant and parsimonious (as the jargon has it). In other words, they join the philosophical dots. However, it also seems to be the case that these two theories are explicitly designed to join the dots. That is, both aim to ostensibly escape from perennial philosophical problems. (Except for the fact that monism itself has an ancient history.) But surely there must be more to these theories than all that.

So, again, both neutral monism and panpsychism seem to offer (in a manner of speaking) “elegant solutions”. The main example of this is, of course, the gap between the physical and experience/consciousness. And an almost obvious solution to that gap is to say that both the physical and experience/consciousness are “grounded” in the same “neutral stuff”. Now how neat is that? Not that neat, really:

i) We still need to say what this stuff is.
ii) And we still need to explain the link/s between this stuff and both the physical and consciousness.

All this also seems like a resurrection of a discussion (or debate) within Anglo-American philosophy at a particular point in history – i.e., roughly from William James in the late 1890s to Bertrand Russell in the 1920s. Of course that doesn't mean that it's all wrong or false. But it could mean that philosophical fashions are often resurrected when philosophers have become bored of all the contemporary alternatives on offer.

Bertrand Russell puts the case for neutral monism at the very same time as he puts the case for for what may be deemed to be structural realism. So Russell's bottom line was that we have no access - either observationally or otherwise - to the “intrinsic characteristics” of objects/entities/etc. Instead “[w]hat we know about them” is simply “their structure and their mathematical laws”. That is, all we've got is structure and maths “all the way down”. Nonetheless, Russell himself still had a problem with this scientific rejection of intrinsic properties. In basic terms, it simply can't be a question of “relations all the way down”.

Despite all that, according to the American philosopher Gregory Landini, Russell's neutral monism is *not* also a version of panpsychism. That is, Landini's Russell didn't believe in experience “all the way down”. Instead:

“qualia never occur in transient particulars. In Russell’s view, qualia emerge from the series of brain states…colors, pitches, smells, tastes and textures are emergent properties of series of brain states…”

In other words, qualia belong to brain states. And brain states are highly complex.

One of the other main points which unites contemporary panpsychists with Russell isn't only the latter's commitment to a monistic basic stuff, but also the commitment to the “fundamentality” of consciousness/experience. (Or percepts, in Russell's own case.) To all these philosophers, nothing is more (as it were) Given than experience, consciousness or percepts. Thus surely that is where we must start. Or, as David Chalmers put it, “Experience is a datum in its own right.”

The debate about scientific realism is concerned with the relation between our scientific theories and the world. Scientific realists argue that our best theories or components of those theories correspond to the world. Anti-realists deny such a correspondence. Traditionally, this central issue in the philosophy of science has been approached by focusing on the theories themselves (e.g., by looking at theory change or the underlying experimental context). I propose a relatively unexplored way to approach this old debate. In addition to focusing on the theory, we should focus on the theorizer. More precisely, in order to determine on which component of a theory we should hinge a realist commitment, we should analyze the cognitive processes underlying scientific theorizing. In this paper I do just that. Drawing from recent developments in the cognitive sciences and evolutionary epistemology, I formulate some tentative conclusions. The aim of this paper is not so much to defend a particular position in the debate on scientific realism but to showcase the value of taking a cognitive perspective in the debate.

Western science and philosophy are from the beginning inextricably linked with each other. As philosophical reflection accompanies the history of science, a good number of questions have accumulated over time: Do the theories or theoretical models of science faithfully represent the reality in itself? Does science touch reality? Does science reveal the intrinsic nature of things? Is the search for truth, as correspondence with reality, the goal of science? Does science converge towards truth? Does scientific rationality depend on the existence of a scientific method, the scientific method? To all these questions Rorty's pragmatism, a philosophy on a human scale, gives convincing answers. Now, these are the most burning questions of the current philosophy of science. Therefore my aim in this paper is to show that Rorty's philosophy fit well within a reasonable epistemology of science. And this is why I also claim that Rorty's pragmatism and Van Fraassen's empiricism converge basically in a philosophical proposal that is compatible with an instrumentalist conception of science.

