Convincing disputes about explanatory reductionism in the philosophy of biology require a clear and precise understanding of what a reductive explanation in biology is. The central aim of this book is to provide such an account by revealing the features that determine the reductive character of a biological explanation. Chapters I-IV provide the ground, on which I can then, in Chapter V, develop my own account of explanatory reduction in biology: Chapter I reveals the meta-philosophical assumptions that underlie my (...) analysis of reduction, Chapter II introduces the previous debate about reduction in the philosophy of biology by pointing out the most crucial lessons one should learn from this debate, Chapter III critically discusses the two perspectives on explanatory reduction that have been proposed in the philosophy of biology so far, and Chapter IV clarifies in what ways the issue of reduction is entangled with the issue of explanation. In Chapter V I present my own account of explanatory reduction. My main claim is that reductive explanations in the biological sciences possess three main characteristics: they explain the behavior of a biological system S, first, exclusively in terms of factors that are located on a lower level of organization than S, second, by focusing on factors that are internal to S , and third, by describing the genuine parts of S only as “parts in isolation”. This account is ontic because it traces the reductivity of an explanation back to certain relations that exist in the world. (shrink)

The paper outlines the understanding of emergence in Ontic Structural Realism of James Ladyman (and his co-author Ross). First, the notion of emergence is explored, surveying the various distinctions associated with it (ontological vs. epistemological, diachronic vs. synchronic, weak vs. strong). It turns out that Ross and Ladyman’s notion of emergence is that of weak epistemological emergence compatible with ontic reduction. Particular notions of emergence are associated with the objection embodied in the Generalized Causal Exclusion Argument. The (...) latter is sketched and the solution of Ross and Ladyman is presented: first, in general, the notion of weak emergence is not threatened by this objection. Causal reduction associated with it ensures that there are no competing causal explanations, so no overdetermination arises. Second, there is a peculiar feature of Ross and Ladyman’s theory; namely, there is no causation on the fundamental level, only pattern dynamism. Causation emerges only on higher levels of special sciences. Hence, there is no problem of causal overdetermination. (shrink)

Back cover: This book develops a philosophical account that reveals the major characteristics that make an explanation in the life sciences reductive and distinguish them from non-reductive explanations. Understanding what reductive explanations are enables one to assess the conditions under which reductive explanations are adequate and thus enhances debates about explanatory reductionism. The account of reductive explanation presented in this book has three major characteristics. First, it emerges from a critical reconstruction of the explanatory practice of the life sciences itself. (...) Second, the account is monistic since it specifies one set of criteria that apply to explanations in the life sciences in general. Finally, the account is ontic in that it traces the reductivity of an explanation back to certain relations that exist between objects in the world (such as part-whole relations and level relations), rather than to the logical relations between sentences. Beginning with a disclosure of the meta-philosophical assumptions that underlie the author’s analysis of reductive explanation, the book leads into the debate about reduction(ism) in the philosophy of biology and continues with a discussion on the two perspectives on explanatory reduction that have been proposed in the philosophy of biology so far. The author scrutinizes how the issue of reduction becomes entangled with explanation and analyzes two concepts, the concept of a biological part and the concept of a level of organization. The results of these five chapters constitute the ground on which the author bases her final chapter, developing her ontic account of reductive explanation. (shrink)

This work examines and critically evaluates the proposal that phenomenal properties, or the subjective qualities of experience, present a formidable challenge for the mind-body identity theory. Physicalism per se is construed as being ontically committed only to phenomena which can be made epistemically and cognitively available in the third person; observed and understood from within an objective frame of reference. Further, the identity relation between the mental and the physical is taken to be strict identity; the mental phenomena in question (...) just are the physical phenomena on which, ex hypothesi, they supervene. The problem of phenomenal properties has two basic strands. The first is the problem of how they are causally related to the physical; if they are not physical phenomena, by what causal mechanism might they be related to physical phenomena? One of the motivating considerations which led to the identity thesis was that it appeared to remove this problem. Our interest, however, is in evaluating the arguments which purport to establish that phenomenal properties are, indeed, distinct from the physical. (shrink)

Philosophers of science have often favoured reductive approaches to how-possibly explanation. This article identifies three alternative conceptions making how-possibly explanation an interesting phenomenon in its own right. The first variety approaches “how possibly X?” by showing that X is not epistemically impossible. This can sometimes be achieved by removing misunderstandings concerning the implications of one’s current belief system but involves characteristically a modification of this belief system so that acceptance of X does not result in contradiction. The second variety offers (...) a potential how-explanation of X. It is usually followed by a range of further potential how-explanations of the same phenomenon. In recent literature the factual claims implied by the second variety have been downplayed whereas the heuristic role of mapping the space of conceptual possibilities has been emphasized. I will focus especially on this truth-bracketing sense of potentiality when looking closer at the second variety in the paper. The third variety has attracted less interest. It presents a partial how-explanation of X. Typically it aims to establish the existence of a mechanism by which X could be and was generated. The third conception stands out as the natural alternative for the advocate of ontic how-possibly explanations. This article transfers Salmon’s view that explanation-concepts can be broadly divided into epistemic, modal, and ontic to the context of how-possibly explanations. Moreover, it is argued that each of the three above-mentioned varieties of how-possibly explanation occurs in science. To recognize this may be especially relevant for philosophers. We are often misled by the promises of various why-explanation accounts, and seem to have forgotten nearly everything about the diversity of how-possibly explanations. (shrink)

