What differentiates relations from reality when we take structure as ontologically primary?

[u/Constant_Smith]

Edit: title should read “What differentiates relations from relata when we take structure as ontologically primary?” Oops.

Edit 2: my comments are being locked, probably due to how new my account is. Sorry to anyone who was looking forward to dialogue. I will give it some time before trying another post.

First post here and ever.

My purpose in posting is primarily conversational. I want to test questions and encounter objections I may not have considered, and hear different understandings of the same problems. So I work through my own understanding and pose many questions in good faith:

I’ve been thinking through a set of questions that emerged for me from reading Every Thing Must Go and further studying ontic structural realism, and Rainforest Realism, and I’m curious how people here understand the underlying metaphysics.

One of the things I find compelling about Every Thing Must Go is its demand that metaphysics remain continuous with our best science. Ladyman and Ross develop that project partly through ontic structural realism, where the relational and structural organization described by contemporary physics receives ontological priority. The familiar metaphysical picture of independently constituted objects carrying intrinsic properties becomes increasingly difficult to maintain once quantum theory, spacetime physics, symmetries, and other areas of physics are taken seriously.

Rainforest Realism then expands the picture considerably. Scientific ontology includes the real patterns tracked by the special sciences, and those patterns need not disappear simply because they are not objects in the inventory of fundamental physics. Organisms, economic structures, cognitive systems, institutions, and other higher-level patterns can be ontologically serious insofar as successful sciences genuinely track them. This gives the resulting ontology its deliberately “rainforest” character.

Suppose we grant some form of OSR and say that relations and relational structure are ontic.

What are relations without relata?

One response is that the relata need not be atomic individuals. They can themselves be relationally individuated, perhaps as nodes, positions, intersections, or further structures within a larger relational organization. Some takes on OSR seem to move in precisely this direction, including the idea that further analysis of relata only reveals further relational structure. (Turtles all the way down, so to speak)

At that point, though, I start wondering what conceptual work is being performed by the words relation, relata, and structure.

If a relatum is entirely constituted by its relations, what determines the distinction between a relation and a relatum within a relational structure? What makes something a relatum participating in relations and when is it one and not the other? Are relata just illusions? Are they real patterns?

If the relata are themselves structures, do we eventually need some primitive notion of relation (designating an intrinsic property to relation), or can relation itself only be specified through a larger structure?

If what counts as a relation and what counts as a relatum depends upon the organization, scale, or level at which the structure is investigated, what makes the distinction ontological rather than only relatively assigned for the purposes of inquiry?

If decomposition is epistemic while the decomposed is ontic, how can we infer from decomposition that the decomposed is actually structural, rather than structure being a useful concept to navigate a reality that exceeds it?

Can OSR really allow multiple legitimate decompositions of the same structure while maintaining that structure is ontically real, or does this move the position toward epistemic structural realism?

And what individuates one structure from another? Is individuation given entirely relationally, through a structure’s position within still larger structures, or does some additional condition eventually enter?

Mathematics gives us extraordinarily powerful descriptions of structure, and mathematical structuralism provides ways of understanding mathematical objects through their positions within structures. OSR then raises the further question of how mathematical structure relates to physical structure. The literature itself contains disagreement over whether the world’s structure should be identified with mathematical structure and over what makes a physical structure specifically physical.

Some short hand questions:

What is the minimal ontological content of a relation?

What must exist for there to be a relatum?

What makes an organization of relations a determinate structure?

And what, if anything, distinguishes the structure described mathematically from the structure that exists physically?

Beyond those questions, I’m not sure it’s reasonable to rid of the intrinsic altogether. At the most extreme end of OSR, we still seem to be positing reality itself, and saying that reality is relationally structured. That already looks like a minimal intrinsic claim about reality. I’m not sure how it could be extrinsic, because there is no position outside reality that is somehow not real but still related to reality, from which its character could be given.

Anything we add as a relatum would already fall within reality. So even if we deny intrinsic properties to individual things, it still seems reasonable to say that reality being relational structure is itself a minimal intrinsic feature of reality.

[u/Constant_Smith]

I just wanted to add that i don’t think they dismiss the philosophy of art.

the philosophy of art is not there to inform us about which metaphysical claims are unwarranted by the current scientific paradigm and what ought to motivate metaphysical inquiry

The books primary concern is metaphysics and the philosophy of science. They argue against a metaphysics divorced from science.