Realism refers to a range of ontological and epistemological positions within which research may be conducted. Realist ontologies (assumptions about the nature of reality) range from the view that the world of objects and social structures exist independently of human experience to the idea that, although the world exists independently of any one person, human perception is such that our reality is a pre-interpreted one. Realist epistemologies (theories about what counts as knowledge) range from view that the world can be known directly through the senses to the idea that internally consistent interpretations of reality can count as knowledge if bounded by, and revisable in light of, interactions with the world. Holding a realist ontology does not always commit a researcher to a realist epistemology.......

Twenty years ago John Worrall offered an alleged non-standard viable form of scientific realism under the name of structural realism. Structural realism was supposed to be both an alternative to standard scientific realism and a viable form of realism. The central questions addressed in this paper are what I cal the two dogmas of structural realism: the idea that there is structure retention across theory change, and the idea that  theoretical structures describe the world. Arthur Fine proclaimed that scientific realism was dead. I claim that Worrall's attempt to bring scientific realism back to life has failed

Resumen: El realismo estructural epistémico (REE) afirma que el conocimiento que nos brindan las teorías científicas es acerca de la estructura del mundo inobservable, y no sobre su naturaleza. La objeción más importante que esta posición ha enfrentado es el llamado problema de Newman. En el presente trabajo ofrezco una objeción alternativa al REE. Sostengo que su formulación conduce a posiciones escépticas indeseables en dos campos próximos al realismo científico: los debates sobre la modalidad y las leyes de la naturaleza. Muestro además que hay un sentido interesante en el que mi objeción es más fuerte que la formulada por Newman.

We set out a fundamental ontology of atomism in terms of matter points. While being most parsimonious, this ontology is able to match both classical and quantum mechanics, and it remains a viable option for any future theory of cosmology that goes beyond current quantum physics. The matter points are structurally individuated: all there is to them are the spatial relations in which they stand; neither a commitment to intrinsic properties nor to an absolute space is required. The spatial relations change. All that is needed to capture change is a dynamical structure, namely dynamical relations as expressed in terms of the dynamical parameters of a physical theory.

This paper argues that in some explanations mathematics are playing an explanatory rather than a representational role, and that this feature unifies many types of non-causal or non-mechanistic explanations that some philosophers of science have been recently exploring under various names (mathematical, topo-logical, etc.). After showing how mathematics can play either a representational or an explanatory role by considering two alternative explanations of a same biological pattern—''Bergmann's rule''—I offer an example of an explanation where the bulk of the explanatory job is done by a mathematical theorem, and where mechanisms involved in the target systems are not explanatorily relevant. Then I account for the way mathematical properties may function in an explanatory way within an explanation by arguing that some mathematical propositions involving variables non directly referring to the target system features constitute constraints to which a whole class of systems should comply, provided they are describable by a mathematical object concerned by those propositions. According to such ''constraint account'', those mathematical facts are directly entailing the explanandum (often a limit regime, a robustness property or a steady state), as a consequence of such constraints. I call those explanations ''structural'', because here properties of mathematical structures are accounting for the explanandum; various kinds of mathematical structures (algebraic, graph-theoretical, etc.) thereby define various types of structural explanations.

En 1975 Hilary Putnam plasmó en unas pocas líneas una intuición de larga data acerca del
estatus epistémico de las teorías científicas. Dichas líneas son casi universalmente reconocidas como la
primera formulación explícita del Argumento del No-Milagro (ANM). Durante los 40 años trascurridos
desde entonces, el debate sobre el Realismo Científico se transformó en uno de los tópicos centrales de la
filosofía de las ciencias. La plausibilidad del ANM fue defendida o cuestionada mediante múltiples
estrategias, y nuevos argumentos alimentaron una polémica que aún hoy sigue vigente. El objetivo de este
trabajo es brindar un panorama general de la disputa, para luego abordar críticamente algunos de los aportes
más recientes al debate contemporáneo.