The question whether qualities are metaphysically more fundamental than or mere limiting cases of relations can be addressed in an applied symbolic logic. There exists a logical equivalence between qualitative and relational predications, in which qualities are represented as one-argument-place property predicates, and relations as more-than-one-argument-place predicates. An interpretation is first considered, according to which the logical equivalence of qualitative and relational predications logically permits us ontically to eliminate qualities in favor of relations, or relations in favor of qualities. If (...) metaphysics is understood at least in part as an exercise in ontic economy, then we may be encouraged to adopt a property ontology of qualities without quality-irreducible relations, or relations without relation-irreducible qualities. If either strategy is followed, the choice of reducing qualities to relations or relations to qualities will need to be justified on extra-logical grounds. These might include a perceived greater intuitiveness, explanatory fecundity, compatibility with cognitive ontogeny or developmental psychology, expressive or explanatory elegance or cumbersomeness, and an open-ended list of philosophical motivations that could reasonably favor the ontic prioritization of qualities over relations or relations over qualities. Despite its intuitive appeal, the thesis that logical equivalence together with extra-logical preferences justifies unidirectional ontic reduction of relations to qualities or qualities to relations is rejected in light of the more defensible proposition that the logical equivalence of qualitative and relational predications actually supports the opposite conclusion, that both qualities and relations are logically indispensable to a complete ontology of properties. The logical equivalence of qualitative and relational predications, insofar as we continue to observe the distinction, makes it logically necessary ontically for both qualities and relations to exist whenever either one exists. That logically equivalent qualitative and relational predications have as their truth-makers the exemplification by objects of both qualities and relations as equi-foundational properties further suggests that there is no deeper logical distinction between qualities and relations, but only two convenient lexical-grammatical designations for property predications involving one- versus more-than-one-argument-place. (shrink)

We propose that the ontic understanding of quantum mechanics can be extended to a fully realistic theory that describes the evolution of the wavefunction at all times, including during a measurement. In such an approach the wave equation should reduce to the standard wave equation when there is no measurement, and describe state reduction when the system is measured. The general wave equation must be nonlinear and nonlocal, and we require it to be time-symmetric; consequently, this approach is (...) not a new interpretation but a new theory. The wave equation is an integrodifferential equation (IDE). The time symmetry requirement leads to a retrocausal approach, in which the wave equation is solved subject to initial and final conditions to determine history at intermediate times. We propose that different outcomes from (apparently) identically prepared experiments may result from uncontrolled parameters; both the nonlocality and the retrocausality of the theory imply that Bell’s Theorem cannot rule out such “hidden variables.” Beginning with Hamilton’s principle, we demonstrate the construction of such a theory by replacing the action with a functional designed to give rise to a nonlinear, nonlocal IDE as the wave equation. This IDE reduces to the standard wave equation (a differential equation) in the absence of a measurement, but exhibits state reduction to a single eigenvalue when the system interacts with another system with the properties of a measurement apparatus. We demonstrate several desirable features of this theory; for other properties we indicate their plausibility and possible avenues to a proof. (shrink)

Scientific explanation, laws of nature and causation are crucial and frontier issues in the philosophy of science. This book studies the complex relationship between the three concepts, aiming to achieve a holistic synthesis about explanation–laws–causation. By reviewing Hempel's Scientific Explanation models and Salmon's three conceptions – the epistemic, modal and ontic conception – the book suggests that laws are essential to explanation and our understanding of laws will help solve the problems of the latter. Concerning the nature of laws, (...) this book tackles both the problems of regularity approach and necessitarian approach. It also proposes that the ontological order of explanation should be from events to causation, then to regularity, and finally to science system, but the epistemological order should be from science system to laws to explanation and causation. In addition, this book examines the legitimacy of Ceteris Paribus laws, the connection between explanation and reduction, the relation between explanation and interpretation, and some other issues closely related to explanation–laws–causation. This book will attract scholars and students of philosophy of science, philosophy of nature, cognitive science, etc. (shrink)

According to the subset account of realization, a property, F, is realized by another property, G, whenever F is individuated by a non-empty proper subset of the causal powers by which G is individuated (and F is not a conjunctive property of which G is a conjunct). This account is especially attractive because it seems both to explain the way in which realized properties are nothing over and above their realizers, and to provide for the causal efficacy of realized properties. (...) It therefore seems to provide a way around the causal exclusion problem. There is reason to doubt, however, that the subset account can achieve both tasks. The problem arises when we look closely at the relation between properties and causal powers, specifically, at the idea that properties confer powers on the things that have them. If realizers are to be ontically prior to what they realize, then we must regard the conferral of powers by properties as a substantive relation of determination. This relation of conferral is at the heart of a kind of exclusion problem, analogous to the familiar causal exclusion problem. I argue that the subset account cannot adequately answer this new exclusion problem, and is for that reason ill-suited to be the backbone of a non-reductive physicalism. (shrink)

