Structures

This chapter continues the work of the previous chapter by examining a further case study. The example here focuses on an attempt to use scientific knowledge not merely as a launching pad for ontological theorizing but as a constraint on the forms such theorizing may take. It investigates an influential research program in recent philosophy of science concerning the ontology of fundamental physics in relation to the rather slippery notion of a subatomic “particle.” It is argued that different proposals, which have emerged to give content to this notion, exemplify a pattern of reasoning in which one is inevitably driven either to accept a contentious ontological primitive or to reject the ontological proposal under consideration. One plausible response to this dilemma is a differential application of realism and pragmatism to different descriptions of particles.