Ontic Structural Realism: Pattern Ontologyand the Modal Natureof Structures

The paper aims torefute S. Psillos’s arguments that ontic structural realism should obey the logic of ante rem / in re in understanding structures and that there are “fundamental difficulties” with understanding causality in it. The very fact that withinD. Dennett’s ontology of patterns, the characteristics of the “structure”, as well as the individual properties of the “object” (whichdescribe it, and also fix the relations in which the “object” participates), do not exist separately from each other - these are characteristics of one real pattern, relative to which the “object” is singled out conventionally and “for reasons of practical convenience”, indicates that ontic structural realism actually “combines” ante rem and in re understanding of “structures”. The “metaphysics of causal properties” (M. Esfeld), including A. Bird’s dispositionalism and E.J. Lowe’s “serious essentialism”, fully responds to S. Psillos’s claim that ontic structural realism “cannot satisfactorily represent causality”. “Causes” and “effects” are linked by the relationship of essential dependence, and “a truthmaker for statements about causal relationships” doesnot require individual objects and hypostatized properties.

ontic structural realism, real patterns, metaphysics of causal properties, causal structuralism, serious essentialism, natural modality, D. Dennett, E.J. Lowe, M. Esfeld

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