Structural Realism and Category Mistakes

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine Landry
Keyword(s):  
Category Theory ◽  
Physical Theory ◽  
Structural Realism ◽  
Conceptual Tool ◽  
The Third ◽  
Meta Level ◽  
Formal Framework ◽  
Fundamental Physical ◽  
Use Category ◽  
Category Mistakes

Structural realists have made use of category theory in three ways. The first is as a meta-level formal framework for a structural realist account of the structure of scientific theories, either syntactic or semantic. The second is an appeal to the category-theoretic structure of some successful, successive or fundamental, physical theory to argue that this is the structure we should be physically committed to, either epistemically or ontically. The third is to use category theory as a conceptual tool to argue that it makes conceptual sense to talk of relations without relata and structures without objects. After a brief overview of structural realism, I consider how each appeal to the use of category theory stands up against the aims of the structural realist.

scholarly journals Negating as turning upside down

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bartłomiej Skowron ◽  
Wiesław Kubiś
Keyword(s):  
Category Theory ◽  
Contravariant Functor ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Truth Values ◽  
Paper Making ◽  
The Third ◽  
Entire Structure ◽  
Ontological Problem

Abstract In order to understand negation as such, at least since Aristotle’s time, there have been many ways of conceptually modelling it. In particular, negation has been studied as inconsistency, contradictoriness, falsity, cancellation, an inversion of arrangements of truth values, etc. In this paper, making substantial use of category theory, we present three more conceptual and abstract models of negation. All of them capture negation as turning upside down the entire structure under consideration. The first proposal turns upside down the structure almost literally; it is the well known construction of opposite category. The second one treats negation as a contravariant functor and the third one captures negation as adjointness. Traditionally, negation was investigated in the context of language as negation of sentences or parts of sentences, e.g. names. On the contrary we propose to negate structures globally. As a consequence of our approach we provide a solution to the ontological problem of the existence of negative states of affairs.

Puzzles: Noisy Prisoners, Manhattan Locations, and More

1987 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 185-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Nalebuff
Keyword(s):  
Category Theory ◽  
Prisoner's Dilemma ◽  
Location Problem ◽  
Prisoner’S Dilemma ◽  
Optimal Location ◽  
The Third ◽  
Economic Interpretation ◽  
Mathematical Problems

Each “Puzzles” will begin with a few speed problems. These puzzles have answers provided in the same issue. Puzzles 1 and 2 will give you a chance to get up to speed. Then, we continue with longer puzzles taken from two very broadly defined categories: strategy puzzles and theory puzzles. Strategy puzzles will give the readers an opportunity to compete against each other in problems of coordination and competition. The third puzzle, a noisy prisoner's dilemma tournament, falls dead center in this category. Theory puzzles are meant to offer mathematical problems that have an economic interpretation. The fourth puzzle, an optimal location problem, is in this category.

Linking Business and Application Architectures

2013 ◽  
pp. 209-228
Author(s):  
Suresh Kamath
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Category Theory ◽  
Information Architecture ◽  
Common Language ◽  
It Strategy ◽  
It Investments ◽  
Business Architecture ◽  
It Architecture ◽  
Application Architecture ◽  
Use Category

The development of an IT strategy and ensuring that it is the best possible one for business is a key problem many organizations face. This problem is that of linking business architecture to IT architecture in general and application architecture specifically. Without this linkage it is difficult to manage the changes needed by the business and maximize the benefits from the information technology (IT) investments. Linking the two domains requires defining the two architectures using a “common language.” While the application architecture domain has developed tools and processes to define and represent the architecture, the business architecture domain, however, lacks such processes and tools to be useful for linking of the two. The chapter addresses several questions dealing with the linking of the business and the application architectures. The author proposes to use category theory related constructs and notions to represent the business and information architecture and the linkages.

Recollecting a lost dialogue: Structural Realism meets neoclassical realism

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 494-513
Author(s):  
Keith Smith
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Structural Realism ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Neoclassical Realism ◽  
The Third

Since its appellation, much work has sought to consolidate neoclassical realism. Specifically, a number of variations on the neoclassical theme have reconceptualised the third-image and carved out a distinctly European neoclassical variant. This article contributes by recollecting the Structural Realism of Logic of Anarchy. In unpacking Structural Realism’s framework and dissecting its engagement with inter alia Kenneth Waltz, this article illustrates the importance of Logic’s conceptualisation of the system, particularly in terms of anarchy’s logic. This framework can enrich a number of debates within the neoclassical realist community, especially concerning third-image change and the possibility of a neoclassical realism in and of Europe, while also contributing to debates regarding the strategic actor-ness of the European Union. While Logic and its framework might appear dated, the article submits that one of its principal motifs, anarchy, along with realism’s normative ethos may remind us of International Relation’s (IR’s) healthy pluralism.

scholarly journals Double Solids, Categories and Non-Rationality

2013 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atanas Iliev ◽  
Ludmil Katzarkov ◽  
Victor Przyjalkowski
Keyword(s):  
Category Theory ◽  
Mirror Symmetry ◽  
Homology Group ◽  
Hochschild Homology ◽  
Singular Points ◽  
Double Covering ◽  
Homological Mirror Symmetry ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The Third