In place of earlier instrumentalist and phenomenalist interpretations of science both Quine and Sellars have developed highly influential realist positions centering around the doctrine that accepting a theory as explanatory and irreducible rationally entails accepting the entities posited by the theory. A growing reaction against this realism is partially based on perceived inadequacies in the doctrines of Quine and Sellars, but even more on reconstructions of scientific explanations which do not involve such ontic commitments. Three types of anti-realistic positions (...) are considered and criticized. Hesse's neo-Duhemian position couples a statistical theory of inference to a downgrading of purely theoretical statements. Sneed uses the method of axiomatrization through set-theoretic predicates to supply a reconstruction of Kuhn's account of scientific development. Here Ramsey-reduction sentences serve to eliminate purely theoretical terms. The longest section deals with van Fraassen's semantic model based on a state-space representation of scientific theories and the use of this model in interpreting quantum mechanics. It is argued that the model is valuable, but that the anti-realist interpretation accorded it is not justified and entails serious inconsistencies. (shrink)

Long-Term Potentiation (LTP) is a kind of synaptic plasticity that many contemporary neuroscientists believe is a component in mechanisms of memory. This essay describes the discovery of LTP and the development of the LTP research program. The story begins in the 1950's with the discovery of synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus (a medial temporal lobe structure now associated with memory), and it ends in 1973 with the publication of three papers sketching the future course of the LTP research program. The (...) making of LTP was a protracted affair. Hippocampal synaptic plasticity was initially encountered as an experimental tool, then reported as a curiosity, and finally included in the ontic store of the neurosciences. Early researchers were not investigating the hippocampus in search of a memory mechanism; rather, they saw the hippocampus as a useful experimental model or as a structure implicated in the etiology of epilepsy. The link between hippocampal synaptic plasticity and learning or memory was a separate conceptual achievement. That link was formulated in at least three different ways at different times: reductively (claiming that plasticity is identical to learning), analogically (claiming that plasticity is an example or model of learning), and mechanistically (claiming that plasticity is a component in learning or memory mechanisms). The hypothesized link with learning or memory, coupled with developments in experimental techniques and preparations, shaped how researchers understood LTP itself. By 1973, the mechanistic formulation of the link between LTP and memory provided an abstract framework around which findings from multiple perspectives could be integrated into a multifield research program. (shrink)

The goal of the dissertation is, first, to develop in the tradition of conventional quantum mechanics what I call a propensity view of quantum properties, and to examine its coherence. Conventional quantum mechanics assumes the completeness of quantum mechanics. Taking the ontic version of the completeness assumption, which says that a state vector completely describes an individual quantum system as it is, I argue that the propensity view of quantum properties, i.e., the attribution of certain irreducible propensities to a (...) quantum system, is not only demanded but also can be coherently maintained. ;Second, I evaluate the relation between a propensity view of quantum properties and the demands of Einstein's program of realism, the backbone of which is the requirement that physical systems, as described by a theory, have properties independently of measurement. In doing so, I argue for a non-relational version of the quantum propensity view, which amounts to attributions propensities to individual quantum systems, and claim that conventional quantum mechanics together with the non-relational propensity view of quantum properties realizes physical realism, which is a particular version of Einstein's realist thesis and which reads that a physical system, as described by a theory, has at least some of its extrinsic properties independently of measurement. ;Third, quantum mechanics, in spite of its empirical success, has suffered from certain well-known conceptual puzzles, viz., the measurement problem and the problem of nonlocality as it arises in the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox. So we ask whether the propensity view of quantum properties can help us the resolve these problems. I argue that the so-called reduction of the wave packet is the source of both problems and suggest that there is a sense in which the propensity view of quantum properties explains the reduction of the wave packet and its nonlocal nature. On the other hand, the propensity view by itself fails to resolve the question of when or in what circumstances the reduction of the wave packet occurs, indicating that we do not as yet possess a complete understanding of quantum propensities. (shrink)

My paper draws on examples from molecular biology, the details of which I have developed elsewhere (Rheinberger 1992, 1993, 1995, 1997). Here, I can give only a brief outline of my argument. Reduction of complexity is a prerequisite for experimental research. To make sense of the universe of living beings, the modern biologist is bound to divide his world into fragments in which parameters can be defined, quantities measured, qualities identified. Such is the nature of any "experimental system." (...) class='Hi'>Ontic complexity has to be reduced in order to make experimental research possible. The complexity of the research object, however, is epistemically retained in the rich context of an experimental landscape, where the eruption of "volcanic systems" can change the scenery dramatically as the result of particular, unprecedented findings. (shrink)

The comparison drawn by the Neoplatonist Olympiodorus between the Stoic doctrine of the reciprocal implication of the virtues and the Neoplatonic doctrine of the presence of all the gods in each helps to elucidate the latter. In particular, the idea of primary and secondary “perspectives” in each virtue, when applied to Neoplatonic theology, can clarify certain theoretical statements made by Proclus in his Cratylus commentary concerning specific patterns of inherence of deities in one another. More broadly, the “polycentric” nature of (...) Neoplatonic theology provides a theoretical articulation for henotheistic practices within polytheism without invoking evolutionist notions of “monotheistic tendencies.” The Neoplatonic distinction between the modes of unity exhibited by divine individuals (“henads”) and ontic units (“monads”), which is integral to the polycentric theology, also provides a theoretical basis for the non reductive crosscultural comparison between deities. The polycentric theology thus offers a promising foundation for a polytheistic philosophy of religion. (shrink)

