The Structure of the World: Metaphysics and Representation

0
0

In The Structure of the World, Steven French articulates and defends the bold claim that there are no objects. At the most fundamental level, modern physics presents us with a world of structures and making sense of that view is the central aim of the increasingly widespread position known as structural realism. Drawing on contemporary work in metaphysics and philosophy of science, as well as the 'forgotten' history of structural realism itself, French attempts to further ground and develop this position. He argues that structural realism offers the best way of balancing our need to accommodate the results of modern science with our desire to arrive at an appropriately informed understanding of the world that science presents to us. Covering not only the realism-antirealism debate, the nature of representation, and the relationship between metaphysics and science, The Structure of the World defends a form of eliminativism about objects that sets laws and symmetry principles at the heart of ontology. In place of a world of microscopic objects banging into one another and governed by the laws of physics, it offers a world of laws and symmetries, on which determinate physical properties are dependent. In presenting this account, French also tackles the distinction between mathematical and physical structures, the nature of laws, and causality in the context of modern physics, and he concludes by exploring the extent to which structural realism can be extended into chemistry and biology.

Page Count:
416

|

Publication Date:
2014-01-01

Social sciences

Metaphysics

Philosophy

Community Tags

Similar Books

Defensible Space; Crime Prevention Through Urban Design.
Philosopher at Large: An Intellectual Autobiography, 1902-1976
Intellect: Mind over Matter
Angel Dusted: A Family's Nightmare
QSI Henry Holt Production Demo: QSI EDI Title Testing
Little people in America: The social dimension of dwarfism
Watts and Woodstock: Identity and Culture in the United States and South Africa (CBS Computer Books)
Handbook of Social Science Methods (v. 3)
The Egalitarian city: Issues of rights, distribution, access, and power
Growing Up With Children: An Introduction to Working With Young Children
With charity for all: Welfare and society, ancient times to the present
Environment and population;: Problems and solutions
Women's worlds: From the new scholarship
Little People in America
A Stranger in My House: Jews and Arabs in the West Bank