Heidelberg 2007 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Downloads | Help

AKPhil: Arbeitskreis Philosophie der Physik

AKPhil 5: Structuralism and Realism

AKPhil 5.2: Talk

Thursday, March 8, 2007, 14:30–15:00, KIP SR 3.401

Intermediate Structural Realism — •Holger Lyre — Department of Philosophy, University of Bonn /University of Bielefeld

Structural realism (SR) is the view that our ontological commitment should be focused on the structural rather than object-like content of our best and mature physical theories. As such, SR is considered to come in two flavours: Epistemic SR is based on the idea that objects may exist, but that it is only the object's structural relations to which we have epistemic access. Ontic SR, on the other hand, is the radical claim that, literally, structures is all there is.

In the first part of my talk I will argue for some more refined intermediate positions between ESR and OSR, and evaluate them on the basis of the group structural content of modern gauge theories. In the second part I will set out what I consider to be one of the major problems of SR: the apparent ambivalence of the notion of structure and the possibility of structural underdetermination. I will end with a discussion of the question whether in the case of gravitational theories we are provided with an example of structural underdetermination.