Structural realism as developed by John Worrall and others can claim philosophical roots as far back as the late 19th century, though the discussion at that time does not unambiguously favor the contemporary form, or even its realism. After a critical examination of some aspects of the historical background some severe critical challenges to both Worrall's and Ladyman's versions are highlighted, and an alternative empiricist structuralism proposed. Support for this empiricist version is provided in part by the different way in (...) which we can do justice to Worrall's original demands and in part by the viewpoint it provides (in contrast to e.g. Michael Friedman's) on the stability maintained through scientific theory change. Planck against the heretics 1.1 Poincaré on the meaning of Maxwell's equations 1.2 Two responses: reification and structuralism On the road to structuralism 2.1 The microscope 2.2 Mathematization of the world picture 2.3 The 18th–20th century The new structural realism 3.1 From scientific realism to structuralism 3.2 The Ladyman variant: objectivity and invariance 3.3 How is structural realism supported? An empiricist structuralism 4.1 Royal succession in science 4.2 Defence of the empiricist version 4.3 Structure: an empiricist view. (shrink)

Several and repeated attempts have been made to say what objectivity consists of and why it should be pursued in research. In the first part of this paper two main strategies are singled out, sharing the assumption that there is a way objectivity can be thought of in the abstract, and that it can be instantiated in context—and in enough contexts to justify the abstract case. But not only is this assumption open to the objection that objectivity so conceived does (...) not admit of one clear definition that is appropriate in many or most contexts where we intend the term to do its work. It also does not seem to pay specific attention to what actually constitutes a context of practice, when we think of objectivity in some relation to such context. The aim of this paper is to question how context works both as a mechanism of meaning formation for the concept of objectivity, and as a practical framework for pursuing research objectively. To articulate a suitable notion of context some insight from recent literature in the philosophy of science is first introduced and then adapted to show how research practices successfully achieve objectivity as one of their aims. It will be argued that an idea of context that includes activities which are relevant and reliable towards a settled aim is the model of practice that makes objectivity a pursuable task in research. This contextual picture of objectivity, it will be suggested, might better serve the purpose of scientific research than either of the two descriptive strategies outlined at the beginning of this paper can do. (shrink)

There is widespread excitement in the literature about the method of arbitrary functions: many take it to show that it is from the dynamics of systems that the objectivity of probabilities emerge. In this paper, I differentiate three ways in which a probability function might be objective, and I argue that the method of arbitrary functions cannot help us show that dynamics objectivise probabilities in any of these senses.

Despite being time-travel adventure series, both classic Doctor Who (1963-1989, 1996) and its reboot (2005-present) have not seen the development of a coherent ontology of time for their fictional universe. As such, it is extremely difficult to review established theories of the nature of time in an attempt to shoe-horn Doctor Who into an existing framework. Difficulties include the evolution of the views of the central character, the alien “Doctor,” from a position that insists “time can’t be rewritten” to its (...) opposite as well as a curious anthropomorphizing of the temporal through show concepts like “fixed points in time.” I argue that one way to draw a coherent philosophy of time from the program is to treat the Time Lords as establishing not only the possibility of time travel but also the universe’s timeline itself. This leads to an examination of four-dimensional realism as characterizing the ontology of Doctor Who’s fictive timeline. (shrink)

We propose a definition of physical objects that aims to clarify some interpretational issues in quantum mechanics. We claim that the transformations generated by the objective properties of a physical system must be strictly interpreted as gauge transformations. We will argue that the uncertainty principle is a consequence of the mutual intertwining between objective properties and gauge-dependant properties. The proposed definition implies that in classical mechanics gauge-dependant properties are wrongly considered objective. We will conclude that, unlike classical mechanics, quantum mechanics (...) provides a complete objective description of physical systems. (shrink)