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  1. Guide to Ground.Kit Fine - 2012 - In Fabrice Correia & Benjamin Schnieder (eds.), Metaphysical grounding: understanding the structure of reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 37--80.
    A number of philosophers have recently become receptive to the idea that, in addition to scientific or causal explanation, there may be a distinctive kind of metaphysical explanation, in which explanans and explanandum are connected, not through some sort of causal mechanism, but through some constitutive form of determination. I myself have long been sympathetic to this idea of constitutive determination or ‘ontological ground’; and it is the aim of the present paper to help put the idea on a firmer (...)
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  • Consciousness and Fundamental Reality.Philip Goff - 2017 - New York, USA: Oup Usa.
    The first half of this book argues that physicalism cannot account for consciousness, and hence cannot be true. The second half explores and defends Russellian monism, a radical alternative to both physicalism and dualism. The view that emerges combines panpsychism with the view that the universe as a whole is fundamental.
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  • Structural realism: The best of both worlds?John Worrall - 1989 - Dialectica 43 (1-2):99-124.
    The no-miracles argument for realism and the pessimistic meta-induction for anti-realism pull in opposite directions. Structural Realism---the position that the mathematical structure of mature science reflects reality---relieves this tension.
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  • Real patterns.Daniel C. Dennett - 1991 - Journal of Philosophy 88 (1):27-51.
    Are there really beliefs? Or are we learning (from neuroscience and psychology, presumably) that, strictly speaking, beliefs are figments of our imagination, items in a superceded ontology? Philosophers generally regard such ontological questions as admitting just two possible answers: either beliefs exist or they don't. There is no such state as quasi-existence; there are no stable doctrines of semi-realism. Beliefs must either be vindicated along with the viruses or banished along with the banshees. A bracing conviction prevails, then, to the (...)
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  • What is structural realism?James Ladyman - 1998 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 29 (3):409-424.
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  • (1 other version)The devil in the details: asymptotic reasoning in explanation, reduction, and emergence.Robert W. Batterman - 2002 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Robert Batterman examines a form of scientific reasoning called asymptotic reasoning, arguing that it has important consequences for our understanding of the scientific process as a whole. He maintains that asymptotic reasoning is essential for explaining what physicists call universal behavior. With clarity and rigor, he simplifies complex questions about universal behavior, demonstrating a profound understanding of the underlying structures that ground them. This book introduces a valuable new method that is certain to fill explanatory gaps across disciplines.
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  • Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis.Paul Oppenheim & Hilary Putnam - 1958 - Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 2:3-36.
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  • Saving the phenomena.James Bogen & James Woodward - 1988 - Philosophical Review 97 (3):303-352.
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  • A defence of informational structural realism.Luciano Floridi - 2008 - Synthese 161 (2):219-253.
    This is the revised version of an invited keynote lecture delivered at the "1st Australian Computing and Philosophy Conference". The paper is divided into two parts. The first part defends an informational approach to structural realism. It does so in three steps. First, it is shown that, within the debate about structural realism, epistemic and ontic structural realism are reconcilable. It follows that a version of OSR is defensible from a structuralist-friendly position. Second, it is argued that a version of (...)
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  • Rainforest realism and the unity of science.Don Ross, James Ladyman & John Collier - 2007 - In James Ladyman & Don Ross (eds.), Every thing must go: metaphysics naturalized. New York: Oxford University Press.
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  • Against digital ontology.Luciano Floridi - 2009 - Synthese 168 (1):151 - 178.
    The paper argues that digital ontology (the ultimate nature of reality is digital, and the universe is a computational system equivalent to a Turing Machine) should be carefully distinguished from informational ontology (the ultimate nature of reality is structural), in order to abandon the former and retain only the latter as a promising line of research. Digital vs. analogue is a Boolean dichotomy typical of our computational paradigm, but digital and analogue are only “modes of presentation” of Being (to paraphrase (...)
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  • (1 other version)The Devil in the Details: Asymptotic Reasoning in Explanation, Reduction, and Emergence.Robert W. Batterman - 2001 - New York, US: Oxford University Press USA.
    Batterman examines a form of scientific reasoning called asymptotic reasoning, arguing that it has important consequences for our understanding of what physicists call universal behavior, as well as of the scientific process as a whole.
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  • Phenomena and patterns in data sets.James W. McAllister - 1997 - Erkenntnis 47 (2):217-228.
    Bogen and Woodward claim that the function of scientific theories is to account for 'phenomena', which they describe both as investigator-independent constituents of the world and as corresponding to patterns in data sets. I argue that, if phenomena are considered to correspond to patterns in data, it is inadmissible to regard them as investigator-independent entities. Bogen and Woodward's account of phenomena is thus incoherent. I offer an alternative account, according to which phenomena are investigator-relative entities. All the infinitely many patterns (...)
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  • Information measures, effective complexity, and total information.Murray Gell-Mann & Seth Lloyd - 1996 - Complexity 2 (1):44-52.
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  • Logical depth and physical complexity.C. H. Bennett - 1992 - In Rolf Herken (ed.), The Universal Turing Machine. A Half-Century Survey. Presses Universitaires de France. pp. 227-257.
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  • On an Argument for Humility.Ann Whittle - 2006 - Philosophical Studies 130 (3):461-497.
