French Steven
School of PRHS, University of Leeds, UK.
Stud Hist Philos Sci. 2019 Apr;74:22-29. doi: 10.1016/j.shpsa.2018.12.007. Epub 2018 Dec 26.
Ontic structural realism argues that structure is all there is. In (French, 2014) I argued for an 'eliminativist' version of this view, according to which the world should be conceived, metaphysically, as structure, and objects, at both the fundamental and 'everyday' levels, should be eliminated. This paper is a response to a number of profound concerns that have been raised, such as how we might distinguish between the kind of structure invoked by this view and mathematical structure in general, how we should choose between eliminativist ontic structural realism and alternative metaphysical accounts such as dispositionalism, and how we should capture, in metaphysical terms, the relationship between structures and particles. In developing my response I shall touch on a number of broad issues, including the applicability of mathematics, the nature of representation and the relationship between metaphysics and science in general.
本体结构实在论认为，存在的只有结构。在（弗伦奇，2014年）的著作中，我主张这种观点的一种“消除主义”版本，根据该版本，从形而上学角度来看，世界应被构想为结构，并且在基础层面和“日常”层面的对象都应被消除。本文是对所提出的一些深刻问题的回应，比如我们如何区分这种观点所援引的那种结构与一般的数学结构，我们应该如何在消除主义的本体结构实在论与诸如倾向论等替代性形而上学解释之间做出选择，以及我们应该如何从形而上学角度来描述结构与粒子之间的关系。在阐述我的回应时，我将涉及一些广泛的问题，包括数学的适用性、表征的本质以及一般而言形而上学与科学之间的关系。
