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The Structure of the World: Metaphysics and Representation

New York: Oxford University Press (2014)

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  1. (1 other version)The metaphysics of laws: dispositionalism vs. primitivism.Mauro Dorato & Michael Esfeld - 2014 - In T. Bigaj & C. Wuthrich (eds.), Metaphysics and Science (tentative title). Poznan Studies.
    The paper compares dispositionalism about laws of nature with primitivism. It argues that while the distinction between these two positions can be drawn in a clear-cut manner in classical mechanics, it is less clear in quantum mechanics, due to quantum non-locality. Nonetheless, the paper points out advantages for dispositionalism in comparison to primitivism also in the area of quantum mechanics, and of contemporary physics in general.
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  • How to account for quantum non-locality: ontic structural realism and the primitive ontology of quantum physics.Michael Esfeld - 2017 - Synthese 194 (7):2329-2344.
    The paper has two aims: (1) it sets out to show that it is well motivated to seek for an account of quantum non-locality in the framework of ontic structural realism (OSR), which integrates the notions of holism and non-separability that have been employed since the 1980s to achieve such an account. However, recent research shows that OSR on its own cannot provide such an account. Against this background, the paper argues that by applying OSR to the primitive ontology theories (...)
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  • Ordinary objects.Daniel Z. Korman - 2011 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    An encyclopedia entry which covers various revisionary conceptions of which macroscopic objects there are, and the puzzles and arguments that motivate these conceptions: sorites arguments, the argument from vagueness, the puzzles of material constitution, arguments against indeterminate identity, arguments from arbitrariness, debunking arguments, the overdetermination argument, and the problem of the many.
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  • Identity and individuality in quantum theory.Steven French - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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  • Scientific Realism.Richard Boyd - 1984 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 21 (1&2):767-791.
    (i) Scientific realism is primarily a metaphysical doctrine about the existence and nature of the unobservables of science. (ii) There are good explanationist arguments for realism, most famously that from the success of science, provided abduction is allowed. Abduction seems to be on an equal footing, at least, with other ampliative methods of inference. (iii) We have no reason to believe a doctrine of empirical equivalence that would sustain the underdetermination argument against realism. (iv) The key to defending realism from (...)
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  • An Inferential Response to the "Loss of Reality Objection" to Structural Empiricism.Franco Menares Paredes - 2022 - Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 26 (3):539–558.
    This paper aims to meet an objection that has been raised against structural empiricism known as the “loss of reality objection.” I argue that an inferential approach to scientific representation allows the structural empiricist to account for the representation of phenomena by data models and ensures that such a representation is not arbitrary. By the notions of immersion, derivation, and interpretation, I show how data models are able to represent phenomena in a non-arbitrary manner. I conclude this paper with a (...)
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  • When to defer to supermajority testimony — and when not.Christian List - 2014 - In Jennifer Lackey (ed.), Essays in Collective Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 240-249.
    Pettit (2006) argues that deferring to majority testimony is not generally rational: it may lead to inconsistent beliefs. He suggests that “another ... approach will do better”: deferring to supermajority testimony. But this approach may also lead to inconsistencies. In this paper, I describe conditions under which deference to supermajority testimony ensures consistency, and conditions under which it does not. I also introduce the concept of “consistency of degree k”, which is weaker than full consistency by ruling out only “blatant” (...)
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  • (1 other version)Quantum ontology de-naturalized: What we can't learn from quantum mechanics.Raoni Arroyo & Jonas R. B. Arenhart - 2024 - Theoria. An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science 32 (2):193-218.
    Philosophers of science commonly connect ontology and science, stating that these disciplines maintain a two-way relationship: on the one hand, we can extract ontology from scientific theories; on the other hand, ontology provides the realistic content of our scientific theories. In this article, we will critically examine the process of naturalizing ontology, i.e., confining the work of ontologists merely to the task of pointing out which entities certain theories commit themselves to. We will use non-relativistic quantum mechanics as a case (...)
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  • Peircean realism - towards a scientific metaphysics.Vittorio Justin Serra - 2024 - Dissertation, University of Kent
    The problem of the status of metaphysics -- what it is and what it is for, what use it is - has been with us for millennia, at least since Plato took issue with the Sophists, and continues to the present day. Here I attempt an intervention in this perennial dispute, with the aim of providing some kind of rapprochement between the factions. This intervention is based on how Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) understood metaphysics and the position presented here is (...)