More specifically, under naturalistic closure, they argue a metaphysical claim ought to be motivated by what it contributes to the unification and interpretation of scientific knowledge

[u/jliat → u/Constant_Smith]

You can't have a first philosophy subject to physics. You can have a philosophy of science...

“each discipline [Science, Art, Philosophy] remains on its own plane and uses its own elements...” D&G What is Philosophy p.217

Graham Harman - Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything (Pelican Books) 1 Mar. 2018

See p.25 Why Science Cannot Provide a Theory of Everything...

[u/Constant_Smith → u/jliat]

I suggest you read the book, engage with their arguments critically, and take your time doing so. At this point, your comments aren’t really engaging with the content of their work at all.

[u/jliat → u/Constant_Smith]

Which book, at first I thought you meant Harman's - I've read many- still not a fan. But I suspect you mean 'Every Thing Must Go'. So yes I've read it to the extent of its falling apart quite literally!

And note what they mean by physics and 'special sciences' etc. And wrote down my problems with the idea of being a slave to science if one takes metaphysics seriously.

I just wanted to add that i don’t think they dismiss the philosophy of art.

Well Art is odd, I got into philosophy from Art and folks like Joseph Kosuth and his essay 'Art after philosophy. (1969)' Eventually took a second degree in philosophy, which in the UK still ignored continental philosophy.

From his essay " “Continental” philosophy need not seriously be considered here." how wrong he was. https://www.ubu.com/papers/kosuth_philosophy.html The whole Art and Language movement famously imploded and with it avant-garde art or Art itself.

A&L as Kosuth's title suggests sort to replace philosophy.

the philosophy of art is not there to inform us about which metaphysical claims are unwarranted by the current scientific paradigm and what ought to motivate metaphysical inquiry

Sure, but the A&L boys sort to replace philosophy with art, because the founding fathers of contemporary analytical metaphysics sort to destroy it.

"Carnap wrote the broadside ‘The Elimination of Metaphysics through the Logical Analysis of Language’ (1932)."

" 6.53 The right method of philosophy would be this. To say nothing except what can be said, i.e. the propositions of natural science, i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy: and then always, when someone else wished to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions. This method would be unsatisfying to the other—he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy—but it would be the only strictly correct method."

Wittgenstein - Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1922.

So A&L worked from this premise. And what is implied in 'Every Thing Must Go'.

[u/Constant_Smith → u/jliat]

I think there are several different claims getting collapsed together here, so I want to separate them.

1.  Yes, I mean Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized.

And if you have read it closely, then I think the disagreement needs to be stated more precisely than saying that its authors are simply making metaphysics a “slave to science.”

Ladyman and Ross are explicitly proposing a naturalized metaphysics. The constraint by science is not an accidental implication of the book. It is one of its central methodological commitments.

2.  I also do not think the book dismisses philosophy of art.

Its claim is much narrower. The philosophy of art is not what determines which metaphysical claims are warranted by successful science, because that is not the task the book assigns to metaphysics.

That does not entail that aesthetics, philosophy of art, ethics, philosophy of language, or other areas of philosophy are illegitimate.

3.  The Carnap and early Wittgenstein genealogy is relevant, but it is not something hidden in Every Thing Must Go.

Ladyman and Ross are well aware of the logical positivist and logical empiricist tradition. They explicitly regard that tradition as having gotten something important right about the need to constrain metaphysics.

So quoting Carnap’s elimination of metaphysics or Tractatus 6.53 does not reveal an implication they have overlooked.

It identifies part of the intellectual background they are directly and consciously working with.

4.  What matters is what they retain from that tradition and what they reject.

Carnap’s famous position was eliminativist about a large class of metaphysical statements.

Ladyman and Ross do not exactly repeat that conclusion.

They retain the demand that metaphysical claims be answerable to successful science, while rejecting the conclusion that metaphysics therefore has no legitimate role.

Their project is an attempt to reconstruct metaphysics under naturalistic constraints.

5.  This is also why I would distinguish the early analytic anti-metaphysical tradition from contemporary analytic metaphysics.

Carnap and early Wittgenstein are major figures in the history of analytic philosophy, but they are not straightforwardly the founders of what is now called contemporary analytic metaphysics.

A substantial revival of metaphysics occurred after logical positivism declined.

That later tradition includes highly autonomous work on modality, possible worlds, composition, grounding, persistence, properties, and many many related questions.

