Pub Date : 2020-02-26DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198811565.003.0002
T. Sider
According to nomic (or causal, or dispositional) essentialists, the identity of a property is tied up with its nomic role, the role it plays in the laws of nature. Modally speaking this is straightforward: a property could not have obeyed different laws. But postmodally it is unclear what it means, since it is hard to see how to state the fundamental facts without mentioning particular properties. Various ideas are considered and criticized, such as that facts about property instantiations, or property existence, or property identity, are grounded in facts about laws; and that the laws are essential to properties. The latter, it is argued, is insufficiently metaphysically specific to count as an improvement on the modal formulation.
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Pub Date : 2020-02-26DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198811565.003.0003
T. Sider
Various structuralists about individuals, such as ontic structural realists and ante rem mathematical structuralists, say that individuals are "just positions in structures". This chapter is a long study of what that might mean. Individuals are central to the foundations of mathematics and physics, so it is hard to see how the fundamental facts could be stated without reference to individuals. But if these fundamental facts do mention individuals, then it is hard to see how individuals are "just positions in structures". The main approaches considered are: antihaecceitism, eliminative structural realism, featureless particulars (moderate structural realism), weak discernibility, indeterminate identity, monism, generalism. Especially close attention is paid to Shamik Dasgupta's development of the final position.
{"title":"Individuals","authors":"T. Sider","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198811565.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198811565.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"Various structuralists about individuals, such as ontic structural realists and ante rem mathematical structuralists, say that individuals are \"just positions in structures\". This chapter is a long study of what that might mean. Individuals are central to the foundations of mathematics and physics, so it is hard to see how the fundamental facts could be stated without reference to individuals. But if these fundamental facts do mention individuals, then it is hard to see how individuals are \"just positions in structures\". The main approaches considered are: antihaecceitism, eliminative structural realism, featureless particulars (moderate structural realism), weak discernibility, indeterminate identity, monism, generalism. Especially close attention is paid to Shamik Dasgupta's development of the final position.","PeriodicalId":341622,"journal":{"name":"The Tools of Metaphysics and the Metaphysics of Science","volume":"74 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128810739","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-02-26DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198811565.003.0005
T. Sider
What is it for theories to be equivalent? Two extreme accounts are considered. According to the account I defend, equivalent theories are those that say the same thing at the fundamental level. This leads to certain uncomfortable choices: should a theory of time be based on a fundamental relation of earlier-than, or later-than? Should a metaphysics of logic including negation include also conjunction, or disjunction? These are normally regarded as paradigmatically equivalent theories, but my account cannot recognize this. According to the second extreme account, relations of equivalence need not be underwritten by a fundamental account of their common content. We can "quotient out" theoretical differences by simply saying, without explaining, that theories are equivalent. Objections are given to this account. But the more important moral is that the issue of quotienting often lies under the surface, but has profound implications across metaphysics and philosophy of physics, including the discussions of structuralism in earlier chapters.
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