This paper examines whether, and in what contexts, Duhem’s and Poincaré’s views can be regarded as conventionalist or structural realist. After analysing the three different contexts in which conventionalism is attributed to them – in the context of the aim of science, the underdetermination problem and the epistemological status of certain principles – I show that neither Duhem’s nor Poincaré’s arguments can be regarded as conventionalist. I argue that Duhem and Poincaré offer different solutions to the problem of theory choice, differ in their stances towards scientific knowledge and the status of scientific principles, making their epistemological claims substantially different.

This essay tries to make a tangential cut between the debate that seeks the most
adequate definition of scientific progress (involving authors such as K. Popper,
T Kuhn, A Bird or J Saatsi) and the debate on the viability of structural realism
to be considered the best epistemological approach to the understanding of
nature (B van Fraassen, J Ladyman, J Worrall, S Psillos...). Thus, first I
connect both debates by showing that they shared a common problem before
their progressive distancing. Finally, I  outline a formulation of scientific
progress inferred from the structural realism approach. In particular, my
definition will be based on J. Ladyman’s proposal in Every Thing Must Go. As
I will emphasize, this definition also provides an answer to the aforementioned
original problem. Our conclusion is that this formulation of scientific progress
differs from the three main ones, namely, truthlikeness, problem-solving, and
accumulation of knowledge. This fourth form is necessarily linked to a
speculative approximation of reality. Moreover, we want to suggest that this
fourth conception is articulated under the shadow of the ideas of CS Peirce.

Ontic Structural Realism is a version of realism about science according to which by positing the existence of structures, understood as basic components of reality, one can resolve central difficulties faced by standard versions of scientific realism. Structures are invoked to respond to two important challenges: one posed by the pessimist meta-induction and the other by the underdetermination of metaphysics by physics, which arises in non-relativistic quantum mechanics. We argue that difficulties in the proper understanding of what a structure is undermines the realist component of the view. Given the difficulties, either realism should be dropped or additional metaphysical components not fully endorsed by science should be incorporated.

According to a certain kind of naïve or folk understanding of physical matter, everyday 'solid' objects are composed of a homogeneous, gap-less substance, with sharply defined boundaries, which wholly fills the space they occupy. A further claim is that our perceptual experience of the environment represents or indicates that the objects around us conform to this sort of conception of physical matter. Were this further claim correct, it would mean that the way that the world appears to us in experience conflicts with the deliverances of our best current scientific theories in the following respect: perceptual experience would be intrinsically misleading concerning the structure of physical matter. I argue against this further claim. Experience in itself is not committed to, nor does it provide evidence for, any such conception of the nature of physical matter. The naïve/folk conception of matter in question cannot simply be 'read-off' from perceptual appearances.

El Realismo Estructural Óntico (REO) afirma que una lectura realista de las teorías científicas (especialmente de la física moderna) requiere aceptar que las estructuras son ontológicamente fundamentales. Más allá de cómo se articule ese compromiso, los defensores del REO acuerdan en que el marco adecuado para desarrollo de dicha posición es la concepción semántica de las teorías. Sostengo que, al menos en los as-pectos relevantes para la formulación del REO, la concepción semántica no es superior a la sintáctica. Muestro además que la Concepción Heredada, por su parte, cuenta con los recursos conceptuales necesarios para expresar adecuadamente los compromisos metafísicos del REO. 

Ontic Structural Realism (OSR) states that a realistic reading of scientific theories (especially of modern physics) requires to take structures as ontologically fundamental. Regardless of how this commitment is articulated, OSR proponents agree that the appropriate framework for developing such a position is the semantic approach to theories. I argue that, at least in aspects relevant to the formulation of OSR, the semantic approach is not superior to the syntactic one. I also show that the Received View has the necessary conceptual resources to adequately express the metaphysical commitments of OSR.