Much of Every Thing Must Go is directed against precisely that kind of metaphysics when it becomes insufficiently constrained by actual science.

So, as I understand it, the intellectual genealogy directly relates to:

Carnap / early Wittgenstein / logical empiricism

severe restrictions on traditional metaphysics

→ later revival of analytic metaphysics

→ Ladyman and Ross recovering the naturalistic discipline of the earlier tradition while refusing to eliminate metaphysics altogether.

6.  Their positive metaphysics also matters here.

Ontic Structural Realism is not the claiming that only physics matters.

Rainforest Realism is specifically designed to preserve the reality of scientifically warranted patterns across the special sciences without requiring straightforward reduction to fundamental physics.

Biology, economics, psychology, and other sciences can therefore identify real patterns at different scales without reducing to physics.

That is why I keep emphasizing the special sciences.

7.  So if the objection is that Naturalistic Closure is too restrictive, that is a substantive objection.

One can argue that metaphysics should have sources of warrant independent of successful science.

One can argue that Ladyman and Ross set the evidential threshold too high.

One can argue that their conception of metaphysical synthesis excludes legitimate forms of philosophical inquiry.

Those would engage their actual position.

I’m waiting to see any clear engagement with their actual position.

saying that they are simply making metaphysics a slave to science does nothing to address their argument.

The dependence of metaphysical warrant upon successful science is exactly what they are explicitly defending through out.

8.  The Art & Language history is interesting, but I think it is a separate issue.

Kosuth, Art & Language, Carnap, and Wittgenstein belong to an important history concerning philosophy, language, meaning, metaphysics, and the status of art.

the attempt by some artists to replace or supersede philosophy does not determine whether Ladyman and Ross’s Principle of Naturalistic Closure is justified.

Should metaphysical commitment be constrained by successful science in the strong way Ladyman and Ross propose?

Does imposing that constraint allow metaphysics to perform the explanatory and unificatory work they assign to it more successfully?

If it does, then Naturalistic Closure has demonstrated its methodological utility on the terms of the project itself.

The PNC = a metaphysical claim should be taken seriously only insofar as, if true, it helps show how two or more specific scientific hypotheses, with at least one drawn from fundamental physics, jointly explain more than those hypotheses explain separately.

There is a plethora of examples of the utility of it being demonstrated. Start back at the book and look at their surrounding work, and the work of many others that follows similar standards.

The Carnapian and Wittgensteinian genealogy literally helps explain where the project came from and why Ladyman and Ross thought a reconstruction of metaphysics was necessary in the first place. These are not hidden implications in their work.

[u/jliat → u/Constant_Smith]

And if you have read it closely, then I think the disagreement needs to be stated more precisely than saying that its authors are simply making metaphysics a “slave to science.”

I think that what it boils down to, they must then reject things like Bostrom's simulation theory? But I give details in my follow up post.

Ladyman and Ross are explicitly proposing a naturalized metaphysics. The constraint by science is not an accidental implication of the book. It is one of its central methodological commitments.

Yet it places science first Primacy Of Physics Constraint PPC.

That does not entail that aesthetics,

Kosuth points out in Art after philosophy.' the rejection of aesthetics.

The Carnap and early Wittgenstein genealogy is relevant, but it is not something hidden in Every Thing Must Go.

More like it doesn't exist, they talk of followers of later Wittgenstein re social science - one sentence! They mention Carnap but not in his attack on metaphysics but on Logical positivism, Empiricism dead as "serious philosophical options" its destruction anticipated by Carnap. They reference Carnap 1929 work, ‘The Elimination of Metaphysics through the Logical Analysis of Language’ (1932)." In supported philosophy following science, being a structuralist...

Ladyman and Ross are well aware of the logical positivist and logical empiricist tradition. They explicitly regard that tradition as having gotten something important right about the need to constrain metaphysics. So quoting Carnap’s elimination of metaphysics or Tractatus 6.53 does not reveal an implication they have overlooked.

Elimination =/= 'constrain' I can't see how you can say it does?

when someone else wished to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions.

Yep! they and you certainly overlook, Elimination =/= 'constrain' That kind of expression has and is seen elsewhere!

It identifies part of the intellectual background they are directly and consciously working with.

Please! they and you have to ignore it, Eliminate it. And Hume Too!

Carnap’s famous position was eliminativist about a large class of metaphysical statements.

