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  1. Thinking Outside the Toolbox: Towards a More Productive Engagement Between Metaphysics and Philosophy of Physics.Steven French & Kerry McKenzie - 2012 - European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 8 (1):42-59.
    he relationship between metaphysics and science has recently become the focus of increased attention. Ladyman and Ross, in particular, have accused even naturalistically inclined metaphysicians of pursuing little more than the philosophy of A-level chemistry and have suggested that analytic metaphysics should simply be discontinued. In contrast, we shall argue, first of all, that even metaphysics that is disengaged from modern science may offer a set of resources that can be appropriated by philosophers of physics in order to set physics (...)
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  2. Priority and Particle Physics: Ontic Structural Realism as a Fundamentality Thesis.Kerry McKenzie - 2014 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 65 (2):353-380.
    In this article, I address concerns that the ontological priority claims definitive of ontic structural realism are as they stand unclear, and I do so by placing these claims on a more rigorous formal footing than they typically have been hitherto. I first of all argue that Kit Fine’s analysis of ontological dependence furnishes us with an ontological priority relation that is particularly apt for structuralism. With that in place, and with reference to two case studies prominent within the structuralist (...)
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  3. Structuralism in the Idiom of Determination.Kerry McKenzie - 2020 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (2):497-522.
    Ontic structural realism is a thesis of fundamentality metaphysics: the thesis that structure, not objects, has fundamental status. Claimed as the metaphysic most befitting of modern physics, OSR first emerged as an entreaty to eliminate objects from the metaphysics of fundamental physics. Such elimination was urged by Steven French and James Ladyman on the grounds that only it could resolve the ‘underdetermination of metaphysics by physics’ that they claimed reduced any putative objectual commitment to a merely ‘ersatz’ form of realism. (...)
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  4. A Curse on Both Houses: Naturalistic Versus A Priori Metaphysics and the Problem of Progress.Kerry McKenzie - 2020 - Res Philosophica 97 (1):1-29.
    A priori metaphysics has come under repeated attack by naturalistic metaphysicians, who take their closer connection to the sciences to confer greater epistemic credentials on their theories. But it is hard to see how this can be so unless the problem of theory change that has for so long vexed philosophers of science can be addressed in the context of scientific metaphysics. This paper argues that canonical metaphysical claims, unlike their scientific counterparts, cannot meaningfully be regarded as ‘approximately true,’ and (...)
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  5.  44
    Fundamentality and Grounding.Kerry McKenzie - 2022 - Cambridge University Press.
    A suite of questions concerning fundamentality lies at the heart of contemporary metaphysics. The relation of grounding, thought to connect the more to the less fundamental, sits at the heart of those debates in turn. Since most contemporary metaphysicians embrace the doctrine of physicalism and thus hold that reality is fundamentally physical, a natural question is how physics can inform the current debates over fundamentality and grounding. This Element introduces the reader to the concept of grounding and some of the (...)
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  6. Ontic Structural Realism.Kerry McKenzie - 2017 - Philosophy Compass 12 (4):e12399.
    Ontic structural realism is at its core the view that “structure is ontologically fundamental.” Informed from its inception by the scientific revolutions that punctuated the 20th century, its advocates often present the position as the perspective on ontology best befitting of modern physics. But the idea that structure is fundamental has proved difficult to articulate adequately, and what OSR's claimed naturalistic credentials consist in is hard to precisify as well. Nor is it clear that the position is actually supported by (...)
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  7. Against Brute Fundamentalism.Kerry McKenzie - 2017 - Dialectica 71 (2):231-261.
    In metaphysics, the fundamental is standardly equated with that which has no explana- tion – with that which is, in other words, ‘brute’. But this doctrine of brutalism is in tension with physicists’ ambitions to not only describe but also explain why the fundamental is as it is. The tension would ease were science taken to be incapable of furnishing the sort of explanations that brutalism is concerned with, given that these are understood to be dis- tinctively ‘metaphysical’ in character. (...)
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  8. On the Fundamentality of Symmetries.Kerry McKenzie - 2014 - Philosophy of Science 81 (5):1090-1102.
    The view that it is symmetries, not particles, that are fundamental to nature is frequently expressed by physicists. But comparatively little has been written either on what this claim means or whether it should be regarded as true. After placing the claim into a general fundamentality framework, I consider whether the priority of symmetries over particles can be defended. The conclusions drawn are largely negative.
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  9.  67
    Arguing against fundamentality.Kerry McKenzie - 2011 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 42 (4):244-255.
    This paper aims to open up discussion on the relationship between fundamentality and naturalism, and in particular on the question of whether fundamentality may be denied on naturalistic grounds. A historico-inductive argument for an anti-fundamentalist conclusion, prominent within contemporary metaphysical literature, is examined; finding it wanting, an alternative ‘internal’ strategy is proposed. By means of an example from the history of modern physics - namely S-matrix theory - it is demonstrated that this strategy can generate similar anti-fundamentalist conclusions on more (...)
