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In the
philosophy of science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultim ...
, structuralism (also known as scientific structuralism or as the structuralistic theory-concept) asserts that all aspects of reality are best understood in terms of empirical scientific constructs of entities and their relations, rather than in terms of concrete entities in themselves.


Overview

Structuralism is an active research program in the
philosophy of science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultim ...
, which was first developed in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s by several
analytic philosophers Analytic philosophy is a branch and tradition of philosophy using analysis, popular in the Western world and particularly the Anglosphere, which began around the turn of the 20th century in the contemporary era in the United Kingdom, United Sta ...
. As an instance of structuralism, the concept of matter should be interpreted not as an absolute property of nature in itself, but instead of how scientifically-grounded mathematical relations describe how the concept of matter interacts with other properties, whether that be in a broad sense such as the gravitational fields that mass produces or more empirically as how matter interacts with sense systems of the body to produce sensations such as weight. Structuralism's aim is to comprise all important aspects of an empirical theory in one formal framework. The proponents of this meta-theoretic theory are
Frederick Suppe Frederick Suppe (; born 1940 in Los Angeles, California) is a professor Emeritus of philosophy at the University of Maryland. He has prominent work in the philosophy of science including much work with the semantic view of theories. Biography ...
,
Patrick Suppes Patrick Colonel Suppes (; March 17, 1922 – November 17, 2014) was an American philosopher who made significant contributions to philosophy of science, the theory of measurement, the foundations of quantum mechanics, decision theory, psychology ...
, Ronald Giere, Joseph D. Sneed,
Wolfgang Stegmüller Wolfgang Stegmüller (; June 3, 1923 – June 11, 1991) was a German-Austrian philosopher who made important contributions in philosophy of science and analytic philosophy. Biography W. Stegmüller studied economics and philosophy at the Universit ...
, , Wolfgang Balzer, John Worrall, Elie Georges Zahar, Pablo Lorenzano, Otávio Bueno,
Anjan Chakravartty Anjan Chakravartty is an analytic philosopher and the Appignani Foundation Professor at the University of Miami. Previously, he was a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Toronto. His work focuses on topics ...
, Tian Yu Cao, Steven French, and
Michael Redhead Michael Logan Gonne Redhead (30 December 1929 – 31 August 2020) was a British academic and philosopher of physics. Biography Redhead was born on 30 December 1929 in London and educated there at Westminster School. Redhead was Centennial ...
. The term "structural realism" for the variation of
scientific realism Scientific realism is the view that the universe described by science is real regardless of how it may be interpreted. Within philosophy of science, this view is often an answer to the question "how is the success of science to be explained?" Th ...
motivated by structuralist arguments, was coined by American philosopher in 1968. In 1998, the British structural realist philosopher James Ladyman distinguished epistemic and
ontic In ontology, ontic (from the Greek , genitive : "of that which is") is physical, real, or factual existence. In more nuance, it means that which concerns particular, individuated beings rather than their modes of being; the present, actual thing ...
forms of structural realism.


Variations


Epistemic structural realism

The philosophical concept of (scientific) structuralism is related to that of epistemic structural realism (ESR). ESR, a position originally and independently held by
Henri Poincaré Jules Henri Poincaré ( S: stress final syllable ; 29 April 1854 – 17 July 1912) was a French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and philosopher of science. He is often described as a polymath, and in mathematics as "The ...
(1902),
Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...
(1927), and
Rudolf Carnap Rudolf Carnap (; ; 18 May 1891 – 14 September 1970) was a German-language philosopher who was active in Europe before 1935 and in the United States thereafter. He was a major member of the Vienna Circle and an advocate of logical positivism. He ...
(1928), was resurrected by John Worrall (1989), who proposes that there is retention of structure across
theory change A paradigm shift, a concept brought into the common lexicon by the American physicist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn, is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline. Even though Kuhn restricted ...
. Worrall, for example, argued that Fresnel's equations imply that light has a structure and that
Maxwell's equations Maxwell's equations, or Maxwell–Heaviside equations, are a set of coupled partial differential equations that, together with the Lorentz force law, form the foundation of classical electromagnetism, classical optics, and electric circuits. ...
, which replaced Fresnel's, do also; both characterize light as vibrations. Fresnel postulated that the vibrations were in a mechanical medium called "
ether In organic chemistry, ethers are a class of compounds that contain an ether group—an oxygen atom connected to two alkyl or aryl groups. They have the general formula , where R and R′ represent the alkyl or aryl groups. Ethers can again be c ...
"; Maxwell postulated that the vibrations were of electric and magnetic fields. The structure in both cases is the vibrations and it was retained when Maxwell's theories replaced Fresnel's. Because structure is retained, structural realism both (a) avoids
pessimistic meta-induction In the philosophy of science, the pessimistic induction, also known as the pessimistic meta-induction, is an argument which seeks to rebut scientific realism, particularly the scientific realist's notion of epistemic optimism. The pessimistic meta- ...
and (b) does not make the success of science seem miraculous, i.e., it puts forward a no-miracles argument.


