No categorial support for radical ontic structural realism

DOI10.1093/BJPS/AXT053zbMATH Open1356.03041arXiv1306.2726OpenAlexW2107019375WikidataQ98469703 ScholiaQ98469703MaRDI QIDQ2965451FDOQ2965451

Authors: Vincent Lam, Christian Wüthrich 

Publication date: 3 March 2017

Published in: The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: Radical ontic structural realism (ROSR) asserts an ontological commitment to 'free-standing' physical structures understood solely in terms of fundamental relations, without any recourse to relata which stand in these relations. Bain (2011) has recently defended ROSR against the common charge of incoherence by arguing that a reformulation of fundamental physical theories in category-theoretic terms (rather than the usual set-theoretic ones) offers a coherent and precise articulation of the commitments accepted by ROSR. In this essay, we argue that category theory does not offer a more hospitable environment to ROSR than set theory. We also show that the application of category-theoretic tools to topological quantum field theory and to algebraic generalisations of general relativity do not warrant the claim that these theories describe 'object-free' structures. We conclude that category theory offers little if any comfort to ROSR.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1306.2726

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zbMATH Keywords

category theoryradical ontic structural realism

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Logic in the philosophy of science (03A10) General relativity (83C99) General theory of categories and functors (18A99)

Cited In (6)

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• Category theory and physical structuralism
• For or against structural realism? A verdict from high energy physics
• Quasi-structural realism
• Categorical generalization and physical structuralism

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