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  10. Relativities of fundamentality.Kerry McKenzie - 2017 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 59:89-99.
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  11. Looking Forward, Not Back: Supporting Structuralism in the Present.Kerry McKenzie - 2016 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 59:87-95.
    The view that the fundamental kind properties are intrinsic properties enjoys reflexive endorsement by most metaphysicians of science. But ontic structural realists deny that there are any fundamental intrinsic properties at all. Given that structuralists distrust intuition as a guide to truth, and given that we currently lack a fundamental physical theory that we could consult instead to order settle the issue, it might seem as if there is simply nowhere for this debate to go at present. However, I will (...)
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  12.  10
    Response to Jessica Frazier, “Against Infinite Nothingness”.Kerry McKenzie - 2024 - Neue Zeitschrift für Systematicsche Theologie Und Religionsphilosophie 66 (3):302-310.
    In “Against Infinite Nothingness: Arguments for Foundationalism in Indian Philosophy” Jessica Frazier brings Vedantic arguments to bear against contemporary objections to foundationalism: the view that there must exist a single self-subsistent ground upon which the existence of all else stands. She argues in particular that these arguments permit us to infer the existence of a “modal anchor” operative in nature that deserves to be regarded as fundamental, even in the absence of a “fundamental level” to nature. This paper argues that (...)
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  13. Rethinking outside the toolbox : reflecting again on the relationship between philosophy of science and metaphysics.Steven French & Kerry McKenzie - 2015 - In Tomasz Bigaj & Christian Wüthrich (eds.), Metaphysics in Contemporary Physics. Boston: Brill | Rodopi.
     
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  14.  50
    On the Prospects of an Effective Metaphysics.Kerry McKenzie - unknown
    This paper reflects on the prospects of an effective metaphysics. By analogy with effective physics, an `effective metaphysics' describes non-fundamental ontology in its own terms and independently of those that describe the fundamental level. And an effective metaphysics will be said to have prospects if (i) there are metaphysical truths about non-fundamental ontology out there to be discovered, and (ii) these facts can be known prior to the emergence of a fundamental theory. This question is of whether effective metaphysics has (...)
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  15.  39
    No Grounds for Effective Theories.Kerry McKenzie - unknown
    In recent years there has been an ‘explosion’ of work in metaphysics aimed at articulating ‘levels of reality’ – a structural aspect of the world both suggested and investigated by the sciences. And in that context, the relation of grounding has emerged as the preferred relation with which to connect the levels. This paper argues that we cannot take grounding to be the relation that connects levels, insofar as those levels are described by effective quantum field theories. This is a (...)
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  16. Rethinking Outside the Toolbox: Reflecting Again on the Relationship between Metaphysics and Philosophy of Physics.Steven French & Kerry McKenzie - unknown
    In a recent work, ‘Thinking Outside the Toolbox’, we mounted a qualified defence of analytic metaphysics in the face of ardent criticism. While sympathizing with other philosophers of science in decrying the lack of engagement of metaphysicians with real science when addressing central metaphysical problems, we also wanted to acknowledge the role that analytic metaphysics has played in providing useful tools for naturalistic metaphysicians. This double-edged stance compels us to identify what feature it is that marks out as problematic some, (...)
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  17.  43
    Being realistic: the challenge of theory change for a metaphysics of scientific realism.Kerry McKenzie - 2018 - Spontaneous Generations 9 (1):136-142.
    Chakravartty and others have pressed that the defender of scientific realism needs to supply a metaphysical story, most saliently a modal story, of how knowledge of the unobservable can be possible. Here I consider the challenge the problem of theory change poses to theories of modal metaphysics.
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  18.  60
    How (Not) To Be a Humean Structuralist.Kerry McKenzie - 2013 - In Vassilios Karakostas & Dennis Dieks (eds.), EPSA11 Perspectives and Foundational Problems in Philosophy of Science. Cham: Springer. pp. 307--318.
  19. Review of 'Basic Structures of Reality' by Colin McGinn. [REVIEW]Kerry McKenzie - unknown
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  20.  13
    Anjan Chakravartty's Scientific Ontology. [REVIEW]Kerry McKenzie - 2018 - BJPS Review of Books.
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  21.  97
    Basic Structures of Reality: Essays in Meta-Physics, by Colin McGinn. [REVIEW]Kerry McKenzie - 2013 - Mind 122 (487):fzt073.
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  22.  38
    Chance regained: David Albert’s oeuvre revisited: David Z. Albert: After physics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 192pp, $35 HB. [REVIEW]Kerry McKenzie - 2016 - Metascience 25 (1):51-55.
  23.  87
    Stephen Mumford and Matthew Tugby: Metaphysics and science. [REVIEW]Kerry McKenzie - 2016 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 67 (2):643-650.