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RESEARCH ARTICLE
What is Really Wrong with Ontic Structural Realism? On the Possibility of Reading off Ontology from Current Fundamental Science
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1 Lingnan University, Faculty of Arts, Department of Philosophy HSH201, Tuen Mun , Hong Kong
Received: 19 June 2019 | Published online: 10 July 2019
© 2019 by the Authors. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC-by the license) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
Abstract
I argue that the central conflict between epistemic and ontic versions of structural realism concerns whether it is possible to read off ontology from current fundamental science. Even if we assume that structures are metaphysically superior to objects, the possibility of reading off ontology from current fundamental science remains unjustified. I show that the conclusion as regards the reading off ontology in the ontic version is already assumed in one of the premises; hence the argument begs the question. As a result, the problem of ontological discontinuity implied in the pessimistic meta-induction argument remains intact in ontic structural realism.
Keywords
Structural realism
theory change in science
reading off ontology from science.
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