Ontological Indifference of Theories and Semantic Primacy of Sentences

In his late philosophy, Quine generalized the structuralist view in the philosophy of mathematics that mathematical theories are indifferent to the ontology we choose for them. According to his ‘global structuralism’, the choice of objects does not matter to any scientific theory. In the literature, this doctrine is mainly understood as an epistemological thesis claiming that the empirical evidence for a theory does not depend on the choice of its objects. The present paper proposes a new interpretation suggested by Quine’s recently published Kant Lectures from 1980 according to which his global structuralism is a semantic thesis that belongs to his theory of ontological reduction. It claims that a theory can always be reformulated in such a way that its truth does not presuppose the existence of the original objects, but only of some objects that can be considered as their proxies. Quine derives this claim from the principle of the semantic primacy of sentences, which is supposed to license the ontological reductions he uses to establish his global structuralism. It is argued that these reductions do not actually work because they do not account for some hidden ontological commitments that are not detected by his criterion of ontological commitment.

What is White Ignorance?

In this paper, I identify a theoretical and political role for ‘white ignorance’, present three alternative accounts of white ignorance, and assess how well each fulfils this role. On the Willful Ignorance View, white ignorance refers to white individuals’ willful ignorance about racial injustice. On the Cognitivist View, white ignorance refers to ignorance resulting from social practices that distribute faulty cognitive resources. On the Structuralist View, white ignorance refers to ignorance that (1) results as part of a social process that systematically gives rise to racial injustice, and (2) is an active player in the process. I argue that, because of its greater power and flexibility, the Structuralist View better explains the patterns of ignorance that we observe, better illuminates the connection to white racial domination, and is overall better suited to the project of ameliorating racial injustice. As such, the Structuralist View should be preferred.

Aspects of the Real Numbers: Putnam, Wittgenstein, and Nonextensionalism

I defend Putnam’s modal structuralist view of mathematics but reject his claims that Wittgenstein’s remarks on Dedekind, Cantor, and set theory are verificationist. Putnam’s “realistic realism” (1990–2016) showcases the plasticity of our “fitting” words to the world. The applications of this—in philosophy of language, mind, logic, and philosophy of computation—are robust. I defend Wittgenstein’s nonextensionalist understanding of the real numbers, showing how it fits Putnam’s view. Nonextensionalism and extensionalism about the real numbers are mathematically, philosophically, and logically robust, but the two perspectives are often confused with one another. I separate them, using Turing’s work as an example.

Contribution to a Historical-Structuralist Understanding of Latin American Democracy

Mainstream views for the study of democracy and of democracy in Latin America tend to center around a restricted model of democratic systems, which decides to ignore the wider social environment in which they exist. This article seeks to contribute toward a more sociological understanding of democracy and democratization in Latin America and the world. It does that through a review of structuralist and neo-structuralist theories of democracy and of Latin American democracy, which is put in dialogue and confrontation with mainstream political science views of democracy and more recent critical views of really existing democracy. From that exercise the article proposes what it calls a historical-structuralist view of Latin American democracy based on looking at the interaction of social structures, political institutions, and sociopolitical actors, to understand its democratic systems as determined by the possession or lack of sociopolitical power through resources within the inequalities of capitalist and global structures.

A Structuralist View of Quantities

This chapter shows how the view arrived at in the previous chapters amounts to a structuralist understanding of quantities. It argues that the view is structuralist both in the ontology it provides for quantities and in the criterion for quantitativeness it offers. It then returns to the disputes over quantities laid out in the introduction and shows that the view presented here is a form of non-reductive restrictive realism. It is non-reductive, because even though numbers are merely dispensable representational tools for quantities, quantitativeness is not defined in terms of numbers. Dispensing with numbers is not sufficient to dispense with quantitativeness. It is restrictive, because not all attributes are quantitative and it is realist, because quantitativeness is a feature of attributes, not concepts.

Logic of Relations and Diagrammatic Reasoning: Structuralist Elements in the Work of Charles Sanders Peirce

This chapter presents aspects of the work of Charles Sanders Peirce showing that he adhered to a number of pre-structuralist themes. Further, it indicates that Peirce’s position is similar in spirit to the category theoretical structuralist view of Steve Awodey (2004). The first part documents Peirce’s extensive knowledge of, and contribution to, the mathematics of his time, illustrating that relations played a fundamental role. The second part addresses Peirce’s characterization of mathematical reasoning as diagrammatic reasoning, that is, as reasoning done by constructing and observing rational relations in diagrams.

Noether as Mathematical Structuralist

Emmy Noether’s name, while often associated with branches of abstract mathematics such as algebra, is not often associated with any particular philosophical view about the nature of mathematics. This chapter will outline the extent to which Noether can be seen as exemplifying a kind of structuralist view of mathematics, namely a methodological structuralism. Such a view, as outlined by some philosophers of mathematical practice, is a view about how mathematics ought to be done—namely by attending to the structural features of objects, using axiomatic methods, and striving for more general perspectives. We will see how Noether in her mathematical work exhibits all of these tendencies, thereby allowing her to be situated in the history of structuralism as someone who fruitfully employed structural methods in her mathematical work. Finally, the chapter will consider the potential connections between Noether’s methodological views and some philosophical structuralist views that seem to fit naturally with her approach to mathematics.

PETA TEORITIK PENGKAJIAN TEATER: DARI TEORI STRUKTURALIS SAMPAI POSTRUKTURALIS

This article tries to map out the structuralist and poststructuralist theories as the basis of theater studies. So far, the studies of theater performed by theater academics have always been based on structuralist views; examining aspects of form, meaning, style and exclude the human aspects as forming agents of the structure. Structuralist view is antihumanist. It says that the sign has meaning when it is associated with other signs in a systematic unity of structure and not from its relation to the individu (artists). According to poststructuralist view, it is very possible to do a cultural study of theatrical text by looking at the interrelationship between one text and another outside, including social, cultural, literary, political, and other texts that are present randomly and overlapping (juxtaposition). Therefore, this theoretical mapping needs to be done in order to enrich the theater academics to conduct theater performances studies.Keywords: studies, theoretical map, structuralist, poststructuralist