Do Objects Depend on Structures?

British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 63 (3):607-625 (2012)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Ontic structural realists hold that structure is all there is, or at least all there is fundamentally. This thesis has proved to be puzzling: What exactly does it say about the relationship between objects and structures? In this article, I look at different ways of articulating ontic structural realism in terms of the relation between structures and objects. I show that objects cannot be reduced to structure, and argue that ontological dependence cannot be used to establish strong forms of structural realism. At the end, I show how a weaker, but controversial, form of structural realism can be articulated on the basis of ontological dependence

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 101,667

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

The Structuralist Conception of Objects.Anjan Chakravartty - 2003 - Philosophy of Science 70 (5):867-878.
The Structural Metaphysics of Quantum Theory and General Relativity.Vincent Lam & Michael Esfeld - 2012 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 43 (2):243-258.
Structuralism and information.Otávio Bueno - 2010 - Metaphilosophy 41 (3):365-379.
The modal nature of structures in ontic structural realism.Michael Esfeld - 2009 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 23 (2):179 – 194.

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-11-17

Downloads
324 (#86,837)

6 months
9 (#504,609)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

J.E. Wolff
University of Edinburgh

Citations of this work

Fundamentality.Tuomas E. Tahko - 2023 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Structural Realism.James Ladyman - 2012 - In Ed Zalta (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford, CA: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Interpreting Quantum Entanglement: Steps towards Coherentist Quantum Mechanics.Matteo Morganti & Claudio Calosi - 2021 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 72 (3):865-891.

View all 37 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Every thing must go: metaphysics naturalized.James Ladyman & Don Ross - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Don Ross, David Spurrett & John G. Collier.
The question of realism.Kit Fine - 2001 - Philosophers' Imprint 1:1-30.
Ontological Dependence.Tuomas E. Tahko & E. J. Lowe - 2020 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized.James Ladyman & Don Ross - 2007 - In James Ladyman & Don Ross (eds.), Every thing must go: metaphysics naturalized. New York: Oxford University Press.
Philosophy of Mathematics: Structure and Ontology.Stewart Shapiro - 1997 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press USA.

View all 20 references / Add more references