Things
and Structures
The
most important aspect of ontic
structural realist
position can be expressed in the following way:
Relata (i.e.,
things/objects/particles/etc.) can be eliminated. Then all we will
have left is relations.
James
Ladyman and Don Ross ground their own philosophy by expressing
Bertrand Russell's position in the
following
manner:
“...
many philosophers have followed Russell in arguing that it is
incoherent to suppose there could be individuals which don’t
possess any intrinsic properties, but whose individuality is
conferred by their relations to other individuals.”
Indeed
that passage can be rewritten to make it more germane to Ladyman and
Ross's own ontic
structural realism.
Thus:
It
is incoherent to suppose there could be individuals (e.g., particles,
etc.) which don’t possess any intrinsic properties, but whose
individuality is conferred by their relations to other individuals,
structures, fields, states, etc.
Thus
we can ask the following question:
Does
a thing/object gain its identity from its place in a structure or
does it have its place in a structure because of its (prior)
identity?
Indeed
Ladyman and Ross state that Paul Benacerraf believed
that
“an
object with only a structural character could be identified with any
object in the appropriate place in any exemplary structure and could
not therefore be an individual”.
In
other words, Benacerraf seems to have taken the position cited
earlier. Namely, an object/individual has its place in a structure
because of its (prior) identity. That is, an object/individual
doesn't gain its (entire) identity from its place in a structure.
To
elaborate on Benacerraf's position. It can be said that if structure
is everything (or, at the least, if an thing/object gains its
identity from its place in a structure), then any
thing/object can take a place in that structure. Indeed any
thing/object can take specific place x
in a given structure if the individuality or identity of an object is
passed onto it (as it were) by the structure it is a part of.
The
problem with this (or perhaps any) form of structuralism, however, is
summed up by Ladyman and Ross who state that “individuals are
nothing over and above the nexus of relations in which they stand”.
However, they do preface that by saying that this position – only?
- applies to “individuals in the context of quantum mechanics”.
Ladyman
and Ross continue by saying that “the identity or difference of
places in a structure is not to be accounted for by anything other
than the structure itself”. Not only that: the mathematical
structuralism just discussed “provides evidence for this view”.
Despite
all that, Ladyman and Ross often state that they don't actually deny
the existence of entities or individuals
per
se.
Yet it's hard to make sense of their claim that “there are objects
in our metaphysics” and then go on to state
that
“but
they have been purged of their intrinsic natures, identity, and
individuality, and they are not metaphysically fundamental”.
In
other words, if you take away “intrinsic natures, identity, and
individuality”, then what's left of things/objects after all that
has been taken away? Only structure and/or relations? But what does
that mean?
In
any case, Ladyman and Ross see individuals as “abstractions from
modal structure”. By “modal structure” they
mean
“the
relationships among phenomena events, and processes) that pertain to
necessity, possibility, potentiality, and probability”.
It
can easily be said that structures involve individuals and relations
involve relata. At a prima
facie
level we can also ask:
In
what way do “abstractions” involve themselves in modal realities?
Well,
mathematics itself involves necessity, possibility and probability.
And if structures are inherently mathematical, then structures have
modal properties. All that may be true. Though what about modality as
applied to the concrete world of objects, events, conditions, states,
etc? What about metaphysical modality as understood by philosophers
like Saul Kripke, David Lewis, D.M. Armstrong and so on?
Ladyman
and Ross also quote the American philosopher of science John
Stachel when he says
that entities “'inherit [individuality] from the structure of
relations in which they are enmeshed'”. However, saying that is a
long way from saying that
individuals don't exist.
Even the very use of the word “inherit” surely means that it must
be
things which
are
doing the inheriting.
Now
is it that Ladyman and Ross reject this position and simply deny
ontological status to things/objects - full stop? Or is their
position that entities inherit their individuality from the
“structure of relations in which they are enmeshed” as far as
they need to go? Thus it's not that Ladyman and Ross are eliminitivists
about things/objects. It's simply that they have a radical
philosophical take on things/objects. A take which claims that
entities gain their individuality from structure. That is, before
things/objects are “enmeshed” in structures, they have no
intrinsic natures.