In this article I discuss a recent argument due to Dan McArthur, who suggests that the charge that Michael Friedman’s relativised a priori leads to irrationality in theory change can be avoided by adopting structural realism. I provide several arguments to show that the conjunction of Friedman’s relativised a priori with structural realism cannot make the former avoid the charge of irrationality. I also explore the extent to which Friedman’s view and structural realism are compatible, a presupposition of McArthur’s argument. This compatibility is usually questioned, due to the Kantian aspect of Friedman’s view, which clashes with the metaphysical premise of scientific realism. I argue that structural realism does not necessarily depend on this premise and as a consequence can be compatible with Friedman’s view, but more importantly I question whether Friedman’s view really implies mind dependence.

In his 1927 Analysis of Matter and elsewhere, Russell argued that we can successfully infer the structure of the external world from that of our explanatory schemes. While nothing guarantees that the intrinsic qualities of experiences are shared by their objects, he held that the relations tying together those relata perforce mirror relations that actually obtain (these being expressible in the formal idiom of the Principia Mathematica). This claim was subsequently criticized by the Cambridge mathematician Max Newman as true but trivial, insofar as from a closed body of observations (or “Ramsey sentence”) one can always generate other equally-satisfactory networks of relations, provided they respect the original set’s cardinality. Since any model thus generated will be empirically adequate, “[t]he defence is therefore driven back from the fairly safe fictitious-real classification to the much less tenable ‘trivial’ and ‘important’” (Newman 1928). Given the definitional rigour afforded by the initial appeal to isomorphism (via one-to-one correspondences in extension), the received assessment, shared by Russell himself, is that retreating to a pragmatic adjudication would betoken a fatal blow. However, I suggest that reliance on “importance” can be avoided if we incorporate an impersonal criterion of diachronic precedence. When collecting observations, an ordinality emerges alongside the cardinality which gives that underived structure an irrevocable epistemological privilege. Hence, I argue that, all other things being equal, any construct parasitic on an antecedent theory ought to be regarded as inferior/dispensable, since it was generated by an algorithm lacking the world-involving pedigree of its host structure.

In this essay I will argue that both ramsified realism, and epistemic structural realism more widely, are untenable positions. As to the former, I will argue that it is untenable for at least two reasons: (i) it is susceptible to the so-called ‘Newman-style objection’, and (ii) the observational-theoretical dichotomy it rests on is flawed. As to the latter, I will argue that it is untenable on the grounds that (i) it does not readily account for the connection between a theory’s structure and the physical world’s structure, (ii) it presupposes a distinction between physical entities’ structure and their nature which seems quite distant from the way science is done in modern times, and (iii) it neither readily accounts for nor discharges altogether the possibility of radical structural change in mathematics. I will begin by outlining structural realism and ramsified realism. I will then proceed to put forward my arguments.

by Marcos Rodrigues da Silva and Debora Minikoski

Resumo: o breve artigo é uma réplica à resposta de Alessio Gava ao artigo "Van Fraassen e a inferência da melhor explicação", publicado em Problemata (v. 7. n. 1, 2016), de autoria de Marcos Rodrigues da Silva e Debora Minikoski.

Palavras-chave: Alessio Gava; empirismo construtivo; realismo.

The Gadamerian formula "Sein, das verstanden werden kann, ist Sprache" condenses one of the main issues that we inherit from the contemporary hermeneutics. The contribution intends to develop some of its implications, deepening the problem of how different ontological options can be – at least in part – brought back to the privilege of different parts of the discourse, taking as a reference the fundamental distinction between “categorematic” ontologies and “syncategorematic” ontologies (§ 1). Moving from this background, the §2 examines Paolo Virno’s thesis according to which there are at least three elements of the discourse able to “signify” the unactuality of sense as such: the questions, the operators of possibility and the negation. Then, the § 3 compares the picture that emerged with Deleuze’s ontology, explaining that it offers an even surprising range of elements useful to circumscribe the linguistic dimension of ontology, unified by the fundamental need to make room for the “flexive” rather than “fixing” aspects of language. Finally, the § 4 analyses the general and systematic problem of the possible correspondences between ontologies and language: this raises the question of how the privilege of different aspects of language can involve the attribution of a different fundamental character to reality or its entities, with particular reference to some contemporary ontological proposals.

