Abstract

Investigating the metaphysical problem of nature requires engaging with philosophy of science. Arguments in this field, combined with metaphysical underdetermination problems in fundamental physics, have given rise to a sophisticated form of scientific realism called ontic structural realism; and the reconceptualisation of metaphysics in terms of structures. This transforms the problem of nature into the dissolution of the distinction between mathematical andphysical structures . To date, there has been an insufficient exploration of this problem in the literature because it has been deemed unscientific. This essay demonstrates that the problem is legitimate, important, and connects with a wider issue in the philosophy of mathematics—namely, the problem of applicability of mathematics to the sciences’ investigation of nature