Can
we go so far as to say that before things/objects are enmeshed in
structures, they don't exist? Thus it's not just the nature of
entities we're talking about: it's also their existence. Do
entities spring into being only when they're enmeshed in structures?
This
position would go against the claim (for example, of David Lewis)
that objects have intrinsic natures regardless of the rest of the
world.
So
now we still have the following positions:
i)
Things gain their natures from the structures they belong to.
ii)
Things come into existence in structures.
How
is i) different from saying that entities are
structures? In other words, the temporal and grammatical construction
of i) may seem to imply that we have an entity at time t1
- and at t2
it
gains its nature from the structure it's embedded in. However, if ii)
is correct, than that entity comes
into existence
in the structure. It doesn't only gain its nature
from a
structure – it comes
into existence
in the structure in which it's embedded.
Such
abstract metaphysics is made concrete when Ladyman and Ross take the
example of fermions. They cite the position
that
“that
fermions are not self-subsistent because they are the individuals
that they are only given the relations that obtain among them”.
What's
more, “[t]here is nothing to ground their individuality other than
the relations into which they enter”. And, according to Ladyman and
Ross, even Albert Einstein once claimed that particles don't have
their own “being thus”.
Substantivalism
As
just hinted at, one problem which can be raised about things/objects
(as well as about Ladyman and Ross's position) can be expressed by
stating two positions:
i)
Things/objects have their intrinsic natures independently of the rest
of the world.
ii)
Things/objects can exist independently of the rest of the world.
This
problem specifically arises in the context of “points of spacetime”
rather than objects. (Although it may be said that they amount to the
same thing.) In this case, Ladyman and Ross use the word “exist”
(as in ii) above). This is also a product of two different positions:
substantivalism
and relationalism. Thus:
i)
According to substantivalism, the “points of the spacetime manifold
exist independently of the material contents of the universe”.
ii)
According to relationalism, “spatio-temporal facts are about the
relations between various elements of the material contents of
spacetime”.
The
idea that “points of the spacetime manifold exist independently of
the material contents of the universe” is similar to David Lewis's
take (1982) on the intrinsic properties of things.
Lewis
wrote:
“A
thing has its intrinsic properties in virtue of the way that thing
itself, and nothing else, is.”
Lewis's
position (if not the substantivalist position) can be taken to its
most extreme in the following statement:
Object
a
would still have intrinsic property P
if, after the world around it disappeared, a
would still have P.
In
Ladyman and Ross's rendition of substantivalism, it's said that an
object or point in spacetime could “exist” regardless of
everything else. Could there ever be “the way that a thing itself
is” regardless of everything else? That is, can object x
be the way that it is regardless of its relations to other
properties/objects/events/states/etc. and its place in spacetime?
Things
and Relations
Ladyman
and Ross provide a useful set of four positions which focus on the
nature of relations and things. Thus:
i)
There are only relations and no relata.
ii)
There are relations in which things are primary, and their relations
are secondary.
iii)
There are relations in which relations are primary, while things are
secondary.
iv)
There are things such that any relation between them is only
apparent.
At
first glance one would take ontic structural realism to endorse (i)
or (iii). However, if things are themselves structures (according to
Ladyman and Ross), then we must settle for (i) above: “There are
only relations and no relata.”
Looking
at (i) to (iv) again, couldn't it be said that (ii) and (iii) amount
to the same thing? In other words, how can we distinguish
(ii)
There are relations in which the things are primary, and their
relations are secondary.
from
(iii)
There are relations in which relations are primary, while things are
secondary.
Isn't
this a difference which doesn't make a difference? One can still ask
- in the metaphysical pictures of (ii) and (iii) - the following
question:
Can
things exist without relations and can relations exist without
things?
That's
a question of existence. Now what about natures?
One
can now ask:
Can
things have their natures without relations and can relations have
their natures without things?
********************
To
follow: 'On Quantum-Mechanical Particles: Conclusions (5)'
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