I explore the relation between structuralism and other theses that I have presented in the rest of the book, in particular, my holism, realism about mathematical objects, and the disquotational account of truth. In developing my theory, I have claimed that there is no fact of the matter as to whether the patterns that the various mathematical theories describe are themselves mathematical objects, so I first try to explain what the locution ‘there is no fact of the matter’ means. Next, (...) I discuss the relativity of key structuralist concepts like sub‐pattern and pattern equivalence, and then explore the possibility of formulating structuralist versions of mathematical theories. Even if my holism precludes me from drawing a sharp distinction between philosophy and science I do not regard my structuralism as a mathematical theory but rather as a philosophical account of mathematics that tries to achieve a deeper understanding of the epistemology and ontology of mathematics. My structuralism is epistemic rather than ontic because it is not an ontological reduction or a foundation for mathematics but a philosophical view about the nature of its objects. So when it is combined with realism concerning mathematical objects, it need not commit one to the existence of structures. (shrink)

This paper is a critical account on Emmanuel Falque's project of the revision of the disciplinary boundaries between phenomenology and theology. Falque advices philosophers to embrace theology in order to philosophize better; and requests theologians to allow liberate themselves by philosophy. This proposal caused the earthquake in the field of the theological turn and earned heavy criticism. Firstly, I will contextualise and will present the background of Falque's thought. Secondly, I will engage with major objections to his project and I (...) will argue that critics often misread it. The centre of gravity is the definition of theology. Despite using the same sources, namely Heidegger's radical distinction between the ontic science of theology and the ontological science of philosophy, Falque and his critics come to mutually exclusive conclusions. I will argue that critics employ a reductive definition of theology which results in the rejection of Falque's general revision of the boundaries between disciplines. However, as it will be argued, Falque contributes not only to a philosophically plausible enrichment of phenomenological thought but also to a credible revision of theological practice in a phenomenological fashion. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Rationalist Empiricism: A Theory of Speculative Critique by Nathan BrownGreg EllermannBrown, Nathan. Rationalist Empiricism: A Theory of Speculative Critique. Fordham University Press, 2021. 318pp.Nathan Brown's Rationalist Empiricism is, above all, a book about philosophical method. It is also a highly significant study of the conceptual architecture of Marxism, developed by way of a critical return to the lesson of Althusser. Drawing on a range of disparate materials–from the (...) works of Descartes, Hume, Hegel, Marx, Heidegger, and Meillassoux to contemporary experiments in digital photography and metrology–Brown demonstrates the necessity of "a mutual interruption of reason and experience" (31) for any theoretical or political practice that would avoid falling into ideological complacency.The book opens with an appraisal of "the speculative turn" (1) in 21st-century thought, a turn Brown characterizes as an intellectual dead-end. He remarks that the various new materialisms and object-oriented ontologies of the last decades were united by an inattention to method. Unconcerned to establish the necessity of their claims or with the relation between reasoning and reality, these philosophies made assertions instead of arguments; they mistook dogmatism for speculation.For Brown, it is the dialectic–specifically, the dialectic of reason and experience–that promises to renew the possibility of speculative thinking. Such renewal will entail refusing "the severance of speculation from critique" (2). It also requires thinking through a more basic problem: the relation between rationalism and empiricism. While rationalism "explore[s] what has to be thought according to the internal order and consistency of ideas," empiricism, as Brown has it, "claim[s] the genesis of ideas in experience" (3). Since Kant's first Critique, this binary and the effort to overcome it have set the terms of philosophical debate. Brown's striking contention is that the search for a synthesis or a hidden ground uniting these two positions (as, for instance, in Deleuze or Michel Henry) invariably leads us back to the transcendental–an improvement on the dogmatism of contemporary theory but a reduction of knowledge to "conditions of experience" [End Page 128] nonetheless (47). Brown therefore proposes another path: "a relational disjunction of rationalism and empiricism" animated by "the critical power of the tension between [them] to check one another's claims and to propel those claims further" (3). In other words, he develops a methodological dialectic whose two poles-the rationalist and the empiricist-alternately take on speculative and critical functions. There is no static alignment of the key categories in Brown's book. "Speculation and critique cannot be parceled out," he writes, "according to the division of reason and experience. Metaphysics, science, politics: each of these fields relies integrally upon the conflict and complementarity of reason and experience, their 'epistemological polarity'" (250). In Bachelard's terms, pivotal for the overall argument, reason and experience must be allowed to "transmute," "propel," and "say 'no' to one another" (8). It is their ungrounded dialectical relation that sustains true speculative thought.This methodological position has profound ontological implications. Looking to Althusser, Brown finds the beginnings of a theory of rationalist empiricism in the structural Marxist notion of the "concrete-in-thought" (15-16): the self-critical and experimentally verified knowledge of a science. Crucially, for Althusser there can be no concrete-in-thought without a "concrete-real," external to theory itself (15). Developing to the fullest this underappreciated point, Brown shows that rationalist empiricism must be a realism. Thus, the book's second, third, and fourth chapters elaborate a continuous argument concerning "the primacy of being over thought" (59), and the relationship between speculative and scientific knowledge. The central question is how speculation might extend or "extrapolate from the exteriorizing force of science, without being reducible to its forms of experience" (261). Refracting Hegel's Logic through the thought of Heidegger and Meillassoux, Brown ultimately offers a new account of the ontological difference–between being and beings, between speculative truth and "ontic," scientific knowledge–that privileges neither side and insists on their coordination. Once again, he declines to seek a synthesis, arguing that "true critique" (as Hegel characterized his speculative method) depends on "the ontological primacy of becoming" (91), on an absolute time bound up with... (shrink)