Newman problem

The so-called Newman problem (also Newman's problem, Newman objection, Newman's objection) refers to the critical notice of Russell's ''The Analysis of Matter'' (1927) published by
Max Newman Maxwell Herman Alexander Newman, FRS, (7 February 1897 – 22 February 1984), generally known as Max Newman, was a British mathematician and codebreaker. His work in World War II led to the construction of Colossus, the world's first operatio ...
in 1928. Newman argued that the ESR claim that one can know only the abstract structure of the external world trivializes scientific knowledge. The basis of his argument is the realization that " y collection of things can be organized so as to have structure ''W'', provided there are the right number of them", where ''W'' is an arbitrary structure.


Response to the Newman problem

John Worrall (2000) advocates a version of ESR augmented by the Ramsey sentence reconstruction of physical theories (a Ramsey sentence aims at rendering propositions containing non-observable theoretical terms clear by substituting them with observable terms). John Worrall and Elie Georges Zahar (2001) claim that Newman's objection applies only if a distinction between observational and theoretical terms is not made. Ramsey-style epistemic structural realism is distinct from and incompatible with the original Russellian epistemic structural realism (the difference between the two being that Ramsey-style ESR makes an epistemic commitment to Ramsey sentences, while Russellian ESR makes an epistemic commitment to abstract structures, that is, to (second-order) isomorphism classes of the observational structure of the world and not the (first-order) physical structure itself). Ioannis Votsis (2004) claims that Russellian ESR is ''also'' impervious to the Newman objection: Newman falsely attributed the trivial claim "there exists ''a'' relation with a particular abstract structure" to ESR, while ESR makes the non-trivial claim that there is a ''unique'' physical relation that is causally linked with a ''unique'' observational relation and the two are isomorphic.


Further criticism

The traditional scientific realist and notable critic of structural realism
Stathis Psillos Stathis Psillos (; el, Ευστάθιος (Στάθης) Ψύλλος; born 22 June 1965) is a Greek philosopher of science. He is Professor of Philosophy of Science and Metaphysics at the University of Athens, Greece and a member of thRotman In ...
(1999) remarks that "structural realism is best understood as issuing an epistemic constraint on what can be known and on what scientific theories can reveal." He thinks that ESR faces a number of insurmountable objections. These include among others that ESR's only epistemic commitment is uninterpreted equations which are not by themselves enough to produce predictions and that the "structure versus nature" distinction that ESR appeals to cannot be sustained. Votsis (2004) replies that the structural realist "does subscribe to interpreted equations, but attempts to distinguish between interpretations that link the terms to observations from those that do not" and he can appeal to the Russellian view that "nature" just means the non-isomorphically specifiable part of entities. Psillos also defends David Lewis's descriptive-causal theory of referenceStathis Psillos, ''Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth'', Routledge, 1999, p. 279. (according to which the abandoned theoretical terms after a theory change are regarded as successfully referring "after all") and claims that it can adequately deal with referential continuity in conceptual transitions, during which theoretical terms are abandoned, thus rendering ESR redundant. Votsis (2004) replies that a scientific realist needs not tie the approximate truth of a theory to referential success. Notably, structural realism initially did not dictate any particular
theory of reference In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of meaning, intentionality, reference, the ...
; however Votsis (2012) proposed a structuralist theory of reference according to which "scientific terms are able to refer to individual objects, i.e. in a term-by-term fashion, but that to fix this reference requires taking into account the relations these objects instantiate."