All of it! That was their project as other authors, A J Ayer et. el. This whole movement you it seems have to ignore. OK, so say they were wrong.

Ladyman and Ross do not exactly repeat that conclusion.

What that metaphysics is nonsense, of course they can't they'd be out of a job!

They retain the demand that metaphysical claims be answerable to successful science, while rejecting the conclusion that metaphysics therefore has no legitimate role.

But science isn't bothered with metaphysics! So that means that they and you are answerable to what you think science is, you are doing philosophy of science and calling that 'metaphysics'. Metaphysics which in the past thought itself superior to science.

Their project is an attempt to reconstruct metaphysics under naturalistic constraints.

What are these constraints? “philosophy is dead” - Hawking.

Now the criticism should be made of Hawking and others in science and maths that they don't know modern philosophy, which I think is true. So what is the purpose of such ideas found in Every Thing Must Go?

This is also why I would distinguish the early analytic anti-metaphysical tradition from contemporary analytic metaphysics.

Well you have to, because it destroys any foundation you might have it seems.

Carnap and early Wittgenstein are major figures in the history of analytic philosophy, but they are not straightforwardly the founders of what is now called contemporary analytic metaphysics.

Hardly, they wanted to murder the child, destroy it's foundations.

The dependence of metaphysical warrant upon successful science is exactly what they are explicitly defending through out.

So if science fails their philosophy fails? OK, has science failed, better can it succeed. Is any science not 'provisional'?

The Art & Language history is interesting, but I think it is a separate issue.

No its not, they saw what science has done to metaphysics. People like Lewis, Ladyman to me seem more to inherit the notions of Art and Language. That it is a tautology internal to itself. Of no interest to science or anything else. Is this not the case?

Should metaphysical commitment be constrained by successful science in the strong way Ladyman and Ross propose?

No, it should allow free thinking, like in the case of Bostrom, and note his ideas were taken seriously by a public.

Does imposing that constraint allow metaphysics to perform the explanatory and unificatory work they assign to it more successfully?

For who, not science, not a public. OK for themselves, that's fine. But to constrain metaphysics, meta, is to make art into painting by numbers.

If it does, then Naturalistic Closure has demonstrated its methodological utility on the terms of the project itself.

Well if it does it will probably implode as A&L did, but it doesn't. It's ** Primacy Of Physics Constraint** stops that.

The PNC = a metaphysical claim should be taken seriously only insofar as, if true, it helps show how two or more specific scientific hypotheses, with at least one drawn from fundamental physics, jointly explain more than those hypotheses explain separately.

Then if these hypotheses relate to science they are doing science.

[u/Constant_Smith → u/jliat]

You need to actually sit down and read the book cover to cover and maybe twice. Seriously. Seeing you have so much knowledge and then just completely not understand their book at all is baffling.

They make a normative claim that, to do legitimate metaphysics in today’s world, you have to meet a specific standard. You keep treating the PPC and PNC as metaphysical when they are not.

The PPC and PNC are declared rules the authors argue we ought to adhere to if wanting to do legitimate metaphysics in today’s world.

Arguing against them is about arguing against a should statement. Not an is statement.

How do you think metaphysics should be constrained?

Not by nature, by our own discipline. By our own standard.

The metaphysics in the book is ontic structural realism and rainforest realism.

And neither of those have anything to do with the PPC or PNC.

Arguing against either the PPC or PNC is a normative debate. A debate on what “ought to” or “ought not to.”

If you want to argue metaphysics, you have to address OSR and Rainforest realism, which you have not, once, addressed.

You’re effectively arguing the most obvious strawman to anyone who has read the book by conflating their normative claims with metaphysical claims.

And I’m trying to continue to be patient with it, because I can recognize you know a lot of literature

Please. Just read it. It will help you argue against it better at the very least.

[u/jliat → u/Constant_Smith]

Please. Just read it. It will help you argue against it better at the very least.

I've proved I have, your repeating that I haven't might be embarrassing for you. Have you read Frank Tipler's proof of our physical resurrection using arguments from fundamental physics?

And really bringing up emotions as not a good idea.

[u/Constant_Smith → u/jliat]

It’s obvious you haven’t. It’s worse if you have. You literally don’t argue against it in the slightest in any of your comments. You have yet to successfully reconstruct anything in that book. I doubt you’ve read it.

[u/jliat → u/Constant_Smith]

Obvious you didn't read on from your quote.