I present—in an extremely sketchy form—a model of two-level, open, plastic and multidimensional human nature. Due to the included attribute of multidimensionality this model opposes the reductive conceptions of man dominating in today’s philosophy. The main objective of the paper is the ontological status of man, especially the ontic foundation of multidimensional man. I demonstrate that this status remains a riddle; one only knows that from the ontological perspective man is a wholly exceptional object, not explainable by to-date ontological (...) constructions. -/- . (shrink)

In this paper I address the current debate on ontic versus epistemic conceptualizations of mechanistic explanation in the mechanisms literature. Illari recently argued that good explanations are subject to both ontic and epistemic constraints: they must describe mechanisms in the world in such fashion that they provide understanding of their workings. Elaborating upon Illari’s ‘integration’ account, I argue that causal role function discovery of mechanisms and their components is an epistemic prerequisite for achieving these two aims. This analysis (...) extends Illari’s account in important ways, putting more pressure on ontic readings of mechanistic explanation and providing an answer to the question how ontic and epistemic constraints on mechanistic explanation are related. I argue these point in terms of cases on memory research drawn from neuroscience and research on extinct neurogenetic mechanisms from early nervous systems biology. (shrink)

We study logical reduction (factorization) of relations into relations of lower arity by Boolean or relative products that come from applying conjunctions and existential quantifiers to predicates, i.e. by primitive positive formulas of predicate calculus. Our algebraic framework unifies natural joins and data dependencies of database theory and relational algebra of clone theory with the bond algebra of C.S. Peirce. We also offer new constructions of reductions, systematically study irreducible relations and reductions to them and introduce a new characteristic (...) of relations, ternarity, that measures their ‘complexity of relating’ and allows to refine reduction results. In particular, we refine Peirce’s controversial reduction thesis, and show that reducibility behaviour is dramatically different on finite and infinite domains. (shrink)

The paper spells out five different accounts of the relationship between objects and relations three of which are versions of ontic structural realism. We argue that the distinction between objects and properties, including relations, is merely a conceptual one by contrast to an ontological one: properties, including relations, are modes, that is the concrete, particular ways in which objects exist. We then set out moderate OSR as the view according to which irreducible relations are central ways in which the (...) fundamental physical objects exist. Physical structures thus consist in objects for whom it is essential that they are related in certain ways. There hence are objects, but they do not possess an intrinsic identity. This view can also admit intrinsic properties as ways in which objects exist provided that these do not amount to identity conditions for the objects. Finally, we indicate how this view can take objective modality into account. (shrink)

According to one large family of views, scientific explanations explain a phenomenon (such as an event or a regularity) by subsuming it under a general representation, model, prototype, or schema (see Bechtel, W., & Abrahamsen, A. (2005). Explanation: A mechanist alternative. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 36(2), 421–441; Churchland, P. M. (1989). A neurocomputational perspective: The nature of mind and the structure of science. Cambridge: MIT Press; Darden (2006); Hempel, C. G. (1965). Aspects of scientific (...) explanation. In C. G. Hempel (Ed.), Aspects of scientific explanation (pp. 331–496). New York: Free Press; Kitcher (1989); Machamer, P., Darden, L., & Craver, C. F. (2000). Thinking about mechanisms. Philosophy of Science, 67(1), 1–25). My concern is with the minimal suggestion that an adequate philosophical theory of scientific explanation can limit its attention to the format or structure with which theories are represented. The representational subsumption view is a plausible hypothesis about the psychology of understanding. It is also a plausible claim about how scientists present their knowledge to the world. However, one cannot address the central questions for a philosophical theory of scientific explanation without turning one’s attention from the structure of representations to the basic commitments about the worldly structures that plausibly count as explanatory. A philosophical theory of scientific explanation should achieve two goals. The first is explanatory demarcation. It should show how explanation relates with other scientific achievements, such as control, description, measurement, prediction, and taxonomy. The second is explanatory normativity. It should say when putative explanations succeed and fail. One cannot achieve these goals without undertaking commitments about the kinds of ontic structures that plausibly count as explanatory. Representations convey explanatory information about a phenomenon when and only when they describe the ontic explanations for those phenomena. (shrink)

This paper argues that ontic structural realism (OSR) faces a dilemma: either it remains on the general level of realism with respect to the structure of a given theory, but then it is, like epistemic structural realism, only a partial realism; or it is a complete realism, but then it has to answer the question how the structure of a given theory is implemented, instantiated or realized and thus has to argue for a particular interpretation of the theory in (...) question. This claim is illustrated by examining how OSR fares with respect to the three main candidates for an ontology of quantum mechanics, namely many worlds-type interpretations, collapse-type interpretations and hidden variable-type interpretations. The result is that OSR as such is not sufficient to answer the question of what the world is like if quantum mechanics is correct. (shrink)

