The Modal Nature of Structures in Ontic Structural Realism

Abstract

Ontic structural realism is the view that structures are what is real in the first place in the domain of fundamental physics. The structures are usually conceived as including a primitive modality. However, it has not been spelled out as yet what exactly that modality amounts to. This paper proposes to fill this lacuna by arguing that the fundamental physical structures possess a causal essence, being powers. Applying the debate about causal vs. categorical properties in analytic metaphysics to ontic structural realism, I show that the standard argument against categorical and for causal properties holds for structures as well. Structural realism, as a position in the metaphysics of science that is a form of scientific realism, is committed to causal structures. The metaphysics of causal structures is supported by physics, and it can provide for a complete and coherent view of the world that includes all domains of empirical science. IntroductionOntic structural realism is a current in contemporary metaphysics of science that maintains that in the domain of fundamental physics, there are structures in the first place rather than objects with an intrinsic identity. Its main motivation is to develop a tenable version of scientific realism in form of an ontology that meets the challenges of modern physics, giving an account of entanglement in quantum physics and of space-time in the theory of general relativity. The claim is that there are structures of entanglement instead of objects with an intrinsic identity in the domain of quantum physics (Ladyman 1998, French & Ladyman 2003, Esfeld 2004 and metrical structures, which include the gravitational energy, instead of space-time points with an intrinsic identity in the domain of the theory of general relativity (Esfeld & Lam 2008; cf. also Slowik 2005). The founders of ontic structural realism, Steven French and James Ladyman, tend to hold that there are structures all the way down; if there are objects at all, these are derived from the structures as being nodes of structures, instead of structures requiring objects that stand in them (Ladyman 1998, French & Ladyman 2003, French 2006; but see also the more balanced position in Ladyman & Ross 2007, ch. 2 to 5). They thus invite the objection that the notion of structures without objects is not intelligible (e.g. Busch 2003 and Psillos 2006, 562-566). However, a more moderate version of ontic structural realism has recently been developed in reply to that objection, proposing that physical structures are networks of concrete, qualitative physical relations among objects that are nothing but what stands in these relations, that is, do not possess an intrinsic identity over and above the relations in which they stand (Esfeld 2004, Esfeld & Lam 2008, Floridi 2008. This position takes notably the entangled states of elementary quantum systems and the metrical relations among space-time points to be The modal nature of structures 2 concrete structures in this sense. On this more moderate version, no paradox arise...

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