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  • Evolution in Space and Time: The Second Synthesis of Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and the Philosophy of Biology.Mitchell Ryan Distin - 2023 - Self-published because fuck the leeches of Big Publishing.
    Change is the fundamental idea of evolution. Explaining the extraordinary biological change we see written in the history of genomes and fossil beds is the primary occupation of the evolutionary biologist. Yet it is a surprising fact that for the majority of evolutionary research, we have rarely studied how evolution typically unfolds in nature, in changing ecological environments, over space and time. While ecology played a major role in the eventual acceptance of the population genetic viewpoint of evolution in the (...)
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  • Toward an ontology of scientific concepts.Olin M. Robus - 2018 - Dissertation, University of Washington
    I argue that current projects in ‘naturalized metaphysics’ fail to be properly naturalistic, and thereby fail in their stated aim to take one’s metaphysics from science. I argue that naturalism must involve the idea of taking science seriously, and that this can only be spelled out in terms of taking not only the theories of science seriously, but also its practice and its socio-linguistic situatedness seriously as well. This accords with naturalism because not doing so draws an artificial (non-natural) distinction (...)
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  • On some objections to the powers-BSA.Samuel Kimpton-Nye - 2024 - Philosophical Quarterly 74 (3):998-1006.
    This paper responds to Friend’s (2023) critique of the Powers-BSA, a view according to which laws of nature are efficient descriptions of how modally laden properties (powers) are possibly distributed in spacetime. In the course of this response, the paper discusses the nature of scientific and metaphysical explanation, the aim of science and the structure of modal space.
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  • Measuring Ontological Simplicity.Noël B. Saenz - 2024 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 11 (25):652-688.
    Standard approaches to ontological simplicity focus either on the number of things or types a theory posits or on the number of fundamental things or types a theory posits. In this paper, I suggest a ground-theoretic approach that focuses on the number of something else. After getting clear on what this approach amounts to, I motivate it, defend it, and complete it.
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  • DOĞA YASALARI BAĞLAMINDA KLASIK HUMECULUĞA KARŞI YAPISAL HUMECULUK.Omer Fatih Tekin - 2023 - Felsefe Dünyası Dergisi 1 (77):89-111.
    In The Context of Laws of Nature Structural Humeanism vs. Classical Humeanism -/- In the context of the laws of nature, philosophers of science have developed some views in order to adopt an attitude towards recurring events in nature. In this respect, it has been discussed whether there is any driving force underlying the regular behaviours and movements we encounter in nature, and two approaches have emerged as a result of the discussion: A view that there are certain driving forces (...)
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  • Properties, potentialities and modality.Barbara Vetter - 2024 - In A. R. J. Fisher & Anna-Sofia Maurin (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Properties. London: Routledge. pp. 315-324.
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  • Effective Ontic Structural Realism.James Ladyman & Lorenzo Lorenzetti - forthcoming - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
    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 (...)
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  • From indeterminacy in a fundamental theory to fundamental indeterminacy?Chanwoo Lee - forthcoming - Analytic Philosophy.
    In this paper, I examine a case for fundamental indeterminacy (FI) by Elizabeth Barnes and offer my counterarguments. Barnes' account of FI includes both the characterization of FI and why we need to accept it. I argue that her reasons for accepting FI can be challenged even when we accept her characterization of FI. Her main claim is that finding a fundamental proposition that our fundamental theory is indeterminate about (FPF) gives us a reason to accept FI in metaphysics. I (...)
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  • Rules and Meaning in Quantum Mechanics.Iulian D. Toader - manuscript
    This book concerns the metasemantics of quantum mechanics (QM). Roughly, it pursues an investigation at an intersection of the philosophy of physics and the philosophy of language, and it offers a critical analysis of rival explanations of the semantic facts of standard QM. Two problems for such explanations are discussed: categoricity and permanence. New results include 1) a reconstruction of Einstein's incompleteness argument, which concludes that a local, separable, and categorical QM cannot exist, 2) a reinterpretation of Bohr's principle of (...)
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  • The elimination of metaphysics through the epistemological analysis: lessons (un)learned from metaphysical underdetermination.Raoni Wohnrath Arroyo, Jonas R. B. Arenhart & Décio Krause - 2023 - In Diederik Aerts, Jonas Arenhart, Christian De Ronde & Giuseppe Sergioli (eds.), Probing The Meaning Of Quantum Mechanics: Probability, Metaphysics, Explanation And Measurement. World Scientific.