Ontic structural realism is at its core the view that “structure is ontologically fundamental.” Informed from its inception by the scientific revolutions that punctuated the 20th century, its advocates often present the position as the perspective on ontology best befitting of modern physics. But the idea that structure is fundamental has proved difficult to articulate adequately, and what OSR's claimed naturalistic credentials consist in is hard to precisify as well. Nor is it clear that the position is actually supported (...) by our most fundamental physical theories. What is clear, however, is that structuralists have revealed a seam of material at the core of modern physics that is replete with implications for metaphysics. This article will survey some positions subsumed under the rubric of OSR, considering both their warrant and the interconnections that exist between them. It will be argued that the fundamental kind properties pose a challenge to ontic structuralism, because it seems that these properties do not supervene upon the relevant structures. But it will also be argued that the development of structuralist metaphysics will require both an engagement with the details of modern physical theories and the deployment of tools more typically developed in a priori metaphysics. As such, it seems armchair metaphysicians have not just a stake in whether OSR's claims may ultimately be shown to stand up, but a crucial role to play in getting them to the point where they can be subjected to scrutiny in the first place. (shrink)

A conventional wisdom about the progress of physics holds that successive theories wholly encompass the domains of their predecessors through a process that is often called reduction. While certain influential accounts of inter-theory reduction in physics take reduction to require a single "global" derivation of one theory's laws from those of another, I show that global reductions are not available in all cases where the conventional wisdom requires reduction to hold. However, I argue that a weaker (...) "local" form of reduction, which defines reduction between theories in terms of a more fundamental notion of reduction between models of a single fixed system, is available in such cases and moreover suffices to uphold the conventional wisdom. To illustrate the sort of fixed-system, inter-model reduction that grounds inter-theoretic reduction on this picture, I specialize to a particular class of cases in which both models are dynamical systems. I show that reduction in these cases is underwritten by a mathematical relationship that follows the broad prescriptions of Nagel/Schaffner reduction, and support this claim with several examples. Moreover, I show that this broadly Nagelian analysis of inter-model reduction encompasses several cases that are sometimes cited as instances of the "physicist's" limit-based notion of reduction. (shrink)

Wesley Salmon’s version of the ontic conception of explanation is a main historical root of contemporary work on mechanistic explanation. This paper examines and critiques the philosophical merits of Salmon’s version, and argues that his conception’s most fundamental construct is either fundamentally obscure, or else reduces to a non-ontic conception of explanation. Either way, the ontic conception is a misconception.

Might it be that world itself, independently of what we know about it or how we represent it, is metaphysically indeterminate? This article tackles in turn a series of questions: In what sorts of cases might we posit metaphysical indeterminacy? What is it for a given case of indefiniteness to be 'metaphysical'? How does the phenomenon relate to 'ontic vagueness', the existence of 'vague objects', 'de re indeterminacy' and the like? How might the logic work? Are there reasons for (...) postulating this distinctive sort of indefiniteness? Conversely, are there reasons for denying that there is indefiniteness of this sort? (shrink)

In this article, I identify a distinctive form of injustice—ontic injustice—in which an individual is wronged by the very fact of being socially constructed as a member of a certain social kind. To be a member of a certain social kind is, at least in part, to be subject to certain social constraints and enablements, and these constraints and enablements can be wrongful to the individual who is subjected to them, in the sense that they inflict a moral injury. (...) The concept of ontic injustice is valuable in three main ways: it draws our attention to the role played by social kinds in enacting wrongful constraints and enablements; it clarifies our options for developing accounts of the ontology of particular social kinds, such as gender kinds; and, along with the related concept of ‘ontic oppression’, it helps us to understand and respond to oppression. (shrink)

A number of analytical philosophers have recently endorsed the view that the world itself is indeterminate in some respect. Intriguingly, ideas similar to the view are expressed by thinkers from Chinese Madhyamaka Buddhism, which may shed light on the current discussion of worldly indeterminacy. Using as a basis Chinese Madhyamaka thought, together with Jessica Wilson’s account of indeterminacy, I develop an ontological conception of indeterminacy, termed ontic indeterminacy, which centres on two complementary ideas—conclusive indeterminability and provisional determinability. I show (...) that OI is well-equipped to tackle several issues of worldly indeterminacy. My overarching aim is to present a viable and sustainable perspective on the subject of indeterminacy to enrich analytical philosophers’ insights into the intricate nature of reality. (shrink)

There is good reason to believe that scientific realism requires a commitment to the objective modal structure of the physical world. Causality, equilibrium, laws of nature, and probability all feature prominently in scientific theory and explanation, and each one is a modal notion. If we are committed to the content of our best scientific theories, we must accept the modal nature of the physical world. But what does the scientific realist’s commitment to physical modality require? We consider whether scientific realism (...) is compatible with Humeanism about the laws of nature, and we conclude that it is not. We specifically identify three major problems for the best-systems account of lawhood: its central concept of strength cannot be formulated non-circularly, it cannot offer a satisfactory account of the laws of the special sciences, and it can offer no explanation of the success of inductive inference. In addition, Humeanism fails to be naturalistically motivated. For these reasons, we conclude that the scientific realist must embrace natural necessity. (shrink)

