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Questions tagged [structuralism]

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Structural Realism vs. Scientific Formalism?

How exactly do structural realism and scientific formalism differ? Are they compatible, or is this another rehashing of, say, the rationalism vs. idealism debate? I know Galileo, Kepler, et al. were structural realists, whereas Bellarmine, Osiander,…
Geremia
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Are all pancomputationalist models for the universe compatible with informational realism?

Pancomputationalist theories are a group of physical theories that try to describe the universe itself as a computer or an informational (processing) structure. Informational (structural) realism is a group of theories that supports an ontological…
bautzeman
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What is Hegelian dialectic of good and evil and how does it relate to binary opposition in structuralism?

What relation does the Hegelian dialectic have to the structuralist notion of binary opposition? If it has any, where does the synthesis fit in to the dualistic nature of the structuralist system? Examples in terms of posits might exist in the form,…
martin
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What do the opening lines of Barthes' "A Lover's Discourse" mean?

Everything follows from this principle: that the lover is not to be reduced to a simple symptomal subject, but rather that we hear in his voice what is “unreal,” i.e., intractable. Whence the choice of a “dramatic” method which renounces examples…
epithelia
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Have I got Saussure's distinction between the form and substance right?

I've read several texts on the topic but I'm still not sure whether I got the concept right. Saussure says that language is a form, not substance. I understand that as saying that language is closer to a mathematical system (a natural law) than to a…
Probably
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What does Barthes mean when he calls boxing a "Jansenist sport"?

In the essay The World of Wrestling, Roland Barthes has this to say about the distinction between boxing and wrestling. This public knows very well the distinction between wrestling and boxing; it knows that boxing is a Jansenist sport, based on a…
pseudosudo
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Is there anything on early to mid Foucault and structuralism?

Is there anything on early to mid Foucault and structuralism? I've just started The Archeology of Knowledge, meant to be I think the bookend of his early writings, and he is going to some lengths to make sure the reader believes he's not basing his…
confused
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Is 't Hooft cellular automaton compatible with Floridi's Informational (Structural) Realism?

Informational (Structural) Realism (by Luciano Floridi) relates to digital physics ideas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_physics) As Floridi himself says in one of his articles (http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/4076/): "On the other hand,…
bautzeman
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Is Ludwig Wittgenstein connected to post-structuralism?

Wittgenstein said that "If a lion could speak, we cannot understand it". He also said that a private language is not possible. In my view, structuralism and post-structuralism also talk about these ideas in the sense that it is not possible to…
praveen kr
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Is this a legitimate way to reframe structuralism in the philosophy of mathematics?

As an umbrella term, "structuralism" has to cover realist and nonrealist versions, while also carrying through the theme of its name nontrivially (for there is a trivial way to make structuralism true: just make the meaning of the word "structure"…
Kristian Berry
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Per Mathematical Structuralism, can a pure mathematical theory have semantics that is not closed on isomorphism?

This question is the philosophical side of a question that I've recently posted to MathOverflow. Here, I'm specifically asking about the output of Mathematical Structuralism on that question that I'll re-post here. However, I'll include the brief…
Zuhair
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What does "causally independent structures" mean?

I'm reading a book (Cummins, R. (1983), "The Nature of Psychological Explanation") where he says "...dispositions that cannot be instantiated in causally independent structures". Can anyone help explain what he means by this? Thanks
Richard Bamford
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Does structuralism have preference for thinking through structures?

Structuralism states we are governed by narrow cultural structures. I believe post-modernism and post-structuralism acknowledge the existence of this structures as well. Is the difference in the attitude towards the structure? Like post-modernism…
Borut Flis
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Negative meaning in Structuralism

I have a hard time understanding the concept of "negative meaning" in linguistic Structuralism (Saussure). Their proposition is that signs don't have meaning by themselfes but only within the structure they reside in. The difference between the…
Philipp Murry
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Why does Foucault's *Madness and Civilisation* represent his turn towards structuralism?

According to the wikipedia entry on his book it represents his turning away from phenomenology to structuralism. What exactly does this mean? How should one understand his book as a demonstration of structuralism? Is it because his analysis is…
Mozibur Ullah
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