Bursten, Julia R.S. (2023) Anti-Fundamentalist Lessons for Scientific Representation from Scientific Metaphysics. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Scientific metaphysics can inform discussions of scientific representation in a number of ways. For instance, even a relatively generic commitment to some minimal form of scientific realism suggests that the targets of scientific representations should serve as source material for one's scientifically-informed ontology. Historical connections between commitments to realism and commitments to reductive approaches in scientific metaphysics further inform a persistent strain of reductive approach to generating scientific representations. In this discussion, I examine two recent challenges to reductive scientific metaphysics from philosophers working across a variety of scientific domains and philosophical traditions: C. Kenneth Waters' ``No General Structure Thesis'' and Robert Batterman's account of scientific metaphysics built on many-body physics.

Each of these accounts has what I shall call ``anti-fundamentalist'' leanings: they reject the premise that fundamental physical theory is the appropriate or best source material for scientific metaphysics. Following Waters, I contrast these leanings with the methodological approach of contemporary structural realism. Additionally, both Waters' and Batterman's accounts foreground the role of scale in defining ontological categories, and both reject the reductionist ideal that the stuff at the smallest scale is the most fundamental, the most general, or the most real. I discuss the implications for scientific representation imparted by anti-fundamentalist approaches that emphasize the role of scale in building a scientifically-informed ontology.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Bursten, Julia R.S. jrbursten@uky.edu 0000-0002-5664-3342
Keywords:	structure, reduction, fundamental, physics, biology, batterman, waters, metaphysics
Subjects:	General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics General Issues > Reductionism/Holism
Depositing User:	Julia Bursten
Date Deposited:	12 Aug 2025 12:53
Last Modified:	12 Aug 2025 12:53
Item ID:	26208
Subjects:	General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics General Issues > Reductionism/Holism
Date:	2023
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/26208

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