论结构主义通过时空理论的多重路径.pdf

Euro Jnl Phil Sci (2012) 2:45–66 DOI 10.1007/s13194-011-0020-z ORIG IN AL ARTICLE I N PH IL OSOPH Y O F SCIEN CE On structuralism’s multiple paths through spacetime theories Edward Slowik Received: 19 November 2009 /Accepted: 10 January 2011 / Published online: 24 February 2011 # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 Abstract This essay examines the underdetermination problem that plagues structur- alist approaches to spacetime theories, with special emphasis placed on the epistemic brands of structuralism, whether of the scientific realist variety or not. Recent non-realist structuralist accounts, by Friedman and van Fraassen, have touted the fact that different structures can accommodate the same evidence as a virtue vis-à-vis their realist counterparts; but, as will be argued, these claims gain little traction against a properly constructed liberal version of epistemic structural realism. Overall, a broad construal of spacetime theories along epistemic structural realist lines will be defended which draws upon both Friedman ’s earlier work and the convergence of approximate structure over theory change, but which also challenges various claims of the ontic structural realists. Keywords Spacetime . Structural realism . Substantivalism . Geometry . Underdetermination The contemporary revival of structuralism in the philosophy of science can be traced to a host of early twentieth century structuralist approaches, principally, the philosophical speculation on the epistemology and ontology of mathematical physics put forward by Poincaré, Eddington, Weyl, Russell, and Cassirer, to name just a few. Given the structuralist’s fixation on the mathematical and/or empirical structure of theories, as opposed to, say, the underlying theoretical entities alleged to bring about and sustain those structures, it is therefore not surprising that the underdetermination of structure qui