Radical Ontic Structural Realism and Holistic Monism

Votsis, Ioannis (2024) Radical Ontic Structural Realism and Holistic Monism. In: The Structure of Reality and the Reality of Structure. Springer. (In Press)

Abstract

Love it or hate it, the view known as Ontic Structural Realism (OntSR) has left an indelible mark on the scientific realism landscape and the metaphysics of science landscape more generally. Its success is no doubt largely due to the modern-physics inspired reimagining of the fundamental constitution of nature from object-centric to structure centric. This reimagining has not only led to a shift in our conceptions of reality but has also ushered in an era of revitalised naturalism, this time directed not at epistemology but metaphysics. Yet, much like other views that have left their mark in their respective landscapes, there is no singular, clear and distinct thing that we can call OntSR. The view’s supporters have been sprouting variants ever since the view was conceived. Some variants appear to be moderate in their revision of metaphysics while others are downright revolutionary. The latter have as of late been overlooked in favour of the former. In this paper, I argue that the most significant objection against those variants, namely that there cannot be relations without relata, can be satisfactorily addressed but only if we endorse a certain kind of holistic monism towards metaphysics. The upshot is a conditional endorsement of such variants over less radical ones.

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