While ontic structural realism (OSR) has been a central topic in contemporary philosophy of science, the relation between OSR and the concept of emergence has received little attention. We will argue that OSR is fully compatible with emergentism. The denial of ontological emergence requires additional assumptions that, strictly speaking, go beyond OSR. We call these _physicalist closure assumptions._ We will explain these assumptions and show that they are independent of the central commitments of OSR and inconsistent with its core (...) goals. Recognizing the compatibility of OSR and ontological emergence may contribute to the solution of ontological puzzles in physics while offering new ways to achieve the goals that advocates of OSR set for their view. (shrink)

According to structural realism, in mature science there is structural continuity along theoretical change. A major counterexample to this thesis is the transition from the Eightfold Way to the Standard Model in particle physics. Nevertheless, the notion of structure is significantly important in comprehending the theoretical picture of particle physics, where particles change and undergo transmutations, while the only thing which remains unchanged is the basic structure, i.e. the symmetry group which controls the transmutations. This kind of view agrees with (...) the paradigmatic case where the structure is an internal symmetry and the instantiations are the elementary particles. The metaphysical view which reflects this situation is a version of ontic structuralism. (shrink)

In this paper I develop a framework for understanding ontic vagueness. The project of the paper is two-fold. I first outline a definitional account of ontic vagueness – one that I think is an improvement on previous attempts because it remains neutral on other, independent metaphysical issues. I then develop one potential manifestation of that basic definitional structure. This is a more robust (and much less neutral) account which gives a fully classical explication of ontic vagueness via (...) modal concepts. The overarching aim is to systematically investigate the puzzling question of what exactly it could be for the world itself to be vague. (shrink)

Ontic structural realism (OSR) is crucially motivated by empirical discoveries of fundamental physics. To this extent its potential to furnish a general metaphysics for science may appear limited. However, OSR also provides a good account of the progress that has been achieved over the decades in a formalized special science, economics. Furthermore, this has a basis in the ontology presupposed by economic theory, and is not just an artifact of formalization. †To contact the author, please write to: 4th Floor, (...) Humanities Building, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 900 13th Street South, Birmingham, AL 35294‐1260; School of Economics, Leslie Social Science Building, University of Cape Town, Private Bag, Rondebosch 7701, Cape Town, South Africa; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

What features will something have if it counts as an explanation? And will something count as an explanation if it has those features? In the second half of the 20th century, philosophers of science set for themselves the task of answering such questions, just as a priori conceptual analysis was generally falling out of favor. And as it did, most philosophers of science just moved on to more manageable questions about the varieties of explanation and discipline-specific scientific explanation. Often, such (...) shifts are sound strategies for problem-solving. But leaving fallow certain basic conceptual issues can also result in foundational debates. (shrink)

Three accounts of effective realism (ER) have been advanced to solve three problems for scientific realism: Fraser and Vickers (forthcoming) develop a version of ER about non-relativistic quantum mechanics that they argue is compatible with all the main realist versions (‘interpretations’) of quantum mechanics avoiding the problem of underdetermination among them; Williams (2019) and Fraser (2020b) propose ER about quantum field theory as a response to the problems facing realist interpretations; Robertson and Wilson (forthcoming) propose ER to deal with the (...) dubious ontological status of the entities belonging to superseded theories. This paper argues for the unification of these proposals based on realism about modal structure and the idea of scale relativity of ontology developed by ontic structural realists. This solves problems some or all the accounts of ER face, especially that of making explicit in what way they are realist. Furthermore, we respond to a recent critique that has been raised against the ontic structural realist account of quantum mechanics that we employ. (shrink)

Much of modern technology critique inherits Heidegger’s ontico-ontological distinction. In this paper, following Stiegler’s linking of the ontic to the transgenerational, I argue that Heidegger leaves the materiality of technics as a potential site for difference in the wake. Put differently, Heidegger “declines the gift of the ontic,” instead constructing an order of an imagined Graeco-German inheritance—a culturally and linguistically specific “saving-power” against the ills of modern technology. Through Derrida’s inheritance of Heidegger’s work—marked by a different language and (...) positionality—I reconsider ontico-ontological difference as an opening to a co-constitutive productivity of world and thing, where the passing on of mnemonic inheritance features multiplicities of languages and cultural techniques that preempt Heidegger’s “Graeco-German monolingualism.” This calls for a central positioning of the politics of memory and inheritance within modern technology critique, thereby attending both to the material realities as well as the cultural differences of technics. (shrink)

Ontic structural realism refers to the novel, exciting, and widely discussed basic idea that the structure of physical reality is genuinely relational. In its radical form, the doctrine claims that there are, in fact, no objects but only structure, i.e., relations. More moderate approaches state that objects have only relational but no intrinsic properties. In its most moderate and most tenable form, ontic structural realism assumes that at the most fundamental level of physical reality there are only relational (...) properties. This means that the most fundamental objects only possess relational but no non-reducible intrinsic properties. The present paper will argue that our currently best physics refutes even this most moderate form of ontic structural realism. More precisely, I will claim that 1) according to quantum field theory, the most fundamental objects of matter are quantum fields and not particles, and show that 2) according to the Standard Model, quantum fields have intrinsic non-relational properties. (shrink)