Ontic structural realism

While ESR claims that only the structure of reality is knowable,
ontic In ontology, ontic (from the Greek , genitive : "of that which is") is physical, real, or factual existence. In more nuance, it means that which concerns particular, individuated beings rather than their modes of being; the present, actual thing ...
structural realism (OSR) goes further to claim that ''structure is all there is''. In this view, reality has no "nature" underlying its observed structure. Rather, reality is fundamentally structural, though variants of OSR disagree on precisely which aspects of structure are primitive. OSR is strongly motivated by modern physics, particularly
quantum field theory In theoretical physics, quantum field theory (QFT) is a theoretical framework that combines classical field theory, special relativity, and quantum mechanics. QFT is used in particle physics to construct physical models of subatomic particles and ...
, which undermines intuitive notions of identifiable objects with intrinsic properties. Some early quantum physicists held this view, including
Hermann Weyl Hermann Klaus Hugo Weyl, (; 9 November 1885 – 8 December 1955) was a German mathematician, theoretical physicist and philosopher. Although much of his working life was spent in Zürich, Switzerland, and then Princeton, New Jersey, he is assoc ...
(1931),
Ernst Cassirer Ernst Alfred Cassirer ( , ; July 28, 1874 – April 13, 1945) was a German philosopher. Trained within the Neo-Kantian Marburg School, he initially followed his mentor Hermann Cohen in attempting to supply an idealistic philosophy of science. Aft ...
(1936), and
Arthur Eddington Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington (28 December 1882 – 22 November 1944) was an English astronomer, physicist, and mathematician. He was also a philosopher of science and a populariser of science. The Eddington limit, the natural limit to the lumin ...
(1939). Recently, OSR has been called "the most fashionable ontological framework for modern physics".Kuhlmann, Meinard
"Quantum Field Theory"
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).
Max Tegmark Max Erik Tegmark (born 5 May 1967) is a Swedish-American physicist, cosmologist and machine learning researcher. He is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the president of the Future of Life Institute. He is also a scienti ...
takes this concept even further with the
mathematical universe hypothesis In physics and cosmology, the mathematical universe hypothesis (MUH), also known as the ultimate ensemble theory and struogony (from mathematical structure, Latin: struō), is a speculative "theory of everything" (TOE) proposed by cosmologist Max ...
, which proposes that, if our universe is only a particular structure, then it is no more real than any other structure.


Definition of structure

In mathematical logic, a mathematical structure is a standard concept. A mathematical structure is a
set Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics *Set (mathematics), a collection of elements *Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively Electro ...
of abstract entities with relations between them. The natural numbers under arithmetic constitute a structure, with relations such as "is evenly divisible by" and "is greater than". Here the relation "is greater than" includes the element (3, 4), but not the element (4, 3). Points in space and the real numbers under Euclidean geometry are another structure, with relations such as "the distance between point P1 and point P2 is real number R1"; equivalently, the "distance" relation includes the element (P1, P2, R1). Other structures include the
Riemann space In differential geometry, a Riemannian manifold or Riemannian space , so called after the German mathematician Bernhard Riemann, is a real, smooth manifold ''M'' equipped with a positive-definite inner product ''g'p'' on the tangent space ' ...
of general relativity and the
Hilbert space In mathematics, Hilbert spaces (named after David Hilbert) allow generalizing the methods of linear algebra and calculus from (finite-dimensional) Euclidean vector spaces to spaces that may be infinite-dimensional. Hilbert spaces arise natural ...
of quantum mechanics. The entities in a mathematical structure do not have any independent existence outside their participation in relations. Two descriptions of a structure are considered equivalent, and to be describing the same underlying structure, if there is a correspondence between the descriptions that preserves all relations. Many proponents of structural realism formally or informally ascribe "properties" to the abstract objects; some argue that such properties, while they can perhaps be "shoehorned" into the formalism of relations, should instead be considered distinct from relations.