This paper challenges the scientific realist claim that science aims to provide a truthful account of the world, contending that this is too strong a logical commitment, which condemns science to unnecessary and persistent failure (Mortensen and Burgess, 1989: 47). Rather, this examination defends van Fraassen’s (1980) weaker aim for empirical adequacy, suggesting he is right to focus on observability when assessing the epistemic security of scientific theories through his constructive empiricist (CE) philosophy of science (1980: 12).
However, van Fraassen’s account of observability has been reproached for its seeming incoherency; Gideon Rosen’s (1994) ‘transcendental’ charge against van Fraassen’s apparent commitment to abstract, mathematical objects, asserts that CE undermines the very essence of empirical adequacy. ‘[His] rejection of “metaphysics”’ Rosen states, ‘in fact presupposes a fair dose of the metaphysics it purports to do without’ (1994: 143).

How, then, can van Fraassen’s observability distinction survive? This investigation looks to reconcile Rosen’s critique with CE by synthesising elements of Bueno’s (1999) philosophy of mathematics, which is a take on da Costa and French’s (1990) notions of ‘partial relations’, ‘partial structures’ and ‘quasi-truth’, with Hasok Chang’s (2005) ‘humanist empiricism’. In doing so, this essay argues that Chang’s ‘quality-based’ concept of observability can partner with Bueno’s model, thus motivating CE to dispatch its apparent defects.

The conclusion will support Chang’s expanded definition, by extending Bueno’s ‘partial structures’ analysis to unobservable phenomena other than mathematics. It argues that his logically weaker, yet epistemically safer account of science does not pose an ontological threat to scientific practice; it preserves the constructive empiricist’s pragmatic commitment to interpretation, without either snubbing realist intuitions of existence, or problematizing the key features of ‘openness’ and ‘incompleteness’ of scientific knowledge (Bueno, 1999: 480).

Current debate on Structural Realism (SR) starts when Worrall (1989) suggest this position is capable of accounting for the central intuitions of both Scientific Realism and Antirealism. Since then, it has become a rich field of debate in which complex disputes have emerged. In this paper I maintain that, (a) despite its recent appearance on the philosophical scene, SR constitutes the crowning of an epistemological trend I propose to call 'structuralist tradition'. I take as its central feature to put the focus on the relations that exist in the natural world, rather than in the nature of the entities that maintain those relations. But (b) despite this common feature, the various positions that have constituted that tradition in general, and the variants of RE in particular, have not offered a precise and uniform notion of structure.

This aim of this paper is to defend Theodore Sider’s project in Writing the Book of the World. I attempt to accomplish this by presenting a novel notion of structurality that avoids the complications that face Sider’s account. The paper is divided into three main parts. §1 outlines the problems with Sider’s account. The primary issue that Sider’s account faces is that his notion of structure does not successfully play the theoretical role that he outlines for it. §1.1 argues that this problem arises because Sider takes the relevant notion of structure to be a sort of absolute notion of fundamentality. §2 develops a position called Metasemantic Structural Realism (MSR) that utilizes a notion of structurality that applies to entire theories, and shows how this notion is better suited to Sider’s goals. §2.1 draws a distinction between the notion of factual structurality (the idea that particular sentences of a theory accurately represent particular states of affairs), and the notion of inferential structurality (the idea that the laws or axioms of a theory accurately represent relations between particular states of affairs), and argues that this distinction allows MSR to avoid several of the problems that face Sider’s account. §2.2 develops a notion of fundamentality that applies directly to theories, which complements the notion of structurality of MSR without positing any new hyperintensional notions. §2.3 outlines the various things that count as evidence for the structurality of a theory. §3 outlines the implications of MSR for metaphysical methodology. §3.1 shows how MSR can be used to develop a specific approach to metaphysics, metaphysical model theory, which can be used both to resolve particular disputes in the philosophy of science and to relate different levels of reality to each other.