Generalism and the Metaphysics of Ontic Structural Realism. (16th January 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Glick, David
• Is Part Of: British journal for the philosophy of science. Volume 71:Number 2(2020)
• Page Start: 751
• Page End: 772
• Publication Date: 2018-01-16
• Subjects: Science -- Philosophy -- Periodicals; 501
• DOI: 10.1093/bjps/axy008
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0007-0882

Abstract

Abstract: Ontic structural realism (OSR) claims that all there is to the world is structure. But how can this slogan be turned into a worked-out metaphysics? Here I consider one potential answer: a metaphysical framework known as 'generalism' (Dasgupta [2009], [2016] ). According to the generalist, the most fundamental description of the world is not given in terms of individuals bearing properties, but rather, general facts about which states of affairs obtain. However, I contend that despite several apparent similarities between the positions, generalism is unable to capture the two main motivations for OSR. I suggest instead that OSR should be construed as a meta-metaphysical position. 1 Introduction 2 Motivations 2.1 Theory change 2.2 Permutation invariance 3 Metaphysics 4 Generalism 4.1 Quantifier generalism 4.2 Algebraic generalism 5 Why Generalism Is Not Ontic Structural Realism 6 Ontic Structural Realism as Meta-metaphysics 7 Conclusion