    This chapter argues that the general philosophy of science should learn metaphilosophical lessons from the case of metaphysical underdetermination, as it occurs in non-relativistic quantum mechanics. Section presents the traditional discussion of metaphysical underdetermination regarding the individuality and non-individuality of quantum particles. Section discusses three reactions to it found in the literature: eliminativism about individuality; conservatism about individuality; eliminativism about objects. Section wraps it all up with metametaphysical considerations regarding the epistemology of metaphysics of science.
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  • Reversing the arrow of time.Bryan W. Roberts - 2022 - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    'The arrow of time' refers to the curious asymmetry that distinguishes the future from the past. Reversing the Arrow of Time argues that there is an intimate link between the symmetries of 'time itself' and time reversal symmetry in physical theories, which has wide-ranging implications for both physics and its philosophy. This link helps to clarify how we can learn about the symmetries of our world, how to understand the relationship between symmetries and what is real, and how to overcome (...)
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  • Humean time-reversal symmetry.Michael Esfeld & Cristian López - 2023 - Synthese 202 (2):1-19.
    In this paper, we put forward an alternative interpretation of time-reversal symmetry in philosophy of physics: Humean time-reversal symmetry. According to it, time-reversal symmetry is understood as a heuristic, epistemic virtue of the best system, not as a property of the Humean mosaic. One of the consequences of this view is that one of the main arguments against a primitive direction of time is rendered harmless, which paves the way for primitivism about the direction of time.
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  • Interpreting Quantum Entanglement: Steps towards Coherentist Quantum Mechanics.Matteo Morganti & Claudio Calosi - 2021 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 72 (3):865-891.
    We put forward a new, ‘coherentist’ account of quantum entanglement, according to which entangled systems are characterized by symmetric relations of ontological dependence among the component particles. We compare this coherentist viewpoint with the two most popular alternatives currently on offer—structuralism and holism—and argue that it is essentially different from, and preferable to, both. In the course of this article, we point out how coherentism might be extended beyond the case of entanglement and further articulated.
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  • Naturalized metaphysics or displacing metaphysicians to save metaphysics.Rasmus Jaksland - 2023 - Synthese 201 (6):1-25.
    Naturalized metaphysics aims to establish justified metaphysical claims, where metaphysics is meant to carry its usual significance, while avoiding the traditional methods of metaphysics—a priori reasoning, conceptual analysis, intuitions, and common sense—which naturalized metaphysics argues are not epistemically probative. After offering an explication of what it means to do metaphysics, this paper argues that naturalized metaphysics, at the outset, is hospitable to doing metaphysics. The underdetermination of metaphysics by science, however, changes the picture. Naturalized metaphysics has to break this underdetermination, (...)
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  • What analytic metaphysics can do for scientific metaphysics.Chanwoo Lee - 2023 - Ratio 36 (3):192-203.
    The apparent chasm between two camps in metaphysics, analytic metaphysics and scientific metaphysics, is well recognized. I argue that the relationship between them is not necessarily a rivalry; a division of labour that resembles the relationship between pure mathematics and science is possible. As a case study, I look into the metaphysical underdetermination argument for ontic structural realism, a well‐known position in scientific metaphysics, together with an argument for the position in analytic metaphysics known as ontological nihilism. I argue that (...)
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  • Against relationalism about modality.Carlos Romero - 2023 - Philosophical Studies 180 (8):2245-2274.
    On a highly influential way to think of modality, that I call ‘relationalism’, the modality of a state is explained by its being composed of properties, and these properties being related by a higher-order and primitively modal relation. Examples of relationalism are the Dretske-Tooley-Armstrong account of natural necessity, many dispositional essentialist views, and Wang’s incompatibility primitivism. I argue that relationalism faces four difficulties: that the selection between modal relations is arbitrary, that the modal relation cannot belong to any logical order, (...)
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  • Scurvy and the ontology of natural kinds.P. D. Magnus - 2023 - Philosophy of Science 80 (5):1031-1039.
    Some philosophers understand natural kinds to be the categories which are constraints on enquiry. In order to elaborate the metaphysics appropriate to such an account, I consider the complicated history of scurvy, citrus, and vitamin C. It may be tempting to understand these categories in a shallow way (as mere property clusters) or in a deep way (as fundamental properties). Neither approach is adequate, and the case instead calls for middle-range ontology: starting from categories which we identify in the world (...)
