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  1. Withering away, weakly.F. A. Muller - 2011 - Synthese 180 (2):223 - 233.
    One of the reasons provided for the shift away from an ontology for physical reality of material objects & properties towards one of physical structures & relations (Ontological Structural Realism: OntSR) is that the quantum-mechanical description of composite physical systems of similar elementary particles entails they are indiscernible. As material objects, they 'whither away', and when they wither away, structures emerge in their stead. We inquire into the question whether recent results establishing the weak discernibility of elementary particles pose a (...)
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  • Identity in physics: a historical, philosophical, and formal analysis.Steven French & Décio Krause - 2006 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Decio Krause.
    Steven French and Decio Krause examine the metaphysical foundations of quantum physics. They draw together historical, logical, and philosophical perspectives on the fundamental nature of quantum particles and offer new insights on a range of important issues. Focusing on the concepts of identity and individuality, the authors explore two alternative metaphysical views; according to one, quantum particles are no different from books, tables, and people in this respect; according to the other, they most certainly are. Each view comes with certain (...)
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  • Identity and individuality in quantum theory.Steven French - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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  • What is an elementary particle?Erwin Schrödinger - 1950 - Annual Report of the Board of Regents of The Smithsonian Institution:183-196.
    Schrödinger discusses what an elementary particle is. This essay originally appeared in the journal Endeavour.
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  • (1 other version)I—James Ladyman: On the Identity and Diversity of Objects in a Structure.James Ladyman - 2007 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 81 (1):23-43.
    The identity and diversity of individual objects may be grounded or ungrounded, and intrinsic or contextual. Intrinsic individuation can be grounded in haecceities, or absolute discernibility. Contextual individuation can be grounded in relations, but this is compatible with absolute, relative or weak discernibility. Contextual individuation is compatible with the denial of haecceitism, and this is more harmonious with science. Structuralism implies contextual individuation. In mathematics contextual individuation is in general primitive. In physics contextual individuation may be grounded in relations via (...)
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  • The Possibility of Metaphysics: Substance, Identity, and Time.Edward Jonathan Lowe - 1998 - Oxford, GB: Clarendon Press.
    Jonathan Lowe argues that metaphysics should be restored to a central position in philosophy, as the most fundamental form of inquiry, whose findings underpin those of all other disciplines. He portrays metaphysics as charting the possibilities of existence, by identifying the categories of being and the relations between them. He sets out his own original metaphysical system, within which he seeks to answer many of the deepest questions in philosophy. 'a very rich book... deserves to be read carefully by anyone (...)
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  • Possibility of Metaphysics: Substance, Identity, and Time.E. J. Lowe - 1998 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
    Jonathan Lowe argues that metaphysics should be restored to a central position in philosophy, as the most fundamental form of rational inquiry, whose findings underpin those of all other disciplines. He portrays metaphysics as charting the possibilities of existence, by idetifying the categories of being and the relations of ontological dependency between entities of different categories. He proceeds to set out a unified and original metaphysical system: he defends a substance ontology, according to which the existence of the world s (...)
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  • Is Identity Really so Fundamental?Décio Krause & Jonas R. Becker Arenhart - 2019 - Foundations of Science 24 (1):51-71.
    We critically examine the claim that identity is a fundamental concept. According to those putting forward this thesis, there are four related reasons that can be called upon to ground the fundamental character of identity: identity is presupposed in every conceptual system; identity is required to characterize individuality; identity cannot be defined; the intelligibility of quantification requires identity. We address each of these points and argue that none of them advances compelling reasons to hold that identity is fundamental; in fact, (...)
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  • The Structure of the World: Metaphysics and Representation.Steven French - 2014 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Steven French articulates and defends the bold claim that there are no objects in the world. He draws on metaphysics and philosophy of science to argue for structural realism--the position that we live in a world of structures--and defends a form of eliminativism about objects that sets laws and symmetry principles at the heart of ontology.
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  • Ontological Frameworks for Scientific Theories.Jonas R. Becker Arenhart - 2012 - Foundations of Science 17 (4):339-356.
    A close examination of the literature on ontology may strike one with roughly two distinct senses of this word. According to the first of them, which we shall call traditional ontology , ontology is characterized as the a priori study of various “ontological categories”. In a second sense, which may be called naturalized ontology , ontology relies on our best scientific theories and from them it tries to derive the ultimate furniture of the world. From a methodological point of view (...)
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  • Grades of individuality. A pluralistic view of identity in quantum mechanics and in the sciences.Mauro Dorato & Matteo Morganti - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 163 (3):591-610.
    This paper offers a critical assessment of the current state of the debate about the identity and individuality of material objects. Its main aim, in particular, is to show that, in a sense to be carefully specified, the opposition between the Leibnizian ‘reductionist’ tradition, based on discernibility, and the sort of ‘primitivism’ that denies that facts of identity and individuality must be analysable has become outdated. In particular, it is argued that—contrary to a widespread consensus—‘naturalised’ metaphysics supports both the acceptability (...)
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  • How to Live Without Identity—And Why.Kai F. Wehmeier - 2012 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90 (4):761 - 777.
    Identity, we're told, is the binary relation that every object bears to itself, and to itself only. But how can a relation be binary if it never relates two objects? This puzzled Russell and led Wittgenstein to declare that identity is not a relation between objects. The now standard view is that Wittgenstein's position is untenable, and that worries regarding the relational status of identity are the result of confusion. I argue that the rejection of identity as a binary relation (...)