Proposed structures

In
quantum field theory In theoretical physics, quantum field theory (QFT) is a theoretical framework that combines classical field theory, special relativity, and quantum mechanics. QFT is used in particle physics to construct physical models of subatomic particles and ...
(QFT), traditional proposals for "the most basic known structures" divide into "particle interpretations" such as ascribing reality to the
Fock space The Fock space is an algebraic construction used in quantum mechanics to construct the quantum states space of a variable or unknown number of identical particles from a single particle Hilbert space . It is named after V. A. Fock who first intr ...
of particles, and "field interpretations" such as considering the quantum wavefunction to be identical to the underlying reality. Varying
interpretations of quantum mechanics An interpretation of quantum mechanics is an attempt to explain how the mathematical theory of quantum mechanics might correspond to experienced reality. Although quantum mechanics has held up to rigorous and extremely precise tests in an extraord ...
provide one complication; another, perhaps minor, complication is that neither fields nor particles are completely localized in standard QFT. A third, less obvious, complication is that "unitarily inequivalent representations" are endemic in QFT; for example, the same patch of spacetime can be represented by a vacuum by an inertial observer, but as a thermal heat bath by an accelerating observer that perceives Unruh radiation, raising the difficult question of whether the vacuum structure or heat bath structure is the real structure, or whether both of these inequivalent structures are separately real. Another example, which does not require the complications of curved spacetime, is that in ferromagnetism, symmetry-breaking analysis results in inequivalent Hilbert spaces. More broadly, QFT's infinite degrees of freedom lead to inequivalent representations in the general case. In
general relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics ...
, scholars often grant a "basic structure" status to the spacetime structure, sometimes via its
metric Metric or metrical may refer to: * Metric system, an internationally adopted decimal system of measurement * An adjective indicating relation to measurement in general, or a noun describing a specific type of measurement Mathematics In mathem ...
.


See also

*
Constructive empiricism In philosophy of science, constructive empiricism is a form of empiricism. While it is sometimes referred to as an empiricist form of structuralism, its main proponent, Bas van Fraassen, has consistently distinguished between the two views. Overvie ...
, a rival yet related viewVotsis, I. (2004), ''The Epistemological Status of Scientific Theories: An Investigation of the Structural Realist Account'', University of London, London School of Economics, PhD Thesis, p. 196. *
Semantic view of theories The semantic view of theories is a position in the philosophy of science that holds that a scientific theory can be identified with a collection of models. The semantic view of theories was originally proposed by Patrick Suppes in “A Comparison ...
, a view often associated with structuralism


Notes

* *


Citations


References

*W. Balzer, C. U. Moulines, J. D. Sneed, ''An Architectonic for Science: the Structuralist Approach''. Reidel, Dordrecht, 1987. *C. M. Dawe, "The Structure of Genetics," PhD dissertation, University of London, 1982. * Humphreys, P., ed. (1994). ''
Patrick Suppes Patrick Colonel Suppes (; March 17, 1922 – November 17, 2014) was an American philosopher who made significant contributions to philosophy of science, the theory of measurement, the foundations of quantum mechanics, decision theory, psychology ...
: Scientific Philosopher'', Vol. 2: ''Philosophy of Physics, Theory Structure and Measurement, and Action Theory'', Synthese Library (Springer-Verlag). *
J. D. Sneed Joseph D. Sneed (September 23, 1938 – February 7, 2020) was an American physicist, and philosopher at the Colorado School of Mines. Early life He was born in Durant, OK. His father, Dabney W. Sneed, was a civil servant with the Postal Service ...
, ''The Logical Structure of Mathematical Physics''. Reidel, Dordrecht, 1971 (revised edition 1979). *
Wolfgang Stegmüller Wolfgang Stegmüller (; June 3, 1923 – June 11, 1991) was a German-Austrian philosopher who made important contributions in philosophy of science and analytic philosophy. Biography W. Stegmüller studied economics and philosophy at the Universit ...
, ''Probleme und Resultate der Wissenschafttheorie und Analytischen Philosophie: Die Entwicklung des neuen Strukturalismus seit 1973'', 1986. *
Frederick Suppe Frederick Suppe (; born 1940 in Los Angeles, California) is a professor Emeritus of philosophy at the University of Maryland. He has prominent work in the philosophy of science including much work with the semantic view of theories. Biography ...
, ed., ''The Structure of Scientific Theories''. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977
974 Year 974 ( CMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * Battle of Danevirke: Emperor Otto II defeats the rebel forces of King Harald I, who ha ...
* John Worrall, "Structural Realism: the Best of Both Worlds" in: D. Papineau (ed.), ''The Philosophy of Science'' (Oxford, 1996). *T. Perrone, "Models, Theory Dislodgment, and Epistemic Non Asymptotic Enrichment", Idee, 7/2014, 211-230.


External links


Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: "Structuralism in Physics"
* Ioannis Votsis

{{Philosophy of science Scientific method