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  • Theoretical virtues and the methodological analogy between science and metaphysics.Andrew Brenner - 2023 - Synthese 201 (2):1-19.
    Metaphysicians often claim that some metaphysical theory should (or shouldn’t) be believed because it exhibits (or fails to exhibit) theoretical virtues such as simplicity. Metaphysicians also sometimes claim that the legitimacy of these sorts of appeals to theoretical virtues are vindicated by the similar appeals to theoretical virtues which scientists make in scientific theory choice. One objection to this methodological move is to claim that the metaphysician misdescribes the role that theoretical virtues play within science. In this paper I defend (...)
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  • How to be a powers theorist about functional laws, conservation laws and symmetries.Samuel Kimpton-Nye - 2022 - Philosophical Studies 180 (1):317-332.
    This paper defends an account of the laws of nature in terms of irreducibly modal properties (aka powers) from the threat posed by functional laws, conservation laws and symmetries. It thus shows how powers theorists can avoid ad hoc explanations and resist an inflated ontology of powers and governing laws. The key is to understand laws not as flowing from the essences of powers, as per Bird (2007), but as features of a description of how powers are possibly distributed, as (...)
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  • Two Approaches in the Metaphysics of Science: On Scientific Realism and Anti-Realism.Ömer Fatih Tekin - 2022 - Beytulhikme An International Journal of Philosophy 2 (12):437-458.
    In this paper, the scientific realism/anti-realism debate, which is one of the most popular topics in the metaphysics of science, will be examined in supporting the realistic wing. In this respect, the discussion will be conducted by keeping the subjects of ‘existence of an external mind-independent world’ and ‘unobservable entities’ at the center of this paper. In the context of understanding the world, ‘Science’ activity is not the sum of the research carried out only by considering empirical data; on the (...)
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  • The case for panpsychism: a critical assessment.Michael Pelczar - 2022 - Synthese 200 (4):1-22.
    According to panpsychists, physical phenomena are, at bottom, nothing but experiential phenomena. One argument for this view proceeds from an alleged need for physical phenomena to have features beyond what physics attributes to them; another starts by arguing that consciousness is ubiquitous, and proposes an identification of physical and experiential phenomena as the best explanation of this alleged fact. The first argument assumes that physical phenomena have categorical natures, and the second that the world’s experience-causing powers or potentials underdetermine its (...)
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  • Exploratory modeling and indeterminacy in the search for life.Franklin R. Jacoby - 2022 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 12 (2):1-20.
    The aim of this article is to use a model from the origin of life studies to provide some depth and detail to our understanding of exploratory models by suggesting that some of these models should be understood as indeterminate. Models that are indeterminate are a type of exploratory model and therefore have extensive potential and can prompt new lines of research. They are distinctive in that, given the current state of scientific understanding, we cannot specify how and where the (...)
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  • Taking models seriously and being a linguistic realist.Raoni Wohnrath Arroyo & Gilson Olegario da Silva - 2022 - Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 26 (1):73-94.
    Carnap's conception of linguistic frameworks is widespread; however, it is not entirely clear nor consensual to pinpoint what is the influence of his stance within the traditional realist/anti-realist debate. In this paper, we place Carnap as a proponent of a scientific realist stance, by presenting what he called “linguistic realism”. Some possible criticisms are considered, and a case study is offered with wave function realism, a popular position in the philosophy of quantum mechanics.
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  • The structuralist approach to underdetermination.Chanwoo Lee - 2022 - Synthese 200 (2):1-25.
    This paper provides an exposition of the structuralist approach to underdetermination, which aims to resolve the underdetermination of theories by identifying their common theoretical structure. Applications of the structuralist approach can be found in many areas of philosophy. I present a schema of the structuralist approach, which conceptually unifies such applications in different subject matters. It is argued that two classic arguments in the literature, Paul Benacerraf’s argument on natural numbers and W. V. O. Quine’s argument for the indeterminacy of (...)
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  • Underdetermination and Ontic Structural Realism.Saeed Masoumi - 2021 - Philosophical Investigations 15 (37):1027-1051.
    One of the most important arguments against scientific realism is underdetermination, so realists should address the argument satisfactorily and give an appropriate response to it. Underdetermination divides into holist and contrastive forms; in this article, we will only deal with the contrastive form. By examining different responses, it will turn out that while they are successful in some cases, there are instances where responses are not satisfactory. Specifically, two formulations of Newtonian mechanics are examined and the examination reveals an important (...)
