|
Structural Realism is a contemporary trend in philosophy of science which takes the notion of structure as the legitimate subject for investigation as a method of inquiry. Indeed, the centrality of the very notion of structure - defined broadly as either a system of stable relations among a set of relations, or as a self-regulated whole under transformations - brings us to many important discussions on the special role and treatment of ontology in the scientific method. To a structural realist, only the structure - rather than its elements - is empirically observable. Basic ontologies are, on the contrary, the result of a process of discovery, by use of the hypothetical-deductive method. Originated from the challenging debates on the realm of theoretical physics, the intuitions of structural realism are now being spread to other areas, as in the fields of systems neuroscience and systems biology.
This webpage was created as support and memory for the Structural Realism Reading Group at the Philosophy Department of Boston University, in its first session series (fall of 2004). |
|