AbstractThis paper suggests a new approach to questions of rationality of 3-folds based on category theory. Following work by Ballard et al., we enhance constructions of Kuznetsov by introducing Noether–Lefschetz spectra: an interplay between Orlov spectra and Hochschild homology. The main goal of this paper is to suggest a series of interesting examples where the above techniques might apply. We start by constructing a sextic double solid X with 35 nodes and torsion in H3(X, ℤ). This is a novelty: after the classical example of Artin and Mumford, this is the second example of a Fano 3-fold with a torsion in the third integer homology group. In particular, X is non-rational. We consider other examples as well: V10 with 10 singular points, and the double covering of a quadric ramified in an octic with 20 nodal singular points. After analysing the geometry of their Landau–Ginzburg models, we suggest a general non-rationality picture based on homological mirror symmetry and category theory.

SPECIFICATION OF SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE

2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (01) ◽  
pp. 69-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK J. GERKEN
Keyword(s):  
Software Architecture ◽  
Category Theory ◽  
Formal Definition ◽  
The Past ◽  
Algebraic Specifications ◽  
Software Specifications ◽  
Architecture Theory ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Semantic Compatibility ◽  
Use Category

Over the past several years, software architecture representation and analysis has become an active area of research. However, most approaches to software architecture representation and analysis have been informal. We postulate that through formality, the term "architecture" can be precisely defined and important properties of systems, such as semantic compatibility between connected entities, can be investigated with precision. In this paper, we use category theory and algebraic specifications to develop a formal definition of architecture and show how architecture theory can be used in the construction of software specifications.

Taking Sides in Wars of Attrition

2017 ◽  
Vol 111 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT POWELL
Keyword(s):  
Asymmetric Information ◽  
Continuous Time ◽  
Formal Analysis ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
The Other ◽  
Third Party ◽  
War Of Attrition ◽  
The Third ◽  
Boomerang Effect ◽  
Formal Framework

Third parties often have a stake in the outcome of a conflict and can affect that outcome by taking sides. This article studies the factors that affect a third party's decision to take sides in a civil or interstate war by adding a third actor to a standard continuous-time war of attrition with two-sided asymmetric information. The third actor has preferences over which of the other two actors wins and for being on the winning side conditional on having taken sides. The third party also gets a flow payoff during the fighting which can be positive when fighting is profitable or negative when fighting is costly. The article makes four main contributions: First, it provides a formal framework for analyzing the effects of endogenous intervention on the duration and outcome of the conflict. Second, it identifies a “boomerang” effect that tends to make alignment decisions unpredictable and coalitions dynamically unstable. Third, it yields several clear comparative-static results. Finally, the formal analysis has implications for empirical efforts to estimate the effects of intervention, showing that there may be significant selection and identification issues.

Liberal democracy as the end of history

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doh Chull Shin ◽  
Hannah June Kim
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political System ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Asian Population ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
Conceptual Tool ◽  
End Of History ◽  
The Third ◽  
The End Of History

A growing number of political scientists have recently advocated the theses that democracy has emerged as a universal value and that it is also becoming the universally preferred system of government. Do most people in East Asia prefer democracy to nondemocratic systems, as advocates of these Western theses claim? Do they embrace liberal democracy as the most preferred system as they become socioeconomically modernized and culturally liberalized? To address these questions, we first propose a typology of privately concealed political system preferences as a new conceptual tool in order to ascertain their types and subtypes without using the word “democracy”. By means of this typology, we analyze the third wave of the Asian Barometer Survey conducted in 12 democratic and nondemocratic countries. The analysis reveals that a hybrid system, not liberal democracy, is the most preferred system even among the culturally liberalized and socioeconomically modernized segments of the East Asian population. Our results show that the increasingly popular theses of universal and liberal democratization serve merely in East Asia as prodemocracy rhetoric, not as theoretically meaningful propositions.

scholarly journals Duhem’s Critical Analysis of Mechanicism and his Defense of a Formal Conception of Theoretical Physics

2017 ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
José R. N. Chiappin ◽  
Cássio Costa Laranjeiras
Keyword(s):  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Physical Theory ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Structural Realism ◽  
The Other ◽  
Theoretical Physics ◽  
Representational System ◽  
Critical View ◽  
Rational Development ◽  
The One

The aim of this paper is to present Duhem’s critical view of the dynamical development of mechanics according to two principles of his theory of the development of physics: the continuous and the rational development of physics. These two principles impose a formal conception of physics that aims at demarcating physics from the metaphysical view on the one hand and the pragmatist/conventionalist view on the other hand. Duhem pursues an intermediary conception of physics, a representational system of empirical laws based upon formal principles. This formal conception of physics will adjust to his idea of scientific progress in the form of a sequence of representational systems as structures of increasing comprehensiveness of empirical laws, which leads him to defend a convergent structural realism pointing to an ideal physical theory.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document