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  • The Bundle Theory is compatible with distinct but indiscernible particulars.Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra - 2004 - Analysis 64 (1):72-81.
    1. The Bundle Theory I shall discuss is a theory about the nature of substances or concrete particulars, like apples, chairs, atoms, stars and people. The point of the Bundle Theory is to avoid undesirable entities like substrata that allegedly constitute particulars. The version of the Bundle Theory I shall discuss takes particulars to be entirely constituted by the universals they instantiate.' Thus particulars are said to be just bundles of universals. Together with the claim that it is necessary that (...)
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  • On Kinds of Indiscernibility in Logic and Metaphysics.Adam Caulton & Jeremy Butterfield - 2012 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 63 (1):27-84.
    Using the Hilbert-Bernays account as a spring-board, we first define four ways in which two objects can be discerned from one another, using the non-logical vocabulary of the language concerned. Because of our use of the Hilbert-Bernays account, these definitions are in terms of the syntax of the language. But we also relate our definitions to the idea of permutations on the domain of quantification, and their being symmetries. These relations turn out to be subtle---some natural conjectures about them are (...)
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  • On a Straw Man in the Philosophy of Science - A Defense of the Received View.Sebastian Lutz - 2012 - Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 2 (1):77–120.
    I defend the Received View on scientific theories as developed by Carnap, Hempel, and Feigl against a number of criticisms based on misconceptions. First, I dispute the claim that the Received View demands axiomatizations in first order logic, and the further claim that these axiomatizations must include axioms for the mathematics used in the scientific theories. Next, I contend that models are important according to the Received View. Finally, I argue against the claim that the Received View is intended to (...)
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  • Metaphysical underdetermination: why worry?Steven French - 2011 - Synthese 180 (2):205 - 221.
    Various forms of underdetermination that might threaten the realist stance are examined. That which holds between different 'formulations' of a theory (such as the Hamiltonian and Lagrangian formulations of classical mechanics) is considered in some detail, as is the 'metaphysical' underdetermination invoked to support 'ontic structural realism'. The problematic roles of heuristic fruitfulness and surplus structure in attempts to break these forms of underdetermination are discussed and an approach emphasizing the relevant structural commonalities is defended.
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  • Discerning Fermions.Simon Saunders & F. A. Muller - 2008 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 59 (3):499 - 548.
    We demonstrate that the quantum-mechanical description of composite physical systems of an arbitrary number of similar fermions in all their admissible states, mixed or pure, for all finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces, is not in conflict with Leibniz's Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles (PII). We discern the fermions by means of physically meaningful, permutation-invariant categorical relations, i.e. relations independent of the quantum-mechanical probabilities. If, indeed, probabilistic relations are permitted as well, we argue that similar bosons can also be discerned in all (...)
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  • (1 other version)Quantum Mechanics: An Empiricist View.Paul Teller & Bas C. van Fraassen - 1995 - Philosophical Review 104 (3):457.
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  • Finite Cardinals in Quasi-set Theory.Jonas R. Becker Arenhart - 2012 - Studia Logica 100 (3):437-452.
    Quasi-set theory is a ZFU-like axiomatic set theory, which deals with two kinds of ur-elements: M-atoms, objects like the atoms of ZFU, and m-atoms, items for which the usual identity relation is not defined. One of the motivations to advance such a theory is to deal properly with collections of items like particles in non-relativistic quantum mechanics when these are understood as being non-individuals in the sense that they may be indistinguishable although identity does not apply to them. According to (...)
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  • Q-spaces and the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics.Graciela Domenech, Federico Holik & Décio Krause - 2008 - Foundations of Physics 38 (11):969-994.
    Our aim in this paper is to take quite seriously Heinz Post’s claim that the non-individuality and the indiscernibility of quantum objects should be introduced right at the start, and not made a posteriori by introducing symmetry conditions. Using a different mathematical framework, namely, quasi-set theory, we avoid working within a label-tensor-product-vector-space-formalism, to use Redhead and Teller’s words, and get a more intuitive way of dealing with the formalism of quantum mechanics, although the underlying logic should be modified. We build (...)
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  • Why Identity is Fundamental.Otávio Bueno - 2014 - American Philosophical Quarterly 51 (4):325-332.
    Identity is arguably one of the most fundamental concepts in metaphysics. There are several reasons why this is the case: Identity is presupposed in every conceptual system: without identity, it is unclear that any conceptual system can be formulated. Identity is required to characterize an individual: nothing can be an individual unless it has well-specified identity conditions. Identity cannot be defined: even in systems that allegedly have the resources to define identity. Identity is required for quantification: the intelligibility of quantification (...)
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  • No two entities without identity.Benjamin C. Jantzen - 2011 - Synthese 181 (3):433-450.
    In a naïve realist approach to reading an ontology off the models of a physical theory, the invariance of a given theory under permutations of its property-bearing objects entails the existence of distinct possible worlds from amongst which the theory cannot choose. A brand of Ontic Structural Realism attempts to avoid this consequence by denying that objects possess primitive identity, and thus worlds with property values permuted amongst those objects are really one and the same world. Assuming that any successful (...)
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  • Individuation.Edward Jonathan Lowe - 2003 - In Michael J. Loux & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), The Oxford handbook of metaphysics. New York: Oxford University Press.
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