A respectable assessment of priority-based ontic structuralism demands an elucidation of its metaphysical backbone. Here we focus on two theses that stand in need of clarification: the Fundamentality Thesis states that structures are fundamental, and the Priority Thesis states that these structures are prior to putative fundamental objects, if these exist. Candidate notions to illuminate and such as supervenience and ontological dependence failed at this task. Our purpose is to show that grounding is the best competitor to articulate and, (...) and regiment such theses in a desirable unified way. Our strategy is two-fold. First, we make the case that grounding does better than ontological dependence and supervenience. Second, we show that the distinction between partial and full grounds permits us to respond to an objection raised by Kerry McKenzie against the proposal of interpreting priority-based Ontic Structuralism in the idiom of metaphysical determination. Our conclusion is that priority ontic structuralists have compelling reasons for adopting a grounding-based approach. (shrink)

The ontic conception of scientific explanation has been constructed and motivated on the basis of a putative lexical ambiguity in the term explanation. I raise a puzzle for this ambiguity claim, and then give a deflationary solution under which all ontically-rendered talk of explanation is merely elliptical; what it is elliptical for is a view of scientific explanation that altogether avoids the ontic conception. This result has revisionary consequences for New Mechanists and other philosophers of science, many of (...) whom have assimilated their conception of explanation to the ontic conception. (shrink)

Descartes’s metaphysics posits a sharp distinction between two types of non-finitude, or unlimitedness: whereas God alone is infinite, numbers, space, and time are indefinite. The distinction has proven difficult to interpret in a way that abides by the textual evidence and conserves the theoretical roles that the distinction plays in Descartes’s philosophy—in particular, the important role it plays in the causal proof for God’s existence in the Meditations. After formulating the interpretive task, I criticize extant interpretations of the distinction. I (...) then propose an alternative at whose core is the idea that whereas the indefinite is a structural, iterative notion, designating the absence of an upper bound, the infinite is an ontic notion, signifying being in general, or what is, without qualification. (shrink)

An account of distinctively mathematical explanation (DME) should satisfy three desiderata: it should account for the modal import of some DMEs; it should distinguish uses of mathematics in explanation that are distinctively mathematical from those that are not (Baron [2016]); and it should also account for the directionality of DMEs (Craver and Povich [2017]). Baron’s (forthcoming) deductive-mathematical account, because it is modelled on the deductive-nomological account, is unlikely to satisfy these desiderata. I provide a counterfactual account of DME, the Narrow (...) Ontic Counterfactual Account (NOCA), that can satisfy all three desiderata. NOCA appeals to ontic considerations to account for explanatory asymmetry and ground the relevant counterfactuals. NOCA provides a unification of the causal and the non-causal, the ontic and the modal, by identifying a common core that all explanations share and in virtue of which they are explanatory. (shrink)

For Sengzhao (374−414 CE), a leading Sanlun philosopher of Chinese Buddhism, things in the world are ontologically indeterminate in that they are devoid of any determinate form or nature. In his view, we should understand and use words provisionally, so that they are not taken to connote the determinacy of their referents. To echo the notion of ontic indeterminacy and indicate the provisionality of language, his main work, the Zhaolun, abounds in paradoxical expressions. In this essay, I offer a (...) philosophical analysis and rational reconstruction of Sengzhao’s linguistic thought, with a view to exploring the rationale for and purpose of his use of paradoxical language. (shrink)

I argue that an adequate account of non-reductive realization must guarantee satisfaction of a certain condition on the token causal powers associated with (instances of) realized and realizing entities---namely, what I call the 'Subset Condition on Causal Powers' (first introduced in Wilson 1999). In terms of states, the condition requires that the token powers had by a realized state on a given occasion be a proper subset of the token powers had by the state that realizes it on that occasion. (...) Accounts of non-reductive realization conforming to this condition are implementing what I call 'the powers-based subset strategy'. I focus on the crucial case involving mental and brain states; the results may be generalized, as appropriate. I first situate and motivate the strategy by attention to the problem of mental causation; I make the case, in schematic terms, that implementation of the strategy makes room (contra Kim 1989, 1993, 1998, and elsewhere) for mental states to be ontologically and causally autonomous from their realizing physical states, without inducing problematic causal overdetermination, and compatible with both Physicalism and Non-reduction; and I show that several contemporary accounts of non-reductive realization (in terms of functional realization, parthood, and the determinable/determinate relation) are plausibly seen as implementing the strategy. As I also show, implementation of the powers-based strategy does not require endorsement of any particular accounts of either properties or causation---indeed, a categoricalist contingentist Humean can implement the strategy. The schematic location of the strategy in the space of available responses to the problem of mental (more generally, higher-level) causation, as well as the fact that the schema may be metaphysically instantiated, strongly suggests that the strategy is, appropriately generalized and instantiated, sufficient and moreover necessary for non-reductive realization. I go on to defend the sufficiency and necessity claims against a variety of objections, considering, along the way, how the powers-based subset strategy fares against competing accounts of purportedly non-reductive realization in terms of supervenience, token identity, and constitution. (shrink)