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  • The Powers of Quantum Mechanics: A Metametaphysical Discussion of the “Logos Approach”.Raoni Wohnrath Arroyo & Jonas R. Becker Arenhart - 2023 - Foundations of Science 28 (3):885-910.
    This paper presents and critically discusses the “logos approach to quantum mechanics” from the point of view of the current debates concerning the relation between metaphysics and science. Due to its alleged direct connection with quantum formalism, the logos approach presents itself as a better alternative for understanding quantum mechanics than other available views. However, we present metaphysical and methodological difficulties that seem to clearly point to a different conclusion: the logos approach is on an epistemic equal footing among alternative (...)
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  • The Chemical Bond is a Real Pattern.Vanessa A. Seifert - forthcoming - Philosophy of Science:1-47.
    There is a persisting debate about what chemical bonds are and whether they exist. I argue that chemical bonds are real patterns of interactions between subatomic particles. This proposal resolves the problems raised in the context of existing understandings of the chemical bond and provides a novel way to defend the reality of chemical bonds.
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  • Reality in Perspectives.Mahdi Khalili - 2022 - Dissertation, Vu University Amsterdam
    This dissertation is about human knowledge of reality. In particular, it argues that scientific knowledge is bounded by historically available instruments and theories; nevertheless, the use of several independent instruments and theories can provide access to the persistent potentialities of reality. The replicability of scientific observations and experiments allows us to obtain explorable evidence of robust entities and properties. The dissertation includes seven chapters. It also studies three cases – namely, Higgs bosons and hypothetical Ϝ-particles (section 2.4), the Ptolemaic and (...)
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  • Structuralist approaches to Bohmian mechanics.Lorenzo Lorenzetti - 2022 - Synthese 200 (1):1-15.
    Lam and Esfeld have argued that, within Bohmian mechanics, the wave function can be interpreted as a physical structure instantiated by the fundamental particles posited by the theory. Further, to characterize the nature of this structure, they appeal to the framework of Ontic Structural Realism, thereby proposing a structuralist interpretation of Bohmian mechanics. However, I shall point out that OSR denotes a family of distinct views, each of which maintains a different account about the relation between structures and objects, and (...)
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  • Stating structural realism: mathematics‐first approaches to physics and metaphysics.David Wallace - 2022 - Philosophical Perspectives 36 (1):345-378.
    I respond to the frequent objection that structural realism fails to sharply state an alternative to the standard predicate-logic, object / property / relation, way of doing metaphysics. The approach I propose is based on what I call a ‘math-first’ approach to physical theories (close to the so-called ‘semantic view of theories') where the content of a physical theory is to be understood primarily in terms of its mathematical structure and the representational relations it bears to physical systems, rather than (...)
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  • Emerging into the rainforest: Emergence and special science ontology.Alexander Franklin & Katie Robertson - 2024 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 14 (4):1-26.
    Scientific realists don’t standardly discriminate between, say, biology and fundamental physics when deciding whether the evidence and explanatory power warrant the inclusion of new entities in our ontology. As such, scientific realists are committed to a lush rainforest of special science kinds (Ross, 2000). Viruses certainly inhabit this rainforest – their explanatory power is overwhelming – but viruses’ properties can be explained from the bottom up: reductive explanations involving amino acids are generally available. However, reduction has often been taken to (...)
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  • Factualism and Anti-descriptivism: a challenge to the materialist criterion of fundamentality.Víctor Fernandez Castro - 2022 - Organon F: Medzinárodný Časopis Pre Analytickú Filozofiu 29 (1):109-127.
    Inspired by the work of Sellars, Cumpa (2014, 2018) and Buonomo (2021) have argued that we can evaluate our metaphysical proposals on fundamental categories in terms of their capacity for reconciling the scientific and the manifest image of the world. This criterion of fundamentality would allow us to settle the question of which categories among those proposed in the debate—e.g., substance, structure or facts—have a better explanatory value. The aim of this essay is to argue against a central assumption of (...)
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  • Mathematical Explanations in Evolutionary Biology or Naturalism? A Challenge for the Statisticalist.Fabio Sterpetti - 2021 - Foundations of Science 27 (3):1073-1105.