    Considerations upon the nature of properties and laws have led some philosophers to claim that the correct epistemic attitude with regards to the intrinsic properties of particulars is scepticism. I examine one particularly clear version of this line of argument, and contend that a serious form of scepticism is not established. However, I argue that the theories of properties and laws underlying the argument have unwanted metaphysical implications. These provide a stronger reason to jettison the analyses. I end by sketching (...)
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  • What is complexity?Remarks on simplicity and complexity by the Nobel Prize-winning author ofThe Quark and the Jaguar.Murray Gell-Mann - 1995 - Complexity 1 (1):16-19.
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  • Structural realism and the relationship between the special sciences and physics.James Ladyman - 2008 - Philosophy of Science 75 (5):744-755.
    The primacy of physics generates a philosophical problem that the naturalist must solve in order to be entitled to an egalitarian acceptance of the ontological commitments he or she inherits from the special sciences and fundamental physics. The problem is the generalized causal exclusion argument. If there is no genuine causation in the domains of the special sciences but only in fundamental physics then there are grounds for doubting the existence of macroscopic objects and properties, or at least the concreteness (...)
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  • Is There a Compelling Argument for Ontic Structural Realism?Matteo Morganti - 2011 - Philosophy of Science 78 (5):1165-1176.
    Structural realism first emerged as an epistemological thesis aimed to avoid the socalled pessimistic metainduction on the history of science. Some authors, however, have suggested that the preservation of structure across theory change is best explained by endorsing the metaphysical thesis that structure is all there is. Although the possibility of this latter, ‘ontic’ form of structural realism has been extensively debated, not much has been said concerning its justification. In this article, I distinguish between two arguments in favor of (...)
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  • Realism and its representational vehicles.Steven French - 2017 - Synthese 194 (9):3311-3326.
    In this essay I shall focus on the adoption of the Semantic Approach by structural realists, including myself, who have done so on the grounds that it wears its structuralist sympathies on its sleeve. Despite this, the SA has been identified as standing in tension with the ontological commitments of the so-called ’ontic’ form of this view and so I shall explore that tension before discussing the usefulness of the SA in framing scientific representation and concluding with a discussion of (...)
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  • Epistemic Informational Structural Realism.Majid Davoody Beni - 2016 - Minds and Machines 26 (4):323-339.
    The paper surveys Floridi’s attempt for laying down informational structural realism. After considering a number of reactions to the pars destruens of Floridi’s attack on the digital ontology, I show that Floridi’s enterprise for enriching the ISR by borrowing elements from the ontic form of structural realism is blighted by a haunting inconsistency. ISR has been originally developed by Floridi as a restricted and level dependent form of structural realism which remains mainly bonded within the borders of a Kantian perspective. (...)
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  • Explanation.Michael Redhead - 1990 - In Dudley Knowles (ed.), Explanation and its Limits. Cambridge University Press. pp. 135--154.
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  • Effective complexity as a measure of information content.James W. McAllister - 2003 - Philosophy of Science 70 (2):302-307.
    Murray Gell-Mann has proposed the concept of effective complexity as a measure of information content. The effective complexity of a string of digits is defined as the algorithmic complexity of the regular component of the string. This paper argues that the effective complexity of a given string is not uniquely determined. The effective complexity of a string admitting a physical interpretation, such as an empirical data set, depends on the cognitive and practical interests of investigators. The effective complexity of a (...)
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  • Remodelling structural realism: Quantum physics and the metaphysics of structure. [REVIEW]Steven French & James Ladyman - 2003 - Synthese 136 (1):31-56.
    We outline Ladyman's 'metaphysical' or 'ontic' form of structuralrealism and defend it against various objections. Cao, in particular, has questioned theview of ontology presupposed by this approach and we argue that by reconceptualisingobjects in structural terms it offers the best hope for the realist in thecontext of modern physics.
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  • Model selection and the multiplicity of patterns in empirical data.James W. McAllister - 2007 - Philosophy of Science 74 (5):884-894.
    Several quantitative techniques for choosing among data models are available. Among these are techniques based on algorithmic information theory, minimum description length theory, and the Akaike information criterion. All these techniques are designed to identify a single model of a data set as being the closest to the truth. I argue, using examples, that many data sets in science show multiple patterns, providing evidence for multiple phenomena. For any such data set, there is more than one data model that must (...)
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  • The Ontology of Patterns in Empirical Data.James W. McAllister - 2010 - Philosophy of Science 77 (5):804-814.
    This article defends the following claims. First, for patterns exhibited in empirical data, there is no criterion on which to demarcate patterns that are physically significant and patterns that are not physically significant. I call a pattern physically significant if it corresponds to a structure in the world. Second, all patterns must be regarded as physically significant. Third, distinct patterns must be regarded as providing evidence for distinct structures in the world. Fourth, in consequence, the world must be conceived as (...)
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  • Autonomous Patterns and Scientific Realism.Katherine Brading - 2010 - Philosophy of Science 77 (5):827-839.
    Taking Bogen and Woodward's discussion of data and phenomena as his starting point, McAllister presents a challenge to scientific realism. I discuss this challenge and offer a suggestion for how the scientific realist could respond to both its epistemic and ontological aspects. In so doing, I urge that the scientific realist should not reject ontological pluralism from the start, but should seek to explore versions of scientific realism that leave open the possibility of certain kinds of pluralist ontology. I investigate (...)
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