The Structuralist Conception of Objects

Philosophy of Science 70 (5):867-878 (2003)
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Abstract

This paper explores the consequences of the two most prominent forms of contemporary structural realism for the notion of objecthood. Epistemic structuralists hold that we can know structural aspects of reality, but nothing about the natures of unobservable relata whose relations define structures. Ontic structuralists hold that we can know structural aspects of reality, and that there is nothing else to know—objects are useful heuristic posits, but are ultimately ontologically dispensable. I argue that structuralism does not succeed in ridding a structuralist ontology of objects.

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Anjan Chakravartty
University of Miami

Citations of this work

Reconsidering the Dispositional Essentialist Canon.Samuel Kimpton-Nye - 2021 - Philosophical Studies 178 (10):3421-3441.
Structuralism in the Idiom of Determination.Kerry McKenzie - 2020 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (2):497-522.

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References found in this work

Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits.Bertrand Russell - 2009 - New York, USA: Simon and Schuster.
The Analysis of Matter.Bertrand Russell - 1927 - London: Kegan Paul.
What is structural realism?James Ladyman - 1998 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 29 (3):409-424.
Causality and properties.Sydney Shoemaker - 1980 - In Peter van Inwagen (ed.), Time and Cause. D. Reidel. pp. 109-35.

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