    This article presents a challenge that those philosophers who deny the causal interpretation of explanations provided by population genetics might have to address. Indeed, some philosophers, known as statisticalists, claim that the concept of natural selection is statistical in character and cannot be construed in causal terms. On the contrary, other philosophers, known as causalists, argue against the statistical view and support the causal interpretation of natural selection. The problem I am concerned with here arises for the statisticalists because the (...)
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  • Quantum pointillism with relational identity.Jorge Manero - 2021 - Synthese 199 (3-4):10639-10666.
    The feasibility of establishing a proper notion of a distinguishable object in the context of the de Broglie–Bohm approach to quantum mechanics seems, at first sight, uncontroversial by virtue of the fact that this theory can supposedly be interpreted in terms of a system of objective particles distinguished by individuating properties. However, after conducting a critical revision and evaluation of this trivial interpretation, and having assessed different alternatives that have been proposed in recent literature, I argue that within this theory (...)
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  • How Does an Entity Acquire Identity? Reassembling Relativistic Physics with Actor-Network Theory.Mariano Croce & Emilia Margoni - 2022 - Foundations of Science 27 (3):1055-1071.
    What is it that determines the identity of an entity? Processualism is a theoretical perspective that offers a startling answer to this question. The identity of an entity—whether human or nonhuman, animate or inanimate—depends on the set of relations in which this entity is located. And as the sets of relations are several, so are the identities that an entity can take. This article discusses this conclusion by integrating processual accounts from different fields of inquiry, such as relativistic physics and (...)
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  • Naturalización de la Metafísica Modal.Carlos Romero - 2021 - Dissertation, National Autonomous University of Mexico
    ⦿ In my dissertation I introduce, motivate and take the first steps in the implementation of, the project of naturalising modal metaphysics: the transformation of the field into a chapter of the philosophy of science rather than speculative, autonomous metaphysics. -/- ⦿ In the introduction, I explain the concept of naturalisation that I apply throughout the dissertation, which I argue to be an improvement on Ladyman and Ross' proposal for naturalised metaphysics. I also object to Williamson's proposal that modal metaphysics (...)
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  • On physics, metaphysics, and metametaphysics.Jonas R. Becker Arenhart & Raoni Arroyo - 2021 - Metaphilosophy 52 (2):175-199.
    Nonrelativistic quantum mechanics (QM) works perfectly well for all practical purposes. Once one admits, however, that a successful scientific theory is supposed not only to make predictions but also to tell us a story about the world in which we live, a philosophical problem emerges: in the specific case of QM, it is not possible to associate with the theory a unique scientific image of the world; there are several images. The fact that the theory may be compatible with distinct (...)
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  • The Mereological Problem of Entanglement.Paul M. Näger - manuscript
    It is well-known that the entangled quantum state of a composite object cannot be reduced to the states of its parts. This quantum holism provides a peculiar challenge to formulate an appropriate mereological model: When a system is in an entangled state, which objects are there on the micro and macro level, and which of the objects carries which properties? This paper chooses a modeling approach to answer these questions: It proceeds from a systematic overview of consistent mereological models for (...)
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  • Symmetry fundamentalism in quantum mechanics.David Schroeren - 2021 - Philosophical Studies 178 (12):3995-4024.
    Modern particle physics suggests an intriguing vision of physical reality: we are to imagine the symmetries of the world as fundamental, whereas the material constituents of the world are ontologically derivative of them. This paper develops a novel ontology for non-relativistic quantum mechanics which gives precise metaphysical content to this vision.
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  • Comparing the structures of mathematical objects.Isaac Wilhelm - 2021 - Synthese 199 (3-4):6357-6369.
    A popular method for comparing the structures of mathematical objects, which I call the ‘subset approach’, says that X has more structure than Y just in case X’s automorphisms form a proper subset of Y’s automorphisms. This approach is attractive, in part, because it seems to yield the right results in some comparisons of spacetime structure. But as I show, it yields the wrong results in a number of other cases. The problem is that the subset approach compares structure using (...)
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  • A puzzle about laws and explanation.Siegfried Jaag - 2021 - Synthese 199 (3-4):6085-6102.
    In this paper, we argue that the popular claim that laws of nature explain their instances creates a philosophical puzzle when it is combined with the widely held requirement that explanations need to be underpinned by ‘wordly’ relations. We argue that a “direct solution” to the puzzle that accounts for both explanatory laws and explanatory realism requires endorsing at least a radical metaphysics. Then, we examine the ramifications of a “skeptical solution”, i.e., dissolving it by giving up at least one (...)
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